First of all who is Jackie Aina?
Jackie Aina is a 32-year-old Nigerian-American beauty YouTuber who advocates for the visibility of people of colour in the cosmetic industry. She has partnered with many brands some of which are Anastasia Beverly Hills, e.l.f., Too Faced and Sephora.
At the midst of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, she has been very vocal about the silence of many brands and influencers who " are ‘inspired’ by black culture" and use the terminology. (Video Below) She also calls out "the brands who profit off our (Black) culture" such as "Pretty little thing, Revolve, Boohoo and Missguided." She tags these brands too in her statements which show how eager she is to get a response from these brands on the murder of George Floyd.
Jackie then goes on to urging these brands to "do more" than just posting memes and suggests them to "at least" donate to the families and raise awareness. She then goes onto say that " black people dying isn't aesthetically pleasing for their Instagram feed" however says they "can't just pick and choose parts of black culture but not embrace all of it" and says this issue isn't difficult to ignore and these brands should use their influence for the better. Jackie doesn't hold back! as she follows this statement by accusing these brands of using tan girls on their Instagram feeds to "Blackfish".
She also hints on the silence of the "I only date black guys club" which she infers as women who fetish on black men and goes onto saying "Yall know they the only being affected by this right" urging them to speak out on the racism and support the black lives matter movement.
Lastly, Jackie also calls out and questions the validity of influencers sympathy towards the black community who prior " have been exposed as former racists, N-word lovers, blackface offenders, etc." and doesn't hesitate to question their silence on the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
Her replies were then flooded with mentions (@) of some big influencers such as Shane Dawson and Bhadbhabie including some big names in the beauty community such as Jeffree Star too that fans speculate she is talking about that either haven't spoken out or said enough.
This is a highly commendable thing for Jackie Aina to do as she has worked with / been paid by all of the brands that she mentioned in her Instagram story. And with her sharing her honest views and directly calling out these brands for their silence she is jeopardising her opportunity in partnering them again.
Although some might say this is unfortunate as it drives people to believe that only once this pressure is applied, these influencers and brands’ statements are made but not done genuinely and only as a result of influencers like Jackie Aina calling them out. This could lead to them releasing an insincere statement and continuing to exploiting black culture!
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