TikToker's Are Calling Out Systematic Racism In The Beauty Industry

It's 2022 - Why Is This Still Happening?

POSTED 31.10.22 20:33 BY EMMA BURTON

I see some of you reading this wondering, What is systematic racism? Let me help with a brief description - Systematic racism is a strategy and exercise carried out within a company or society that results in extended disadvantages to various people, including dangerous actions towards others based on race.

It’s 2020, and Black and Brown people’s voices are finally rising above the cloud of white noise that is the beauty industry. They held the torch in highlighting the heavily ingrained racism in the beauty world. Three years later, and with minor improvements, they are still in the same boat.

@nimay.ndolo
If you watch the video through, thank you. I didnt make this video to whine and complain. I made it because I have these conversations on friends-only and privately with friends, and i want to share my take. Theres a lot of discourse surrounding intersectional dispatities within influencing. I’m just adding my take. Yes, I KNOW its low and embarrasing that I have to ask brands for PR or work opportunities, but if I dont ask, search, and finesse my way into them, they won’t come. I had to ASK for a NYFW invitation. I have to ASK for PR partnerships where I review the brand’s product with no payment SIMPLY because I like the brand and their product. Who knows? Maybe this is the norm—and if it is and this is all part of the hustle, I’ll be quiet. Im just airing my feelings here.
♬ original sound - NIMAY NDOLO

The “digestible Black girl/guy” is acknowledged discreetly amongst Black influencers ‘from any area of beauty, from editorial to content creation’. To add more salt to the wound, plastering “we only have limited supplies” and “coming soon” as answers to the limited shade range and PR beauty kits intensifies the irritation around ‘the theory of systematic racism in beauty’.

“Brands looking for what they consider palatable Black girls are nothing new” - Blake Newby, content creator, and beauty editor.

The late season of 2022 is seeing TikTokers raising eyebrows and speaking up.
Expressing insight on the situation, influencer Victoria Paris says “A lot of influencers who get sent really good PR are white”.
Victoria clarifies that this is down to those in control of ‘gifting, community building and outreach behind most brands’ having the same thing in common with them - being white.
HYPERBAE’s Black beauty editor Stixx Mathews (Stixx M), whose work on this subject gravitated me towards writing this article, says how they have “observed this from an influencer and editorial angle and there is profound truth in Paris’s theory”.