Seriously??
We’re sad to report we’re still dealing with people thinking blackface is EVER okay — as demonstrated by makeup artist Percem Akin, who shared a tutorial of a “transformation” reportedly using the hashtags #slave and #sadmakeup to promote her image.
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The Istanbul-based beauty vlogger insisted to Buzzfeed that this video wasn’t her idea, saying:
“This post is for a movie character in my country. Directors came and asked me: Could you do this? And the movie is about the fucking racism which is rising all around the world. So this is not my design and not my idea, because I am just a makeup artist not director, you know.”
She added of the lack of black actors in Turkey:
“We are not living in America or Africa, so finding any black model is so difficult in here. I have never think that this is racist while i am doing this. I just try to see pure beauty behind the pain who have it.”
Percem — who has since made her Instagram private — went on to say that she never used “#slave”:
“I am deeply sorry If I hurt all those people. And also I wanna say that, I never used the hashtag #slave, never ever. My hashtags is #slayer which is the tittle of the movie. Someone in my country had changed this and started all this against me and I am taking a legal action against to them now.”
Hm.
Regardless, people were very upset about the whole thing, tweeting:
Yikes.
[Image via Instagram.]