Tania Saleh’s and Souhila Ben Lachhab are both social media influencers. The two women took an attempt to support the Black Lives matter movement by using Blackface to make a point. Tania Saleh is a vocalist from Lebanon, while Souhila Ben Lachhab is Algerian artist.
Both artist included content under their photos to show their love for Black people, but were seemingly not understanding why blackface is an offensive attempt to express their support.
Under Tania Saleh’s photo shopped blackface with an afro she wrote, كل عمري كنت احلم كون سوداء
I wish I was black, because my idols in music and dance are black, all the athletes I respect are black, even Bilal the first Muezzin in Islam was black. I love their culture and respect their art, it is as simple as that. In this crazy world we are living in, it would be best not to defend or support any political movement from now on. (Photo montage from an original picture found on Pinterest)
Instantly, an Instagrammer commented on her post saying,
Tania no no no! Not this way! Please! Please take it down, read why doing blackface is wrong on so many levels. This is by far the most unfortunate time for you to be making a point in this unfortunate way.
Tania has yet to remove the post. In fact she followed up with another post of a portrait of a girl hanging from a rope. Under the post she stated, “Yes Madame”
One of the murals I painted for #Intersection my audiovisual album released 3 years ago #racism #domesticworkers #Lebanon #Arabworld watch full movie on my Youtube channel.
A grammer then responded to her post saying,
Tania. Please put down the phone and please just take a break and understand what people are telling you.
This is incredibly disturbing, and does not at all serve to prove any argument from your end be it for the BLM movement nor the awful treatment of domestic workers.
It’s really hard to see the good intent here beyond the baiting for clicks and controversy.
Have a talk with people in person and understand why the last three posts and the excuse you wrote are just racist, obscene, and very uneducated.
I know this will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes, but for the love of whatever you believe in, just take a step back and properly understand the gravity of the situation both in Lebanon and abroad and your stance as a public figure, and know that you need to be responsible for your words, and bear the consequences of your actions (or inactions in some cases).
#We‘re_one
Just because we are black on the outside, doesn’t mean that we are black on the inside.
Racist people are the true black heart ones. They are black on the inside, though they do not know it.✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿 #لا_للعنصرية
#souhilabenlachhab
#سهيلة_بن_لشهب
#algeria
#algerie
She was also warned by socialites commenting under her post saying,
What the fuck is this? This is truly disrespectful, you’re doing BLACKFACE
That’s the prblm we still call each other by color of our skin and looks eyes this is sick toxic