Last year’s renewed social justice movement illuminated the responsibility beauty companies have to be anti-racist. Progress is underway, but further reflection is required in terms of marketing, experts say.
Amira Adawe, founder and executive director of The Beautywell Project, which aims to address colorism within Asian and African cultures, said companies tend to treat colorism as a “marketing technique to target communities of color.”“So much capitalism [is] involved,” Adawe said. “Using people of color to make money out of them, to continue to make sure that they hate their skin color and their identities, [companies] market continuously to [people of color].
About 20 percent of content posted by beauty brands is created by influencers and users, according to Eyecue’s report. In 2019, darker skin tones accounted for 9 percent of user-generated content. That number increased to 13 percent in 2020, when beauty brands briefly diversified their feeds to reflect the renewed Black Lives Matter movement.
The stereotypes of women of color in advertising or the lack of images of them is what one of Kilbourne’s mentors, George Gerber, referred to as “symbolic annihilation,” she said. “It’s in the same way that privilege is invisible to those who have it,” she said. “Certainly, it was not invisible to dark-skinned women who were looking for foundation. Anything that makes us more conscious, makes us aware of it and helps us talk about it is good.”
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