November 15, 2018

"In a trend that is not new or surprising, white women seem to be adopting the features of black women on social media in their quest..."

"... to develop themselves as models and influencers. The most recent iteration of this is Swedish Instagram model Emma Hallberg, who shocked some of her followers when they realized she was white.... Hallberg, for her part, has denied trying to intentionally look black; one Twitter user posted what appears to be a DM conversation with the influencer, in which she wrote, 'I’m white and I never claimed to be anything else… I’m NOT "posing" as a colored person as you claim.'... 'I do not see myself as anything else than white,' she added. 'I get a deep tan naturally from the sun.'... For Deja, this widespread behavior isn’t at all surprising, nor is the fact that white women are garnering hundreds of thousands of fans from it. 'Any non-black or white person that has taken black culture and profited off of it is typically never phased [sic] when called out nor will stop,' she wrote."

From "Swedish Instagram Model Insists She’s Not Pretending to Be Black" (New York Magazine).

If you need to see to judge, here's a picture of Hallberg:



Does that "phase" you?

Urban Dictionary prefers that definition of "phase":

You might think the intended word is properly spelled "faze," but Urban Dictionary will push you back:

I blame "Star Trek" with its "phasers."

But let's talk about "garnering" — "white women are garnering hundreds of thousands of fans." I just have a thing about that word. I know it's not as profound as other people's concern about skin darkened not by genetics or the sun but by makeup, but it's a special thing of mine and I can't let it pass. If you're ever considering using the verb "garner," please stop and ask yourself whether you have some ridiculous notion that "get" is not a word and that you'll seem more creditable for using this silly word that originally had to do with storing grain in a place called a "garner." All right, then, back to your racial high jinks. Enjoy the rest of your day.

103 comments:

Ralph L said...

Ersatz Kardashian.

n.n said...

The combination of diversity (color) and exotic (phase) has a niche appeal.

Sigivald said...

UD is trash.

Also, she looks much more "asian" than "black" to me, not that I actually care.

Darrell said...

Deja Vu?

Hagar said...

Copying The Daily Mail.

Fernandinande said...

A Swedish Instagram Model** got her name into International News[sic] without doing anything illegal, so no, I don't need to see anything to judge that her publicity stunt was successful (and umatrix blocked the embedded pic).

**What? Someone who has pictures of themselves on Instagram?

gahrie said...

I'll get mad about White women getting suntans and perms when I'm allowed to get mad about Black people using skin whiteners and hair straighteners.

Darrell said...

On Instagram, they can't tell you smell like a wet dog.

Iowan2 said...

Phased.’
Must be local, geographic thing. We have use the word for ever. ‘Not bothered,’ ‘unshacken’,

James K said...

I thought going "blackface" is no longer allowed. Megyn Kelly lost her job even suggesting that under some circumstances it might be ok.

Big Mike said...

If you're ever considering using the verb "garner," please stop and ask yourself whether you have some ridiculous notion that "get" is not a word and that you'll seem more creditable for using this silly word that originally had to do with storing grain in a place called a "garner."

Hmm. I don't think of garner as a synonym for "get." I think of it as a synonym for "collect." I do, and always will, regard it as a perfectly useful word.

Sorry.

Darrell said...

You might think the intended word is properly spelled "faze," but Urban Dictionary will push you back:

Homophone!

Fernandinande said...

A phase can travel faster than the speed of light and faze isn't even a thing.

Darrell said...

I do, and always will, regard it as a perfectly useful word
A perfectly cromulent word.

mccullough said...

Too many Grievance Stufies majors. Without the internet/social media, idiocy abounded but was not widespread. Now idiocy goes viral.

Instead of complaining about cultural appropriation like some sophomore Grievance Studies Major, go open some tanning and spray tanning spas in Stockholm. There’s a lot of money to be made here. Dr Dre made a shitload of money off Eminem. Sell white people black culture. They’ll pay more to blacks for it than the whites they had been paying

Rob said...

In her defense, she does have junk in the trunk. Not Nicki Minaj level junk, but junk nonetheless. Back that thing up! Though I find the appeal of a huge ass elusive, it's clearly a part of the black perspective of beauty and sensuousness that has found its way into the wider society. The arc of history is long, but it bends toward a giant ass.

Earnest Prole said...

Speaking of racial high jinks, Dat Ass!

Big Mike said...

Oh, and Althouse? Urban Dictionary is perfectly wrong.

Amexpat said...

"If you're ever considering using the verb "garner," please stop and ask yourself whether you have some ridiculous notion that "get" is not a word and that you'll seem more creditable for using this silly word that originally had to do with storing grain in a place called a "garner."

Etymology aside, isn't there a more of an element of gathering and collecting with "garner" than with "get"?

Fernandinande said...

True steatopygia garners unfazed stares.

Big Mike said...

Regarding Emma Hallberg, there are Ethiopian women who look like her, except in my experience Ethiopian women don't have steatopygia, as Hellberg seems to. Some people regard Ethiopians as Caucasian, their dark skin and African homeland notwithstanding. People from the subcontinent of India can have even darker skin, and there is no question that they are Caucasian.

Big Mike said...

Putting it a different way, I am unfazed by the Urban Dictionary's mistake. Or even Althouse's.

Yancey Ward said...

Race is just a social construct, like gender.....right? If she wants to identify as black, that is her right.

Hagar said...

I am not "Caucasian;" I am Norwegian!

Leland said...

Who am I to judge who she is?

When Rachel Dolezal did it, nobody then or now called it cultural appropriation. She just was. Bill Clinton was named the first black President and that was fine with Democrats. I'm numb to this stuff now, and it doesn't phase me.

Lucid-Ideas said...

Gahrie said, "I'll get mad about White women getting suntans and perms when I'm allowed to get mad about Black people using skin whiteners and hair straighteners."

There's several big companies, one of which is Heartland Tanning, which encompass all aspects of the industry. During a conversation with their CEO years back, I was shocked to find out how big a market the skin whitening/lightening was, most especially for the Asian market. It was, in fact, their fastest growing sector of their business.

Your comment and this trend/image made me think of several things:

- The ephemeral nature of aesthetics and how, when you really break it down, it is completely tied to social influence. There is nothing practical at all about doing what the Lobi of Chad do or spending the money to look like this, or white, or whatever. True appreciation for purity of essence over form is exceedingly rare. Mostly people think something is beautiful because others, sometime even only 1 other person, says it is.

- White people rarely, if ever, truly get upset by people trying to appropriate our aesthetic. Millions of Chinese men and women attempt to look whiter either by chemical or surgical means every year. I wouldn't say anybody is flattered, but is anybody actually offended?

- Why is it flattering to copy some aesthetics and offensive for others? In other words, for "women of color" who might be offended, why are they offended? The "protected" aesthetic is actually the one coming from the position of power. I think that would be surprising to most...

- The link between "beauty" and sexual cues. The big butt. The big breasts. The overall figure is amplified female physical cues, almost grotesque even. Her face is, in my opinion, hideous..."put a bag on it" hideous. But I don't think that's what matters here. Could this somehow be an indication of the actual social media consumer that matters here? I.E. Black and African sex sells, because that's the market (black and African consumer). I can't think of a single non-black person, man or woman, that would actually find this attractive.

- Who's pushing the aesthetic? Like I said earlier, aesthetic is very much a social construct. If so, where is the "push" for this coming from and why? It's not coming from this model, she's a sheep responding to stimuli. Stimuli is originating from elsewhere, and it is not organic.

Amadeus 48 said...

But what is the contenr of her character?

JaimeRoberto said...

Steatopygia. I learned a new word today.

dbp said...

For Deja, ... 'Any non-black or white person that has taken black culture and profited off of it is typically never phased [sic] when called out nor will stop,' she wrote."

Does Deja presume that she owns black culture and has the right to police who may use it or profit from it? Culture by its nature is created by everyone who participates in it. Also, the value of culture, from a monetary standpoint, is increased by popularity.

Earnest Prole said...

When Rachel Dolezal did it, nobody then or now called it cultural appropriation.

On the antimatter planet Earth where everything is the exact opposite of here, yes.

Bob Boyd said...

The woman's a model. She wants people to look at her and like what they see.
Is it really that much different than re-painting your sports car?

rcocean said...

That's one hell of a tan. She seems to have passed "Nice brown tan" and ended up at "Deep black".

If you can tan darker than Obama, does that make you black?

rcocean said...

The Swedes seem to understand they're extremely boring, and so you get this, and the invites to the 3rd world, and the grandstanding moralism.

Anything to get away from the dullness that is Sweden.

Tom T. said...

You go, girl!

stever said...

I don't find her attractive, so that ends my interest in the matter.

Bob Boyd said...

"I just have a thing about that word."

Garnephobic?

rcocean said...

The Japanese have a bit of this, but its healthy eccentricity while with Sweden its not.

wildswan said...

"mccullough said...
Too many Grievance Stufies"

I read this as "Grievance Stuffies" and pictured Grievancers harvesting grievances and Stuffing them into grievance garners.

The picture I think could be gathered in a interracial grievance garner because it suggests that black skin / white features is more fashionable (more the way we should look in our consumer dreams) than black skin / black features or white skin / white features. Un achievable, hence a dream fashion.

PM said...

Worthwhile to watch hip-hop videos on AXS TV. Black female dancers and performers often sport hippie-straight blonde hair. Looks great, as does the woman in this photo. It's a big world, big whoop.

walter said...

That dress does make her ass look fat...or phat.
Or maybe they're implants

FIDO said...

I don't know that it is a 'white woman' thing as much as a 'Swedish Self Loathing' thing.

As has been pointed out to them MANY times by outside observers, they are making decisions and laws which are very harmful to the long term survival of their culture.

They don't care. They want to be 'The Wokest One of All'.

See this model.

So unless we have a wider display than some Swedish bints (nope, not following the links), I remain unconvinced.

FIDO said...

Shorter form: Bitches be cra cra.

Achilles said...

Darrell said...
I do, and always will, regard it as a perfectly useful word
A perfectly cromulent word.


There is no reason to use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice.

Pianoman said...

"In a trend that is not new or surprising, men seem to be adopting the features of women on social media in their quest to develop themselves as models and influencers."

FIFY

JAORE said...

Jennifer Garner is black? Wow. Who new.

madAsHell said...

Bizarro World is not just found in Superman comics.

Fernandinande said...

A Swede and a Norwegian walk into a bar and order two bottles of beer, and the Norwegian is talking and drinking and notices the Swede hasn't touched his beer, so he asks if there's a problem.

"No problemo!" says the Swede, "I just haven't finished reading the label."

(that's where the normal joke is supposed to end, but in the interests of on-topicality...)

"That's good" says the Norway guy, "I was afraid the two stools weren't big enough for both of your buttocks."

Mr. Groovington said...

I’m five weeks into my second relationship with a black women here in Africa, as I slowly travel north. Both civil servants, fwiw, so at the top of the food chain (a needed detail after poster Bad L’s earlier accusation), the black wealth mainly due to endemic corruption, both in South Africa and here in Namibia, I’ve been in short or medium term relationships in very different regions and cultures.

There aren’t many strong influences on the west, imo. Most regions have fallen, where the urbanized indigenous female population is mostly westernized and wanting to be more so. Eastern and South eastern Asia for example. Or Latin America. It’s hard to bring to mind a cultural aesthetic that has any traction in the west.

Although some are very strong, like the Indian or Japanese. But we haven’t adopted much from them. They seem too much of a reach, or worse, impractical.

Africa women on earth are the outlier. I don’t know how and when their influence will get significant traction but it’ll happen. It’ll be more about how you wear something rather than what you wear. Like how you dance, rather than what dance.

I have a professional interest, also.

Anthony said...

PAWG

Two-eyed Jack said...

My concern is less with inappropriate behavior of Swedish models and more with the word "faze." Is it an Americanism? It seems to have been preserved from Old English in Kentish. A lot of southern English speech from the seventeenth century got preserved in American English.

FIDO said...

"He was not phased by the insulting tone."

No, it's still a perfectly good word and I recall using it and seeing it as recently as 30 years ago.

Carter Wood said...

Garner is a headline words, like boost or vow. Column widths still matter for newspapers.

Whenever I read it, I think of Garner Ted Armstrong. He was so dominant as a TV and radio evangelist.

Expat(ish) said...

Seriously, @Ann, you had a problem with "garner" but not the clumsy avoidance of the neither/nor structure?

Clearly your 8th grade English/Grammar teacher was a LOT less scary than mine was.

-XC

FIDO said...

And yes, I have used 'garner' in recent memory and always in the 3rd version of the OED


3. intransitive. To accumulate, to be stored up. rare.

In fact, that 'rare' use was essentially the only one I've seen.

That the 1066 invasion of the French messed up the language is, as always, a sin.

D 2 said...

I was so much Swedish then, I'm Angolan than that now.

funsize said...

There is no WAY that's a natural tan.

Comanche Voter said...

Hey blackface is so racist and so passe`

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"He was not phased by the insulting tone."

"No, it's still a perfectly good word and I recall using it and seeing it as recently as 30 years ago."

There's no problem with the word, except that it's "faze", not "phase", a different word pronounced the same.

Garner is perfectly cromulent, as Darell mentions, if used properly. It doesn't simply mean get, as Amexpat notes, but has connotations of gathering, storing, earning, or winning.

"Or, from the garner-door, on ether borne, / The chaff flies devious from the winnow'd corn."

Also, Hallberg is a skank, but no more so than that whiteface minstrel performer Beyonce.

#Garnering

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

R E N R A G written on the door at the Overlook Hotel freaked out the young Ann,
an aspiring law professor and blogger

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

RENRAG!

Dude1394 said...

Good grief humans are becoming petty snowflakes. We need a ww or depression to reset our stupidity.

Balfegor said...

Caucasian features with dark skin reads as Indian (or possibly Hispanic) to me, not African. Maybe there's other aspects of her instagram persona that are "Black," but the picture isn't selling it for me. That said, I am familiar with the tendency in the US to assume that people with darkened ganguro style skin are specifically imitating Blacks as though Indians, Australian Aborigines, and other people just didn't exist. Maybe it is similar in Europe.

Rosalyn C. said...

I see from her instagram she was busted back in 2016 looking more white than usual with comments such as, "The audacity of the caucasity." As she said and has since proven, the shade has not fazed her.

MadisonMan said...

Before I become outraged: What does she think about Trump?

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

'Mulatto Barbie' looks a little oleaginous in that pic

it's time we start going after those in 'brownface'.
Then we work our way up the chromatic scale.
50 shades of Race-Baiting

FredwinaD said...

I don't know if you'll even see this, Althouse. But in high school, my 10th grade Honors English teacher did not allow us to use the words "get" or "got." She said they were boring, and she would deduct points if we used them. So every time you go on a little rant about "garner" in place of "get," it amuses me.

I don't blame you, by the way. I get similarly irritated by people using the word "human" as a noun. It's an adjective! I know that it's now accepted usage to use it as a noun, but it irks me when people say "human" in place of "human being." How hard is it? Sheesh!

Rabel said...

I've heard that the girls on the Bikini Team weren't really platinum blondes.

Ken B said...

Big Mike
“Hmm. I don't think of garner as a synonym for "get." I think of it as a synonym for "collect." I do, and always will, regard it as a perfectly useful word.”

Garner over it.

Danno said...

Isn't this equivalent to black face?

Lindsey said...

Watch the 'Let me explain' video on her instagram. Her family is that dark.

MadTownGuy said...

From Merriam-Webster.com:

"Phase and Faze
Phase and faze are homophones (words pronounced alike but different in meaning, derivation, or spelling) that may easily be confused. Despite the similarity in pronunciation, these words bear little semantic resemblance to one another.

Although phase can function as a verb – it is found especially in combinations such as phase out, phase in, and phase into, meaning “to end, begin, etc. in phases” – the word is most commonly encountered as a noun, in which it typically carries a meaning related to steps in a process, cycles, or stages of development (as in “phases of the moon”).

Faze is generally used only as a verb, and means “to daunt or disconcert.” It often appears in negative expressions such as “it didn’t faze her a bit” or “nothing fazes him.”

Did You Know?
Faze is a youngster among English words, relatively speaking; it first appeared in English in the early 1800s. That may not seem especially young, but consider that when faze first showed up in print in English, the works of Shakespeare were already over 200 years old, the works of Chaucer over 400 years old, and the Old English epic Beowulf was at least 800 years old. Faze is an alteration of the now-rare verb "feeze," which has the obsolete sense "to drive (someone or something) away" and which, by the 1400s, was also being used with the meaning "to frighten or put into a state of alarm." Feeze (fesen in Middle English and fēsian in Old English) is first known to have appeared in print in the late 800s, making it older than even the oldest extant copy of Beowulf in manuscript.
"

Michael McNeil said...

The Star Trek hand weapon should have been called a “fazer” not “phaser.” You want the person or alien shot to be fazed by it.

Freeman Hunt said...

Is it makeup or skin? If it's skin, what's the problem?

The Godfather said...

I've enjoyed reading this post and the comments, and I don't want to be a spoiled sport, but really our country would be so much better if we would stop this obsession with race. Is the model beautiful? Fine. Is she Swedish or Black or Egyptian? Who cares? Martin Luther King really did state the standard for us, at least here in America: Content of character counts, color of skin doesn't. Those who try, for their own benefit, to divide Americans according to skin color or "race" damage us as a people and a nation. Let's not play their game -- let's not allow them to garner support.

Fernandinande said...

How hard is it?

Pretty hard.

human (n.)
"a human being," 1530s, from human (adj.).

El Supremo said...

When it comes to cultural appropriation there is no culture more widely appropriated than White European. Music, dress, architecture, government, science, medicine, love - all the arts except throat singing, which is just not catching on like it should.

Fernandinande said...

"Phase weapons, or phase-modulated energy weapons, were a type of directed energy particle weapon that utilized a phase modulator to control the blast yield. Phase weapons were used by Starfleet and the MACOs in the 2150s and early-2160s."

Here's a phase modulator from Ibanez. IIRC, phaser, flanger and chorus effects all use phase modulation.

Jupiter said...

walter said...
"That dress does make her ass look fat...or phat.
Or maybe they're implants"

No, that ass isn't just fat, it is Former First Lady fat. You need bone structure for that kind of thing. Or maybe it's just some kind of padding.

El Supremo said...

Porn stars have the least culture appropriating occupation. I mean, who's gonna claim that as their own?

Leland said...

Martin Luther King really did state the standard for us, at least here in America: Content of character counts, color of skin doesn't.

The loophole in Dr. King's standard is that if one culturally appropriates, then they can be judged to have poor character; and the only way one can determine cultural appropriation is to judge someone on the color of their skin.

traditionalguy said...

The Professor is going cute on us. She can’t hide it anymore. I love it.

The dark haired Swede looks Asian to me. Those are not Swedish eyes. They are Mongolian eyes .I bet she can’t get into Harvard after they see that pic.

n.n said...

white women seem to be adopting the features of black women on social media in their quest to develop themselves as models and influencers.

This is complementary to Hope Solo's, The Guardian, criticism of "white girls next door". In your quest to develop yourself as models and influencers, white women and girls need to transition to mimic the diversity of black women.

gerry said...

I have a quadrature relationship with phase issues.

El Supremo said...

I don't see how the features are considered those of black women. Some black women, sure, but also some white women, pacific islanders, native americans, etc. They are just features. The author is showing a racist perception here.

Stephen said...

"I’m NOT ‘posing’ as a colored person as you claim.”

No outrage. Possible explanations: 1) Language policing stops at the water's edge. 2) Language rules don't apply to protected classes. 3) Language rules don't apply if you speak English as a second language.

I'm just trying to understand the rules.

Michael McNeil said...

“Phase weapons, or phase-modulated energy weapons, were a type of directed energy particle weapon that utilized a phase modulator…”

Ha ha! As far as I'm concerned all that is just science fictiony mumbo-jumbo arm-waving to semi-plausibly come up with a name which sounded like but not exactly like — maybe indeed a bit more advanced sounding — than that super-death ray of the 1960's: the laser.

Michael McNeil said...

I remember when they called the laser “a solution in search of a problem.” Now look at it! (But not directly at it….)

Bunkypotatohead said...

If she lost some weight and had her skin bleached she wouldn't look half bad.

jimbino said...

Dumber than "garner" is the current trend to abuse "may or may not" as in "I deny everything I may or may not have said." How can you deny anything you haven't said?

narciso said...

Yes it's a more technical version of a ray gun, phasers are supposed to concentrate enery more powerfully than a standard laser.

Rocko said...

I remember "garner" as used by sportswriters in the 50's and 60's who were tired of using "get" and "got"
to excess. And I thought the distaste for men in shorts was petty...

Rocko said...

Worse than garner is the current practice of people asking themselves questions which they promptly answer.
Is all this very picky? Yes it is.
(Wearing shorts, garnering info on Althouse's peeves.)

Molly said...

It's not just the skin color and hair that white women adopt to appear more "black", it is the callipygian form. (I've waited for years to have an excuse to use "callipygian" in a sentence.)

gerry said...

If she lost some weight and had her skin bleached she wouldn't look half bad.

Dat babe got some junk in the trunk.

gerry said...

And thank you, Molly, for the word of the week (it's certainly worth more than a day).

Joe said...

She looks like a plastic Filipina.

sirpatrick said...

I prefer Albinos...

charlesglasser said...

Ann: Look up Grace Halsell, "Soul Sister."
Everything old is new again.
https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Sister-Anniversary-Grace-Halsell/dp/0967401305

Patriot said...

Since there's so much racism and demonization against whites, I'm not surprised so many of them are choosing to "go black", as it's a form of social conformity.

Etaoin Shrdlu said...

Urban Dictionary is rong.

McCackie said...

This crud is done by those nothing real in their lives to worry about.
What else do you expect from the most privaledged caste on the planet. Whiney, white, women.

AlanKH said...

Those lips are as Swedish as the Swedish Chef.

Darleen said...

Phased/fazed as slang - I was using it in the late 60's in jr high.