Digital Blackface and Spectacularizing Blackness with Dr. Francesca Sobande

Black History Year

PushBlack

History

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2022

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today's Historic Story: Ray Charles vs. Elvis

Every time we hop on Twitter, Instagram, or any other social platform, we’re running into brands who use insidious tactics to get into our pockets. From "Black" CGI influencers to brands that align themselves as Black allies when they just want Black dollars, it's all digital anti-Blackness and it's causing more harm than we may know. Leading today's conversation is Dr. Francesca Sobande. She's a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media Studies at the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University. She’s a researcher and writer who’s authored several books and published work about “woke-washing,” digital (re) presentations of Black people, and how brands mis-use, exploit, and commercialize such notions like Black social justice activism.

BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people! PushBlack exists because we saw we had to take this into our own hands. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at https://BlackHistoryYear.com. Most people do 5 or 10 bucks a month, but everything makes a difference. Thanks for supporting the work.

The Black History Year production team includes: Tareq Alani, Brooke Brown, Shiavon Chapman, Abeni Jones, Briona Lamback, Zain Murdock, Tasha Taylor, and Leslie Taylor-Grover. Producing the podcast we have Marcelle Hutchins and Cydney Smith, who also edits the show. Our audio engineer is Joanna Samuel. Black History Year’s executive producer is Julian Walker.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	We, as black folks, are no strangers to being exploited.
0:09.4	For centuries, our innovations, our art, and our very bodies have been commodified and
0:17.7	squeezed dry of anything that can be spun into capital, and it ain't slowed down.
0:24.9	It's only been digitized, and it seems that anything goes in the age of the internet
0:31.4	and social media.
0:33.9	I'm Jay from Push Black, and you're listening to Black History Year.
0:40.6	Whether we realize that or not, brands are fixtures in our internet lives.
0:47.6	Every time we hop on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other social platform, we're running
0:54.1	into brands who use insidious tactics to get into our pockets.
1:00.1	They'll do things like create a CGI influencer who can perform blackness.
1:05.4	They'll still our online creativity, and they'll align themselves as black allies when
1:11.0	they just want black dollars.
1:13.4	It's digital anti-blackness, and it's something we gotta talk about, as we live more and
1:17.3	more of our lives on the internet.
1:20.9	To go in depth about this, we're talking with Dr. Francesca Sobande.
1:25.8	Francesca is a senior lecturer in digital media studies at the School of Journalism,
1:31.2	Media, and Culture at Cardiff University.
1:34.4	She's a researcher and a writer.
1:36.1	She's got several books, including the digital lives of black women in Britain.
1:42.0	And she's published work about wokewashing.
1:45.5	People, representations of black people, and how brands misuse, exploit, and commercialize
1:52.5	notions like black social justice activism.
	...

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