You're listening, ad-free on Amazon Music.

The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hello and welcome to the waves for Thursday, December 6th, the Rifles or Ruffles edition.

I'm Christina Cotterucci, a staff writer at Slate and host of the Slate podcast Outward. And hosting with me today is Georgetown University History Professor Marcia Chatlin. Welcome back to the show, Marcia. So excited to be here. And we're joined in D.C. Yes, that's right. All three of us are in the same room by Latifah Liles, a vice president at the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the former director of the Women's Bureau at the Labor Department under Barack Obama, and a D.C. Democratic State Committee woman. Hey, Latifah. Good morning.

All right. Before we get into the episode, we have one small order of business. We are having

another is it sexist call-in show for the holidays. So if you have an is it sexist question

that has been burning a hole in your pocket, call it into us us at 646-907-9859.

I'm really excited for our topics this week. I think we have a lot of good stuff to talk about.

We're going to start with the concept of blackfishing where white Instagram influencers

trick followers into thinking they're black by tanning their skin, wearing wigs, among other things.

Then we'll talk about gender reveal parties where you gather all your loved ones to celebrate your fetus's genitals.

And finally, we will talk about, say her name, a new HBO documentary about the life and death of Sandra Bland. For our Slate Plus segment today,

we have a hot topic that a lot of people have been up in my Twitter mentions about.

We're going to talk about whether or not it's sexist to make fun of Melania Trump's

White House Christmas decorations.

So if you're not a Slate Plus member yet, you definitely want to be. And you can start your free two-week trial by visiting slate.com slash the waves plus.

All right.

Let's get into it.

Blackfishing, Latifah, can you give us a little primer on this phenomenon and why it's in the news right now?

So, of course, with, you know, Twitter fame, YouTube rock stars and the like, you know, there's so many folks out there who basically their claim to fame is their social media. And with that, of course, comes, you know, just a sea of individuals with personalities, something to say or something to look at. And of course, some people are popular just on, you know, their fashion and their looks and, you know, either makeup and

their clothes and so on. And so recently, the conversation has centered around women who are

being accused of or in some sometimes admitting that they are trying to appear to be or present

...