Model Winnie Harlow In Middle of Debate About Blackface
Former "America's Next Top Model" contestant has vitiligo.
— -- Model Winnie Harlow, a former "America's Next Top Model" contestant, is at the center of a heated debate about blackface after fans posted images of themselves made up to look like her on social media.
Harlow has vitiligo, a condition which results in loss of pigmentation on portions of the skin, including the face.
Since placing fifth in Cycle 21 of the Tyra Banks' reality show, in which she competed as Chantelle Brown-Young, Harlow has booked campaigns with Desigual and Diesel and currently appears on the cover of Ebony magazine. The 21-year-old model has also drawn legions of fans. Some of them, including those who are white, who have paid tribute to her by applying makeup to look like her and posting the photos online.
But some of the photos have drawn criticism, with some saying they amount to fans putting on blackface.
Addressing the controversy, Harlow defended her fans, saying their intention was to appreciate her skin, not appropriate it.
"My response to this is probably not what a lot of people want but here it goes: every time someone wants fuller lips, or a bigger bum, or curly hair, or braids does Not mean our culture is being stolen," she wrote in a lengthy post on Instagram over the weekend.
"Have you ever stop to realize these things used to be ridiculed and now they're loved and lusted over. No one wants to 'steal' our look here. We've just stood so confidently in our own nappy hair and du-rags and big a**es (or in this case, my skin) that now those who don't have it love and lust after it."
Harlow went on, "Just because a black girl wears blue contacts and long weave doesn't mean she wants to be white and just because a white girl wears braids and gets lip injection doesn't mean she wants to be black. The amount of mixed races in this world is living proof that we don't want to be each other we've just gained a national love for each other. ...It is very clear to me when someone is showing love and I appreciate these people recreating, loving and broadcasting something to the world that once upon a time I cried myself to sleep over #1LOVE"
When her response failed to satisfy some, drawing more criticism, Harlow posted a second lengthy message.
"It's one thing to recreate my skin & wear a crown in a photo, & it's another to recreate my face & then wear a noose (which is not the case)," she wrote beside a photo from her Ebony photo shoot. "There is a difference in love vs hate & it's easy to see."
The young model even opened up about her own background.
"I proudly stand on the Gray Line that blurs black from white," she wrote. "I am happily a mix of many races and creeds! I am of African, Indian European and Asian decent and identify as a Proud Black Canadian Woman, and I Never forget the Canadian because that is the Gray. Being Canadian or American should remind you of this beautiful melting pot we are, and that the world is turning into. People are so prideful that they die & protest to be accepted, & when they are, they still find fault??."
By Monday morning, however, the model was still explaining herself after being called a number of "derogatory slurs."
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