On June 1st 2020, amid the worst civil unrest in the US since the 1960s, L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, posted a graphic (pictured above) on Instagram that said:
“Speaking out is worth it.”
and added:
“L’Oréal Paris stands in solidarity with the Black community, and against injustice of any kind. We are making a commitment to the @naacp to support progress in the fight for justice. #BlackLivesMatter”
This is fake as hell. They are hardly the only capitalist bloodsuckers to Issue a Statement of Support for the George Floyd protests against police brutality, after years of silence (or worse) on the issue, but in their case we can be sure they do not mean it: they have yet to apologize to Munroe Bergdorf.
Munroe Bergdorf, a Black model, was L’Oreal’s first transgender model. They hired her in 2017 as the “face of modern diversity”. But they fired her within the week for speaking out against White racism.
“Speaking out is worth it.”
In 2017 that stand against racism was losing L’Oreal White customers or, as L’Oreal put it, it was “at odds with our values”. But now in 2020, with huge numbers of young White people showing up at protests, it is suddenly acceptable, palatable, cool, a bandwagon on which to jump.
If L’Oreal were sincere, if it had had a true come-to-Jesus moment about racial violence and speaking out and all of that (nothing is impossible), they would have apologized to Bergdorf. Simple as that.
Bergdorf on L’Oreal’s Instagram post:
“Excuse my language but I am SO angry. FUCK YOU @lorealparis. You dropped me from a campaign in 2017 and threw me to the wolves for speaking out about racism and white supremacy.
“With no duty of care, without a second thought. I had to fend for myself being torn apart by the world’s press because YOU didn’t want to talk about racism. You even tried to get me to incriminate myself with pairing me up with your shady lawyers, when I had done NOTHING wrong. THAT is what you get for ‘speaking out’ when employed by @lorealparis. Racist snakes.
“You do NOT get to do this. This is NOT okay, not even in the slightest.
“I said just yesterday that it would only be a matter of time before RACIST AF brands saw a window of PR opportunity to jump on the bandwagon.
“Fuck you. Fuck your ‘solidarity’. Where was my support when I spoke out? Where was my apology? I’m disgusted and writing this in floods of tears and shaking. This is gaslighting.”
Or as fashion writer Aja Barber put it:
“[White people seek to] capitalize on our oppression. And that’s what that is. When you fire a Black person for talking about White supremacy but then you want to post about it on social media three years later, that is disingenous. That is your attempt to make money off of Black people being murdered in the streets because it is palatable.”
She calls it performative allyship.
– Abagond, 2020.
Sources: L’Oreal, Aja Barber, the Glow Up.
Se also:
- L’Oréal
- George Floyd
- gaslighting
- take a knee
- The word “racism” in 2019
- Black Lives Matter
- The three pillars of US White supremacy
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Abagond 
You know what Abagond, the average white protesters are guilty of this very thing. The majority of white people go about their lives without caring a thing about black life in America.
When black men are killed by white police on a weekly basis, across 50 states in America, they never go out into the streets and protest.
Only when there’s an uprising by black people of this magnitude, is when white people feel compelled to protest alongside black people.
But what’s consistent is white people never actually try to get laws changed, so cops can easily be charged for murder, when killing black men and black people in general.
The protesting alongside black people is meaningless and over time ( very short time ) they’ll go back to not caring until the next black man dies at the hands of another racist white thugs, they call police.
The irony is that those same white people that protest alongside black people, actually do have the POWER to help black people and not just in that they can choose to NOT be racist toward us as black people but also in terms of getting laws changed to protect us.
I’ve been tired and fed up with white people that claim to be in solidarity with black people, yet do nothing other than to stand outside holding cardboard cutouts that read, “black lives matter” or “I can’t breathe”.
White people offer nothing, nor are they willing to SACRIFICE anything for the betterment of black people! Standing outside shouting and yelling, posting on your instagram, twitter,twitter,tic toc account doesn’t mean crap!
Black people, the next time you see a white person protesting at a George Floyd protest, ask them, what are you willing to give up? what are you going to sacrifice?
If they’re not willing to offer anything, they don’t REALLY have any skin in the game and as usual, it’s window dressing!
Ask them to tap into some of that huge reservoir of WHITE PRIVILEGE to make a black person’s life a little better, at least for one instance!
After you check their paperwork and it comes back insufficient, Dismiss they azz and keep on steppin’!
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This is true, and you should say so!
I’m giving more than a little side eye to all this sudden gushing about equality. For a number of white people this is just the latest fad that makes their life slightly less boring, and I still don’t trust that any of this actually means anything to them. The ones who are going to stay in the movement, were already working before this event.
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lkeke35:
“I’m giving more than a little side eye to all this sudden gushing about equality.”
Ya dig? The words you speak, has a ring of truth about them.
I’m glad you’re not falling for the okey doke, Sista. Typically, black people are so easily fooled and feel good when a white person speaks to racism and white supremacy.
I’m always skeptical…. “I’m nacho yo brotha, mufugga…
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I am a white man who has always passionately lobbied for reparation payments to all African-Americans. Now that passion has intensified a million fold.
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I was shocked to even see L’Oréal doing this and best believe those whites that’s protesting are spies for law enforcement I never trusted that when a white person acting as if they want justice for our people dying at the hands of these cops are scared white people are just as guilty as the ones pulling the trigger are being racists period.even with mlk march it always had to be that one person their spying that’s all it is to it.
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Christina Bullock:
It’s a farce…
The only white people that would be legit, is if they were doing things with and for black people in the city they live in, before the incidents of 3 black people killed within 2 months. Brianna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd
white people are doing what they always do, participate in something just for the sake of and wanting to be apart of something historic.
White people see this revolution from the black community as entertainment and nothing more.
If white people aren’t going to do anything besides hold up signs and walk alongside black people, they might as well stay home and watch the protests on TV, because doing either results in the same result…..NOTHING!
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Deeds speak!
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@Sondis
“White people see this revolution from the black community as entertainment and nothing more.”
100% agree.
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In or out of the context related to events in Charlottesville, but what Bergdorf actually said was claiming an entire social system being built upon one race’s interests and supremacy to harm the other [races].
And, yes, in my opinion it is quite a racist statement. whether you proclaim describes the way it should or should not be.
You become what you think.
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So, the NFL are saying how they are against social injustice. This is all performative garbage. If they are against social injustice then they should apologize to Colin Kaepernick. And offer him his job back. Black people have been telling white America that systemic racism and police brutality are real things. So it takes burning half the country down to get their attention. Unless white American is consistent, and tears down the oppressive system of white supremacy and police brutality, then all of this is just disingenuous posturing.
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I agree with Bergdorf and Aja Barber, it’s performative allyship, capitalizing on Black pain. Just like during this pandemic with the “We are all in this together “ No, they do not care about who gets evicted from their apartment or can’t pay their mortgage, or lose their job. Or worse who gets sick and dies. None of these giant corporations are coming to save you in your time of adversity.
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L’Oreal is the ‘Good Ol’ Colonizers’. Pushing colonialism every way they know how, but that’s a little bit more than social justice will allow….
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@ Dus’khor Dechen
???
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Everyone sees black people as opportunities to prop up themselves.
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Heru Sankofa:
“Everyone sees black people as opportunities to prop up themselves.”
But what makes it more egregious, is that they’re propping themselves up in the wake of tragedies.
When average living black people are doing good in the world, it’s not something to champion or prop themselves alongside but when a black person dies at the hand of one of their own, then they stand up and take notice.
But these companies are only taking notice, because they want to give black people the impression, they care when they die, so black people can buy their products.
For the average white American citizen, it’s more about white guilt of how they live in an unequal society they benefit from via racism.
So white people protesting in the streets, has more to do with their white self image, that they’re trying to protect from the evil deeds of racist white people that reflects bad on them.
White people don’t see how tasteless it is, to try and profit off the anguish, hopelessness,anger,sadness and terror that black people feel in America.
It makes sense they don’t feel a thing, being they spent 100’s of years doing this very thing, during slavery.
For the very small percent of white people that may have real compassion and empathy for black people, it doesn’t change the lives of black Americans by itself.
So to white people, you can keep your white tears, sentiments and consolations, if you’re not going to follow up with DEEDS and ACTIONS to make black people’s lives EQUAL to yours.
And no, i DON’T care about you walking in the streets during black protests.
Because on any given day in America, when i cross paths with a white person in the streets, either you walk across the street to avoid me or turn your head or look down as you walk by me as to not make eye contact.
So now all of a sudden, you feel comfortable walking next to black people you don’t know personally?
Black people, we’ve been bamboozled…………..
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If Black people were the only people protesting in the streets, there would have been a collective yawn from transnational corporations.
What corporate marketers saw instead was a multi-racial, multi-national group of young consumers. What an opportunity! They wanted to seize the attention of their target market while the iron was hot.
For the corporations, the question was and is how to convert this international group of twenty-something protesters into consumers? Fake solidarity is the answer.
Over the past few days, I’ve gotten messages of fake solidarity from companies that never cared about Black Lives before——and still don’t.
When I read their messages, I think of Tamir Rice, Perlie Golden, Atatiana Jefferson, Sean Bell, Charleena Lyles, Botham Jean, Oscar Grant, Rekia Boyd and the thousands of Black lives (and deaths) they’ve ignored.
All I could think of while reading their fake messaging was, “where were you” when thousands of Black people were murdered in their own homes, in parks, in stores, on sidewalks, on trains or in their cars, etc.
Silent and no where to be found.
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@ munubantu
Sorry, I don’t understand the meaning of your question marks.
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@ Dus’khor Dechen
I didn’t understand your last message as well.
In or out of the context related to events in Charlottesville
What has Charlottesville to do with current events?
As far as I recall, Charlottesville was a march of White Nationalists protesting the removal of some symbols of the times and places when/where Blacks had to endure the worst of racial oppression.
Today we see the opposite. Blacks and others protesting against racism and police brutality.
but what Bergdorf actually said was claiming an entire social system being built upon one race’s interests and supremacy to harm the other [races]. And, yes, in my opinion it is quite a racist statement. whether you proclaim describes the way it should or should not be.
So you are claiming that to criticize or uncover racism is racist in itself?
I – and I believe most people – would disagree.
You become what you think.
Can you please explain this gem of thought?
Maybe you mean that if somebody thinks about racism then s/he can become racist. Right?
Or maybe the victims of real racism have no option other then think about and possibly confront their own situation brought out by their aggressors. What do you think?
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@munubantu
What has Charlottesville to do with current events?
As far as I recall, Charlottesville was a march of White Nationalists protesting the removal of some symbols of the times and places when/where Blacks had to endure the worst of racial oppression.
Today we see the opposite. Blacks and others protesting against racism and police brutality.
– Though different by nature and / or causes, they are identical in forms, which are riots.
So you are claiming that to criticize or uncover racism is racist in itself?
– Nope. I claim that many believers in racism, even criticising it, make actually persistent what they think they resist. It’s like lbgtq rhetorics; no matter if people voice ‘pro’ or ‘contra’, what they actually voice is the Overtone window of possibility of a State to interfere private genital practices of people. That is not efficient, because it is a generalisation based on a false assumption.
What is efficient is fighting / acting / speaking for a cause of human rights, justice and dignity, and not ‘against’ smth or ‘for a cause of race / gender / nation’, etc.
Otherwise protesters are locked within the same box of racial thinking, and this is my reply to your third question.
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@ Dus’khor Dechen
I see. Black Americans should not focus in their own grievances, directly related to their daily lives, like racism in America, but instead on topics as humans rights in general and the like. Great!
Maybe they should direct their efforts on liberating the Russian people of the oppressive regime in Moscow as you suggested in another thread? Remember?
But, wait a moment… not even that! This would be too particular again!
They should instead proclaim a general manifestation for human rights… no, I slipped again… for living creatures on planet Earth… pardon… on the whole Universe!
Mission accomplished! This would be right as matter for protest! Eureka!
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@munubantu
I am not in position of telling other grown-up people what they should or should not do, nor are you in a position of (mis)interpreting my words, telling what I meant or wish, etc, etc.
And – yes. thinking of benefits of all living beings in all the universes could never be wrong. As long as you fight just for a cause of your own neighbourhood, race, nation, state, etc, you will always lose and never be free.
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@ Munubantu
What’s interesting is ever since Dus’khor Dechen (originally A Russian Nagpo) showed up here, he has unfavorably compared the LGBT and women’s rights movements to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, arguing that only the latter was truly needed and worthwhile. But the moment the USA begins having major civil rights protests similar in size and scope to those in the ’60s, he starts in with the criticism: “As long as you fight just for a cause of your own … race, … you will always lose and never be free.”
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When it comes to the doubtful honor of authorship of the ‘rainbow-is-a-new-black’ siocial agenda trope, it is not mine.
And, yes, that was my point. I do believe that a pro-queer ‘struggle’ and the new wave feminism have nothing to do with actual struggle for human rights or any other honorable cause. In this respect, a cause of a broader scope is better than that of a narrower, that is, a feminism, being, strictly speaking, a modern evil disguised is still better than a ‘pro-lbgtq struggle’ because there are still some chances that it might help some women who are truely oppressed; a struggle for national indipendence is better than that of feminism — with or without quote marks — and a struggle for racial equality is better than that of feminists (fake or otherwise).
But wishing liberation and happiness for all sentient beings in all universes is much, much better.
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Hmm. Is Dus’khor Dechen attempting to derail this thread with his tired anti-LGBTQ and anti-feminist rants? LOL!
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@ Afrofem
When does he not?
Also:
All Sentient Beings’ Lives Matter!!!
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Was here some lbgtq-feminist trying to depreciate my speech with her ‘lol’-rant?
IDGAF
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better star making only cosmetic for darker skins. This and the statements that follow are just racist against white…yeah I SAID IT!
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