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Beauty influencer and self-titled 'Wakanda Queen' under fire over 'blackface' tutorial
A beauty influencer from China has come under fire for using makeup to darken her complexion in order to transform into a "Wakanda Queen" for a video.
Suzy Z, a popular Chinese influencer with over 1 million followers on Bilibili, took to the platform back in April of 2020 to share a Wakanda Queen tutorial, in which the fair-skinned content creator substantially darkens her face.
Now, the video has gone viral in countries outside of China, sparking backlash online over her alleged blackface.
In the year-old video, she introduces herself as the Wakanda Queen, which is a nod to the fictional African country featured in 2018's Black Panther. She then uses dark foundation to alter her skin color and applies a sparkly blue lip gloss.
The video has since made its way onto TikTok, introducing the tutorial to an international audience.
Needless to say, a number of people have since taken to the platform to condemn the alleged blackface, with one commenter writing: "As an Asian, I'm so sorry. This is not acceptable."
However, some TikTok commenters defended Suzy Z's ignorance as she hails from a country with little diversity.
One wrote: "I think that instead of throwing hate we should educate her because race problems are not a thing in a lot of countries sadly. Coming from a person outside the United States."
Another chimed in: "Black face is nt very educated about in asia ? A lot of people actually dont knw its wrong, so like ppl cant expect the whole world to be as 'woke' [sic]"
A different person shared: "She must've grew up very sheltered to have this lack of awareness, but if she's popular, she must have poc followers too. [sic]"
Another commenter took to Twitter to say: "This is Suzy aka Wakanda queen - see now this is actually so f**ked up."
A different Twitter user wrote simply: "No. Just No."
What are your thoughts on the video? Let us know in the comments!