Kim Kardashian Pic Used To Promote “African Hair Style” Causes Outrage

A salon in Brussels used an unauthorized image of Kim Kardashian rocking Fulani braids to promote “African Hair Style” at one of their events. 

Despite this not being an official endorsement from the celebrity influencer, it fuels narratives of cultural appropriation that continue to follow her.

According to the New York Post, Diet Prada’s Instagram account posted the salon’s and drew attention to how people use the Armenian American as a means to “vanilla-ize” Black culture. 

In the fastidious post, they captioned, “Live from Rue Brabant in Brussels,” followed by #BlackHistoryMonth hashtag. They also included her with other Black celebrities who have been blackfished or lightened in pop culture.

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Diet Prada published screenshots of the advertisement, along with an article from Essence critiquing the celebration of the billionaire’s soon-to-be ex-wife of Kanye West. Also included was a statement from Vogue regarding the backlash they received about a recent editorial featuring Kendall Jenner, Kardashian’s half-sister.

Vogue states about the image of Jenner, who is 100% white, the following:

“The image is meant to be an update of the romantic Edwardian/Gibson Girl hair which suits the period feel of the Brock Collection, and also the big hair of the 60s and the early 70s, that puffed-out, teased-out look of those eras. We apologize if it came across differently than intended and did not mean to offend anyone by it.”

While the suggestion is that they did not mean to offend, Diet Prada calls bull. They rolled out a photo journal of how Kim Kardashian was styled for the February issue with Black women as the inspiration.

Diet Prada

@diet_prada

Kim Kardashian and Vogue said “Black History Month” https://t.co/ElK70mzc8V

7:08 PM · Feb 9, 2022

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Black people might be up in arms about Kim Kardashian and her black-ish appearance. However, so are whites. 

Within the last year, AllHipHop.com reports, Kim has received backlash for appearing to be “slim-thick,” a body type associated with Black women that many white women are losing their minds to achieve.

Slim-thick is a team for the coca-cola body type.