Whether it's Scarlett Jo as The Major, Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, or every white actor in every movie about Egypt, when there are people of color at the focus of some popular creative work, mainstreaming that work almost always ends in the erasure of colored folks. Hollywood films are the most obvious example but it also happens in the fashion, music and beauty industries.

Enter Shea Moisture.

Shea Moisture is a skin and hair care brand that was heavily marketed and praised by black women. Through word of mouth and via YouTube Naturalistas who gave product reviews and hair demos, the brand grew immensely in it's popularity among black women with every kind of hair type and skin tone.

Woman with 4C hair texture

If you didn't know, black women have been left out of the hair and skin care industries since their inception. We are usually relegated to the skimpy, deprived "ethnic section" of either of these aisles to choose among a few precious products. Meanwhile there exists rows and rows and rows and aisles of products for "normal" hair and skin types (read: white). There aren't a lot of hair products that specifically cater to black hair. Especially natural black hair. Especially, especially natural black hair with the tightest curl pattern. (4Cs can I get a whoop whoop?!)

So when black women found out about Shea Moisture they shouted about it from the rooftops so nearly every black girl, at the very least, knew the name. Then Shea Moisture decides they want to branch out. They want to expand their market and get more coins. Okay. You're a black owned company and we want you and your black woman centered business to flourish.



Then they made this turrible ad and posted it on their Facebook page:

SheaMoisture is CANCELLED pic.twitter.com/T4Dru1JgAq

— NANA JIBRIL 🌙🏳️‍🌈 (@girlswithtoys) April 24, 2017

BLACK WOMEN WENT OFF. We snatched every single wig, we came for all of Shea Moisture's edges. We lit up their Facebook page, tanked their reviews and blasted them on twitter. We had a field day featuring an abundance of shade and hilarious memes.
 

I too have used Shea Moisture products™ pic.twitter.com/jNiOlLrMdr

— Are you obama black? (@shslpizza) April 24, 2017

Me watching that Shea Moisture ad knowing that I got a full bottle in my bathroom pic.twitter.com/MlqhAmYf3p

— Lib (@libertytaking) April 24, 2017

Some people questioned the viciousness of our response. Some called us racist or petty. Some thought we were bashing black business. All of these assumptions are false. Let me tell you why.

Where did Shea Moisture go wrong?

They forgot their core market.

You can't forget where you came from fam. It's hard, I know. Once businesses or people blow up that's the first thing they tend to do. Shea Moisture forgot about the black women that were down for them from jump. Women that advocated and advertised, without recompense, solely because they were passionate and had faith in the product. Women who were proud to support a brand that is the result and legacy of a black woman named Sofi Tucker. Tucker was born in Sierra Leone where she sold and prepared her own homemade hair and skin products for her own black body. Mother Sofi is the matriarch and creator of the family business. Shea Moisture wouldn't exist without her. They must be careful never to erase the black woman/women who gave their business roots to sustain itself and wings to fly. Wings that are now trying to fly straight into to the pockets of white women.

They forgot the struggle.

This kind of baffles me. How in the year of our lord 2017, under the reign of the orange goblin and his white supremacist, racist, sexist, black women hating minions, under the increase of white male terrorism and police brutality did you forget about the struggle? Black women have enough to deal with from the outside powers that be. To then have to come home and fight with our supposed "family" about what belongs to us is totally unacceptable. It's one thing to be dismissed and erased by a people and a system that benefit from your oppression. To experience that from people who look like you and claim to ride for you is the utmost betrayal. Shea Moisture should be the last company black women have to drag on social media for silencing their stories and erasing their images.

They forgot to hire some black folk on their marketing team.

Where are the black women? Where I say? If there were people of color included in these marketing decisions it might not have turned into the cluster**** that it did. I mean there are just so many questions I have for this team:

Why was this ad created without the core market represented? How you gon make an ad about hair hate and then display the hair textures that are considered the most desirable in our country? Why did this ad try to put the stories of white women and their hair hate adjacent to the hair hate experienced by black women? Black hair hate is a direct result of white supremacy! White hair hate is a result of insecurity.
That's not the same.

To give them the stingy ponytail props they deserve in this instance, Shea Moisture previously made a dope ad featuring black women telling their stories of hair hate. They also put out a really great ad in September of 2016 that spoke to inclusion in a way that didn't feel like the betrayal and lies of the current campaign. So clearly they have the capacity to create great, unoffensive ads. They missed the mark in the current campaign by forgetting to come back to that original mission/purpose/legacy.

Making sure every product, every ad, every post points back to the legacy of Sofi Tucker is a REQUIREMENT for Shea Moisture.

How deep does this go?

This incident with Shea Moisture is not unique. There is a history of black fascination and commodification in the United States. When our blackness flourishes or goes viral (which is often) there is an immediate, desperate rush by white folk to capitalize on it. And it's not JUST about capital. It's also about perpetuating harmful ideas in an effort to maintain the status quo. In the case of most beauty and hair products that idea is that white, and only white, is beautiful.

It's not just the fault of white supremacy. I mean I would be lying if I said black business owners don't want money from investors wealthy enough to help support and grow their brands. Furthermore, there's nothing wrong with that. However, in the transition to mass exposure and production, the original business model should never be altered in a way that deviates from the origins and essence of the company. Make your money black business owners, but don't do so to the detriment of your shining black legacies. Don't push us out, to pull white folk in. You can still get white dollars by being blackity black black. (See Beyonce, all of hip hop, etc.)

But so often black business owners are told that's not the case. They are pushed to follow antiquated business models that just don't work for them. The model usually includes marketing that goes from very black folk centered, to very white folk centered, with some racial ambiguity in between to throw you off. The new business model means products, concepts and ideas are marketed and packaged in white bodies. Meanwhile the original black core audience is displaced and their needs pushed aside.

Examples of Black Commodification and Erasure: 

Rachel Dolezal's Entire Life

I mean COME ON. Homie legit stole the whole culture and heritage of the African Diaspora. To add salt to the festering, infected wound, she got stupid publicity and a FREAKING BOOK DEAL out of it! The Lord is not pleased. There has got to be at minimum 84 million other black women in the world who deserved a book deal more than Rachel "Wish she was God's gift" Dolezal.


Valentino's Entire 2016 African Line

I mean really? You ran out of all creativity Valentino? You had absolutely no juice left? You had to make a whole "African Inspired" line to debut at Paris Fashion Week featuring a parade of cornrowed white women? That's how you decided to make your coins in 2016? Okay.


The Kardashians Entire Existence 

Bantu Knots, butt implants, lip injections, cornrows, black rapper/athlete husbands and mulatto children. Like bruh. Ya'll are playing the field Kardashian clan! You're playing it well. The K fam is getting paid oh so much money to the appropriate the mess out of black culture in their everyday lives. They are the socially acceptable version of Rachel. But like Rachel, they're only weak imitations.

It's infuriating to live in a world that hates my blackness but at the same time is infatuated with it. It makes absolutely no sense to me that I can simultaneously represent what is desirable and profitable and what is despised and made destitute.

We See You Fam

I am in that number of black folks who know that the mainstreaming or globalization of blackness is really the erasure of it. It's not about inclusiveness and unity. Sharing is not caring. It's about money and appealing to systemic racism and prejudice in order to maximize the return of investment.

"Make it white, make it sell."

Well, black women call BS and we will continue to do so whether in the streets, on the web or in our own communities. No doubt these travesties will continue but not without black women boycotting and dragging perpetrators to hell and back.