digital blackface
digital blackface noun: the practice where nonblack people co-opt online expressions of black imagery, slang, catchphrases, or culture, often to convey comic relief or express emotions.
Noun
digital blackface (uncountable)
- The practice where nonblack people co-opt online expressions of black imagery, slang, catchphrases, or culture, often to convey comic relief or express emotions.
- In truth, the show is a farce of Black intellect, and as for the image of brazen ignorance Cita so proudly flaunts – if she is an apt representation of a silly-sassy sister – she's not the type of image Black folks should look to for “unique views,” especially when, comparatively, the...2002 January 17, A.J. Bowser, “BET’s ‘Cita’: Dumb or digital bamboozle?”, in New York Amsterdam News, page 23
- Thankfully, it's a rare in-person performance today that features a white actor made up as a minstrel. But what some call “digital blackface” is all too common.2017 August 11, Molly Roberts, “What white people missed about FaceApp’s ‘blackface’ filters”, in The Washington Post, page A.17
Questions about digital blackface
- What does digital blackface mean?
- Digital blackface means the practice where nonblack people co-opt online expressions of black imagery, slang, catchphrases, or culture, often to convey comic relief or express emotions.
- What part of speech is digital blackface?
- Digital blackface is a noun.
Words near digital blackface in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: digital blackface (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “digital blackface.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/digital_blackface. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.