Perspective: Jackie Aina may teach you makeup skills, but really, she’s crusading for black women
Jackie Aina advocates for diversity in the makeup and beauty industry on her popular YouTube channel. By Amber Ferguson Amber Ferguson Local video editor Email Bio Follow Video editor April 21 at 11:00 AM In 2009, Disney released “The Princess and the Frog,” its first animated movie starring a black princess. As that landmark movie was being released, Jackie Aina, a Nigerian American from California, was creating her own groundbreaking videos — on YouTube.
When you click on Aina’s YouTube channel, you can see it’s a beauty channel: With bold thumbnails of dramatic facial expressions of her reacting to makeup products. But although Aina does the typical product review and haul videos like other beauty influencers, her channel really isn’t just about makeup. Aina dives straight into social and cultural commentary in a way that is both unexpected and educational.
“I’m looking at patterns here," Aina said in the video. "I feel like there’s a lot of low-key disrespect and disregard. I noticed that Kardashians, like, in particular, play up on black culture, black bodies, black pop culture, but then the moment they can’t use you they just, boom, dispose. I don’t think that’s okay.”
“A little woman of your background would had her hands full, trying to run a big business like that,” one of the men says in the movie. Although the characters deal with the prejudice that goes along with being black in New Orleans in the 1920s, they are for the most part cheerful, optimistic and non-alienating. In a similar way how Aina uses beauty to talk about social issues, Disney uses fairy tales to illustrate larger points.
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