Sia uses Blackface in Her New Video “The Greatest” — Apple and Other White People Don’t Even Notice
It was a busy Wednesday…. checking Twitter I noticed the Apple iPhone 7 launch event and I clicked on the livestream. Just in time to see not the newest Apple products but instead I see Sia performing at the end of the event. The entire day goes by and I’m getting ready for bed, ‘that Sia song is really catchy,’ hmm… it’s called “The Greatest” I wonder if it’s about Muhammad Ali with his recent passing? I listen to the song on Spotify with the verse by Kendrick Lamar,
Hey, I am the truth
Hey, I am the wisdom of the fallen — I’m the youth
Hey, I am the greatest
Hey, this is the proof
Hey, I work hard, pray hard, pay dues, hey
I transform with pressure — I’m hands-on with effort
I fell twice before my bounce back was special
Letdowns will get you, and the critics will test you
But the strong will survive, another scar may bless you, ah
Powerful song with powerful lyrics, but I don’t think it’s about Muhammad Ali….
I Google the song… Oh it’s about Orlando. Interesting, let me check out this video, sounds powerful…
The video starts with the hashtag #WeAreYourChildren
The young dancer in the video wipes rainbow smeared make up down her eyes…. We get about a minute into the video and ….
WHAT THE HELL…. KIDS IN BLACKFACE
Some obvious questions here:
What the hell ignorant White people?
How many times do you have to be told to not use blackface, like at all?
They answer…
but this is really important and it’s about Orlando and the tragedy that happened….
IT DOESN’T MATTER…
We agree what happened in Orlando is terrible and we mourn for all people around the world killed in acts of violence and war. The majority of people killed in Orlando were people of color, how is using racial minstrel show tropes that are offensive to Black people and all people of racial consciousness become ok for any reason?
Then they write entire articles and don’t even notice the blackface in the video.
Like this one by the Huffington Post written by Julie Brucculeri.
Or this one from the Atlantic by Spencer Kornhaber
Wait, then not only does Apple launch the video on Apple Music but then they have Sia perform the song with the video playing on stage in San Francisco at the iPhone 7 launch event.
Not surprisingly, no one in the entire tech media world gathered for the Super Bowl of tech notices at all.
We don’t know who initiated the blackface idea in this video directed by Sia and Daniel Askill and choreographed by Ryan Heffington but there is one other glaring question here.
What happened to Kendrick Lamar’s lyrics? Was there some type of artistic disagreement about the direction of the video? Hmm….
The video has been viewed more than 12 million times since it launched 2 days ago… and we couldn’t find a single comment about the blackface.
Twitter still hasn’t noticed much either with only a few responses mentioning blackface at all.
