‘Digital Blackface’: Pro-Trump Trolls Are Impersonating Black People on Twitter
The tweet had more than a thousand shares in the hours after President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. “I am a black trans woman and after this amazing speech tonight I proudly say I support Donald Trump my President,” user “BlackTransQween” wrote, using a profile picture of a black transgender woman. “We need to get behind this man.”
“BlackTransQween” also tweeted against immigration and gender options on driver licenses. When the profile disappeared this week, conservatives cried censorship. But in reality, the account had been suspended for breaking Twitter’s rules against impersonation, after writer Gabe Gonzalez revealed the account was using a picture of Charlene Arcila-Ecks, a transgender health advocate who died in 2015. The theft was the latest in a trend of people stealing African-Americans’ photos to push right-wing causes online. And with the 2020 elections looming, the identity theft is ramping up.
“It’s a concerted effort to put on basically a digital blackface,” Shireen Mitchell, founder of Stop Online Violence Against Women told The Daily Beast.