YouTuber does blackface claiming she didn’t know it was offensive

Shera Kerienski is a French YouTube star.

She regularly posts makeup tutorials, sketches, and ramblings about a variety of topics on her channel. However, this week Shera posted a video that received quite a lot of backlash. The vlogger took to YouTube with the intention of posting a video about the lack of makeup available for those with darker skin. But in order to prove her "point," she made the decision to do blackface. In the video, which has since been deleted, Shera explains that she is going to "wear makeup for very dark complexions" to send a message to cosmetics companies in France. She then proceeds to cover her face in extremely dark makeup. "I try to put myself in other people's shoes," says Shera in the video. However, others were quick to point out that the vlogger wasn't just using dark makeup on her face, she was doing blackface. Once the video was deleted, Shera took to Twitter to explain herself. She said that she didn't know what blackface was and that she had not intended to offend anyone. "My message was awkwardly positive, and I am deeply sorry if it was taken badly," she wrote. https://twitter.com/S_Kerienski/status/901879659868164097 "Not knowing what blackface is in 2017," wrote one user. "Must be nice to live in a bubble." "Blackface has a racist history of over 400 years," said another. "There is plenty of media that talks about it." Blackface began gaining popularity during the nineteenth century when non-black actors wore dark makeup to play black characters. They would portray these characters in a negative fashion, adhering to stereotypes that aimed to dehumanise black people. The practice eventually declined in US popular culture in the 1960s with the arrival of the civil rights movement.