::THE SLICE REPORT WITH MONA AUSTIN

  CULTURE Is the beauty content creator right to "throw shade" at the Youthforia" By Mona Austin An influencer's claim about foundation inclusivity has put Youthforia Cosmetics in the hot seat. Golloria George told over a million followers that Youthforia failed to understand Black women's needs for inclusive foundations after they allegedly created a shade of liquid make up that is supposedly too dark for human use. The video, which was made on April 30, went viral. with over 7 million views to date George is a popular presence on social media who reviews foundations for dark-skinned women on her Tik Tok and You Tube channels to see which make up brands are best suited for deeper-hued Black women's skin tones. For years many brands lacked the color spectrum and/or undertones for all shades of women and Blacks began to create their own (i.e.m Fenty, Mented, Uoma, TLB, Pat McGrath Labs) and demand that others offer a broader range. George was clearly d...

Historian Dale Cockrell once noted that poor and working-class whites who felt “squeezed politically, economically, and socially from the top, but also from the bottom, invented minstrelsy” as a way of expressing the oppression that marked being members of the majority, but outside of the white norm. Minstrelsy, comedic performances of “blackness” by whites in exaggerated costumes and make-up, cannot be separated fully from the racial derision and stereotyping at its core. By distorting the features and culture of African Americans — including their looks, language, dance, deportment, and character — white Americans were able to codify whiteness across class and geopolitical lines as its antithesis. “The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify.” — Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic The pervasiveness of stereotypical images like these made the civil rights efforts of African Americans even more difficult. The black people represented here...

Mona Austin Pictured above: Journalist Mona Austin and Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring "Virginia is for Losers" is the headline on the cover of the New York post, prompted by the top three political leaders in the state being involved in controversies that could cost them their jobs. It is a sarcastic play on the states theme, "Virginia is for lovers." Two of the men in question, Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring are connected to reports about them wearing black face during their college years. Northam initially apologized when a photo of someone in black face standing next to someone in KKK garb emerged, then the next day held a press conference saying that it was not him in the pic. Herring came forth after rumors of a black face pic of him, admitting that he had indeed worn black face to in reflection of his favorite rapper. Then there is Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, the lone Black man in the upper ranks of state leadership. He ...