Make-up artist who dressed as black slave hits back at racist claims

Earlier this week, a white make-up artist was royally criticised for posting a beauty tutorial that showed people how to look like a black slave.

Posting a photo of herself wearing dark foundation, a traditional African headscarf and a nasty scar, Percem Akin hashtagged the Instagram post with #blackwoman, #slave and #sadmakeup.

After followers labelled her “racist”, “disturbing” and “offensive”, she was forced to make her Instagram private.

Now, the vlogger has spoken out against the backlash, saying that she is most definitely not racist.

Talking to Femail, Akin said how the tutorial was for a movie currently being filmed in Turkey. “This is just a movie character, and the movie [was] directed by some poor students in my country, Turkey,” she commented.

“We are not living in America or Africa, in my country finding any black model is so difficult, and they [directors] created a character.”

Not only did she deny that blackface was wrong but she also went on to say that she had meant to hashtag the title of the film ‘Slayer’ before realising it had autocorrected to #slave.

Percem finished by saying she was sorry if she had offended anyone with the photo, adding: “I never meant this as racist work. People prefer to see only racism [in] my work instead of pure beauty.”

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