Nails Are Racist Now
by
What a time to be alive.
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The British Broadcasting Corporation can always be counted on to find inventive ways to convince you that Western society is hopelessly mired in class privilege and white supremacy.
In a recent article titled, “How the bare nails trend became a class issue,” the BBC reports on what is apparently a “crazy” trend taking over fashion runways and red carpets: women sporting glossy but bare, unadorned nails. Apparently they are being viewed and hyped by beauty magazines as the latest symbol of “quiet luxury.” This would be hardly worth remarking on outside of a style blog except that the article’s writers, Tiffanie Turnbull and Simran Sohal, felt this innocuous grooming practice needed a darker underbelly.
Critics argue, they write, that “the bare nails trend actually says something about class, the hamster wheel of beauty standards, and who gets to define what is considered tasteful”:
Nail art’s historical and creative roots are linked back to black, Latino, and Asian communities and the suggestion that bare nails are now a sign of high status could stigmatise bold manicures, they say.
“That trend really promotes blankness and this kind of sameness and erasure of culture and identity that is so important to black and brown communities,” beauty journalist Kristina Rodulfo tells the BBC.
“They are often called elegant or tasteful, and these are often usually euphemisms that perpetuate white supremacist standards of beauty.”
And there it is: white supremacist standards of beauty. You knew this was coming: taking an everyday activity and imposing a Critical Race Theory obsession with race on it. This is how the Left thinks about everything, every moment of the day. Instead of the bare-nails trend representing some women’s practical choice to save some money (“It’s just too expensive now,” one woman told the BBC) and simplify their lives (“’Ugh, my god, I have to go and get my nails done,” one woman is quoted as complaining; “Who’s got an hour to waste?” said another), or a simple beauty preference (“I love less is more,” one woman says. “I love minimalism.”), the BBC and some of the fashion writers they cite want you to think it’s about the wealthy white oppression of supposedly marginalized and less affluent black women.
The article goes on to fear-monger that there are some who think the trend “belies something more sinister” than just personal preference. Fashion journalist Suzanne E. Shapiro, for example, declares, “Women’s bodies – and sense of self-presentation – have always held huge political and cultural significance.” The article cites historical examples from 13th century Imperial China to the 1930s in which manicures served as fashionable forms of self-expression for women who otherwise were apparently silenced under the bootheel of patriarchal societies.