They’re getting their tights in a twist.
Critics are bashing star ballerina Misty Copeland, who started a petition to add more inclusive shades of color to the traditional pink Apple ballet shoe emoji.
Copeland, 41, the first black woman to become a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, posted about the initiative to her 1.8 million Instagram followers on Sept. 21, explaining that ballet started in 15th century Italy for the white elite and its shoes are pink to match fair skin color.
Critics say the trailblazing dancer is seeing racism where it doesn’t exist, posting comments like, “It’s an emoji, good grief” and “Pink isn’t a skin color.”
Another didn’t dance around the issue, writing: “You are creating a racist-pseudo problem.”
“I think this is too far,” wrote Abby Marie Johnson, who said Copeland backers pressured her to delete her comment.
“People lashed back saying I was a privileged white girl who doesn’t get it, when in reality, I was a foster kid, dumped from home to home, and most of my foster siblings were of color,” Johnson, a 28-year-old Norfolk, Virginia resident, told The Post.
“I just think it’s silly. When I see the ballet slipper, I just think ballerina. There’s no color attached to it,” she added.
“This wasn’t about race to me, I felt it was annoying to add more and more emojis so everyone in the world feels good. They’re emojis. They don’t stand for who we are.”
Copeland, who is married to attorney Olu Evans, actor Taye Diggs’ cousin, and lives in an Upper West Side condo that costs over $3 million — also sparked comments such as, “clearly a sign of first world privilege problems.”
Daphney Hewitt, who is black and danced for nearly a decade, sees nothing wrong with pointe shoes being pink, which was “meant to fit the original dancers.”
“The world doesn’t have to always have to adapt or conform to the politics of black Americans,” she commented on Copeland’s post about the petition, which now has over 22,000 signatures.
Franklin Park, N.J. native Fola Walker defended Copeland, arguing “something as simple as an emoji change and a bunch of white folks tell her she should shut up.”
“I was surprised that people were enraged at something so small,” Walker, 30, who was on the dance team at Rutgers University, told The Post. “It was very absurd.”
Fábio Mariano, who co-founded the social media platform Blacks in Ballet, said naysayers don’t realize the significance of this seemingly trivial step.
“It’s like when little brown kids went to the store and they only saw white Barbies. It didn’t hurt them directly,” Mariano, a professional dancer who lives in Memphis, Tenn., told The Post.
“But when they saw that brown Barbie, that made such a huge difference. And it’s the same thing right now, they don’t see it, so it’s not a huge deal, but once they see it, they will realize how important that little thing is.”
Copeland and Apple refused to comment.
Source link
