It’s Official: Kim Kardashian Is, Once Again, a White Woman

In hindsight, it’s a surprise that Kim Kardashian wasn’t at the second Trump inauguration. She shared a comment-free Instagram Story of Melania Trump’s outfit from the day, the closest she’s come to signalling any kind of political endorsement in a couple of years. Her friendship with Ivanka is something she’s not-so-quietly pushed for a while now, heralding the corrupt First Daughter as some sort of kind genius of womanhood that seems overblown even by the standards of propaganda. Nobody expected Kardashian to be a vision of progressive ideals, even when she cosplayed as an activist-esque figure who was totally going to become a lawyer one day. But the transformation is official as of this week. Kim Kardashian is once again a white woman.

As the Kardashian clan rose to prominence through their reality TV series and Kim’s marriage to Kanye West, her image (and those of her sisters) began to remould itself into one of racial and cultural ambiguity. An Armenian-American, Kardashian has long been able to play around with an image of herself as not entirely white despite being, you know, white. As the Instagram followers increased and legitimate institutions found themselves unable to ignore the Kardashian Brand, it became evident that the family had entered into an unsettling level of appropriation. The contouring got darker, the backsides rounder. They wore braids. They were always on the arm of a Black man. While she has long denied doing outright Blackface, she’s certainly faced accusations that some of her beauty campaigns made her skin look dark enough for the comparison to be apt.

The women of the family would endlessly deny cosmetic surgery while shilling makeup brands and then later admit the truth. The aesthetics they plundered from made them very rich. They could take the elements of Black womanhood that actual Black women would be denigrated for, commodify them for the masses, and then ditch them when a new fad came along.

And lo and behold, there’s a new trend in town: ultra-skinny white women. The BBLs have been reversed. Heroin chic is back with the Ozempic train. Fat is to be removed in all places, from your cheeks to your ankles. Kim has gotten noticeably skinnier lately, as has Khloe, with both of their posteriors going from comically large and obviously enhanced to pancake flat (but still with the hourglass shape that can be marketed in Skims ads.) The makeup is more clean girl than dramatic. With it has come greater business opportunities for Kim and a renewed cultural relevance. She’s doing TV shows with Ryan Murphy. John Galliano dressed her for the Met Gala. Skims has partnered with major celebrities and with institutions like the NBA and WNBA. She does indie sleaze short movies with Nadia Lee Cohen. And she pals around with billionaires, showing off Elon Musk’s robot and holidaying with Jeff Bezos.

The privilege of whiteness is in how it allows you to latch onto any concept, trend, or detail of human identity and turn it into your personal playground. Capitalism and white privilege go hand in hand, which is how the Kardashian brand was able to evolve from E! reality show and sex tape to Forbes front cover idolatry. If this family is a genius in anything, it’s in the efficient ruthlessness of reducing every single thing in their lives into a way to profit. Rich non-white people obviously do exist but the intersections of race and exploitation mean that it’s more beneficial for Kim to be white as a ‘serious’ businesswoman and cultural figure than as someone whose body is a racial grab-bag of theft and remoulding. Ivanka wouldn’t want to be friends with the ‘non-white’ Kim.

And with whiteness comes the ability to just not care. Kardashian may do some good work with helping attain clemency for wrongly imprisoned individuals but she’s not campaigning for systemic change. She didn’t go to the Trump White House to push for the end of the prison industrial complex. Her silence on issues of the Black community during her cosplay years was always telling, but now, the mask is 100% off, wiped away along with the contouring. She can waste hundreds of thousands of gallons’ worth of water, use a private jet weekly, and cozy up to Amazon’s union-busting boss because hey, it’s what rich white people do. That’s where the real money is, once you’ve gotten your foot in the door through Blackfishing.

Look, I know that none of this is surprising to anyone, nor did any of you expect better from the woman who was married to Kanye West. It would be more shocking if she shaved her head or started using ethical sources for Skims production. But I think there’s worth in dissecting the inevitable endgame of both rich assholes and culture vultures who use us and spat it back in our faces at an increased price. Kim Kardashian is often, and begrudgingly, held up as an all-American success story. Oh, you don’t have to like her but you must respect the hustle, right? Go do whatever it takes to secure your bag, kids. I reject this wholeheartedly. There’s nothing worth respecting or repeating in a woman who stole Black womanhood for money then ditched the costume once it was safe for her to be a conservative white woman with access to fascistic creeps. She’ll try to reinvent herself once the tides turn. When she does, she shouldn’t know a moment’s peace from everyone else.