When Grande dropped the visuals for “Thank U, Next,” there were murmurings about the colour of her skin as she re-enacted Mean Girls’ Regina George doodling in a burn book. Sis was undeniably really bronzed, and noticeably darker than she usually appears in photographs, videos, and in person. But I’m not sure I’d call Grande’s tan an attempt at blackface. Aesthetically, racial ambiguity has always been preferred over the assumed neutrality of whiteness and the assumed undesirability of Blackness. The Kardashians have mastered the art of blurring the lines of their own racial identity to do everything from sell hair extensions to Black women and butt lifting jeans to white women. This kind of skin alteration has made headlines recently with a slew of Instagram influencers being accused of “blackfishing” or portraying themselves as Black for financial and social gain on the platform. There is a dialogue that needs to be had about racial exoticism as a beauty technique — one that Grande’s glam team probably needs to be part of — but blackface it is not.