- In May, Danielle Coke tweeted that "white influencers" were taking her illustrations without credit.
- "White influencers, just a reminder that by you stealing justice-related art from POC and intentionally posting it as your own, you are reinforcing the same system that we are trying to dismantle," she wrote in the tweet.
- The artist told Insider that people have changed her illustrations to fit their aesthetic.
- Coke says some people have since apologized for sharing her work without giving proper credit.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Danielle Coke, who goes by @ohhappydani on Instagram, is using her artistic talent to inspire justice. Her page is filled with illustrations that send an important message about racism and allyship.
But on May 29, Coke reached her breaking point and decided to call out the people who have shared her art on social media without proper credit.
"White influencers, just a reminder that by you stealing justice-related art from POC and intentionally posting it as your own, you are reinforcing the same system that we are trying to dismantle. you are not amplifying us, you are centering yourself," she wrote in a Tweet. "Can you share? absolutely! with a tag and VISIBLE proper credit."
—Danielle Coke (@ohhappydani) May 29, 2020
Although it wasn't just white influencers sharing her work and failing to give credit, Coke says she called them out specifically because she found many of them framing the art as their own rather than choosing to amplify black voices.
"I said especially white influencers because it holds a different weight," she told Insider. "White influencers who have bigger platforms have a responsibility, in my opinion, when it comes to diving into these topics to amplify black artists and black content creators by sharing their work in their own voices."
"I was noticing that they were stolen by some, the message was being changed, and a lot of the accompanying captions were self-centering instead of talking about the issue at hand," Coke said. "In this case, I was talking about black and brown lives being taken unjustly."
Coke first noticed her illustrations being shared without credit after she posted an illustration of Ahmaud Arbery
On February 23, Arbery set out for a jog in Georgia but never made it home, as he was shot and killed by two white men in broad daylight.
"Normally I'm not the type of person to be like, 'I don't want anyone sharing my work,'" Coke said. "I'm the complete opposite, I want people to share it."
"What I found was happening was that not only were people taking the work, they were cropping my name out, editing it, and putting filters on it," she added. "Instead of upholding the integrity of the original work and amplifying it, people were editing it to fit their own aesthetic."
Two days before she took to Twitter to call out influencers, Coke posted another illustration about recognizing racism, which she noticed was also being taken and shared without credit.
"It just goes back to the fact that, for example, you wouldn't go see the Mona Lisa and say, 'I like this, I'm going to take it down, I'm going to repaint it to fit my own aesthetic, and put it in my house,'" she said. "It's somebody's artwork. You want to retain the integrity of the piece, and it also doesn't belong to anyone except the artist."
Coke says the response to her tweet has been overwhelmingly positive
Several people who she didn't know had taken her illustrations even reached out on Instagram to apologize, Coke said.
"I also saw other white influencers who were taking to their stories to say, 'I might not have shared her work out of context, but if anyone else in this community is doing so you need to stop,'" she said. "They were calling their own communities out. That was very surprising to me."
Coke also said she's received an outpouring of support from other artists since calling people out for taking her work.
"For a lot of us, this is how we make our money. This is our livelihood!" Coke said. "Asking for a tag is not just saying, 'We made it, we want the credit,' even though we would be justified in doing so if that was the only reason."
She added: "It's more about saying, 'Can you preserve the integrity of my work by not editing it to fit your own aesthetic? Can you help amplify black voices in a time where black voices need to be heard by linking back to my page so people can hear my heart and hear the words in my own voice?'"
Coke's illustrations first started going viral in February, and now she has over 377,000 followers on Instagram
The first illustration of Coke's that went viral was about the dangers of saying "I don't see color."
Before sitting down to draw, Coke says she does a lot of listening and research on the topic she wants to address.
"I listen to what's happening around me," she said. "I listen to what I'm experiencing or going through at the moment. A lot of the times those two things are connected."
"I then take what I already know about a topic and do more widespread research about what's being said and common misconceptions," Coke added. "I put all of that together in my brain and I say, 'How can I conceptualize this so that it makes sense to somebody who wouldn't normally understand this kind of topic?' I also say a lot that I'm very literal in my art."
A perfect example of this is an illustration Coke did addressing xenophobia and racism directed at Asian-Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. The illustration features a pill bottle with the words "Pills you need to swallow about the coronavirus" written across the front.
Coke wants the people who look at her art to see the emotion she poured into every single part of an illustration
"I want people to sense the heart behind it," she told Insider. "I try to approach everything I make with a certain degree of compassion. It's not lost on me that I use bright colors and I try to keep things light artistically, because I want people to feel a sense of comfort when they come in contact with the work."
"I also aim to be direct and firm in the content that I'm delivering," Coke continued. "I want people to feel like they are accepted in the journey even when they're imperfect. I say all the time, 'Perfection is not a prerequisite to participation.' I want people to feel like they are invited to join us in this fight even if they don't have all of the words or don't know what to do right away."
Although Coke's illustrations are beautiful, powerful, and thought-provoking, she admitted that creating them can sometimes take a toll on her. One illustration that was hard for her to draw was of a tree that explained the deep-rooted effects the coronavirus pandemic is having on the black community.
"It took me several hours," she said of the illustration. "I was crying and was a total mess. When I finally got to the end of it I said, 'That's it, that's what I wanted to say.'"
Coke explained that she's not worried about whether or not people will like an illustration while she's creating it. Instead, she hopes people will understand it and feel it.
"Whether you like it or not, if you felt it, then my job is done," she said.
Since her illustrations are continuing to be shared on social media, Coke said she's now built a community of people who want to listen, learn, and take action
"I feel an intense responsibility to continue to facilitate that," she said. "I have no idea what it's going to look like from here. I do know that I will keep drawing, I will keep speaking out, and I hope that people continue to digest the information that they see and turn that into action."
"It's a whole beautiful army of people who are ready to do the work and change the world with their compassion, with their understanding, and with their desire to love their neighbor as they love themselves," Coke added.
The artist told Insider she's planning on adding more prints and merchandise to her website, oh happy dani, for people to buy. She also said she is talking to a few organizations about donating her work.
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