Lithuanian Twitch streamer “Karupups” was suspended from Twitch for 30 days for darkening her skin in order to cosplay the character Lifeline from the recently popular game, Apex Legends. The category for her ban was "Hateful Conduct."  By darkening her skin to portray the Jamaican character, some saw this as "blackface." Blackface is when someone darkens their skin out of mockery and intentions of showing hate towards the black race. Karupups was in no way trying to show hateful intentions. Her reasons for darkening her skin was not to be racist, but because the character she was cosplaying is black. The disrespect would have been if she portrayed Lifeline as a white character, because Lifeline is not white.

She will be un-banned after 30 days, but she shouldn't have been banned in the first place.

"In the United States, blackface had largely fallen out of favor by the turn of the 21st century, and is now generally considered offensive and disrespectful..." -Vox.com (Karupups is Lithuanian, not American.)

We would like for Twitch to lift this ban immediately. Please give Karupups back her channel. Below are twitter comments from the twitch community giving reasons as to why her ban was unfair. 

• Her intentions were not targeted to be racist. She was cosplaying a black Jamaican gaming character. She wasn’t trying to be mean.
• There is a fine line between cosplay and straight up RACIST. That line wasn’t crossed here.
• Yeah, because everyone in the world knows the US' history. Quite the embarrassing move on twitch's part.
• By saying she doesn't need to paint her skin black to be lifeline is then dismissing the roll lifeline has as a strong black Jamaican woman gaming character. That's supposed to be inspirational to people like my baby sisters who want to see a woman of color dominate in a video game. 
• By this logic any white person that cosplays as an anime character is also a racist. I don't know about anyone else but the double standard is clear as glass on my end.
• People who do cosplays try to get everything exactly right. She was doing just that.
• if we are allowed to play games on twitch with multi-racial characters... and we're allowed to cosplay those characters on twitch in another category... why does this matter? did any twitch staff look at context? should all game characters be purple or green or blue or some sh*t?
• So by cosplaying a black character and painting yourself to be authentic to the cosplay is now blackface and racist??? By that logic every time someone gets a tan they’re doing black face, every time a woman applies make up to make her skin look darker is also doing blackface
• But Lifeline is not white.
• If you aren't smart enough to see this girl had no intentions of making anyone mad then you need to go back to school.
• What she did is not blackface, you and others should actually read and watch old clips of what blackface is before calling it as such. By labeling this blackface you do disservice to the racism of blackface. Your ignorance & fake outrage breeds more ignorance.

Thank you.