Feminist Looking Glass

Honestly, what is going on with people these days? I mean, I understand that the idea of our current society as ”post-racial” is absurd, and that many, many subtle and not-so-subtle forms of racism still persist across the world– but blackface? Blackface is one of the few things I thought people had gotten the memo on– NOT acceptable.

So then why, in the past week, have there been 2 big news stories on people using Blackface in very public, mainstream forums? The first one I’m referring to is one Mike covered, about blackface on an Australian TV show. The second one is from the new issue of French Vogue.

These pictures are from the fashion spread, where the white model is in blackface:

Not that anyone ever goes to fashion magazines like Vogue for examples of  progressive, anti-racist feminist art, but honestly, this is particularly egregious. Especially since the fashion industry in general, and Vogue in particular, has serious problems with diversity. Of course they can’t hire black models for these shoots. As one commenter on Racialicious says,

You guys didn’t get the memo? Your dark skin looks even better on white women than it does on you so of course we painted a white lady!

What decade is this? Stop it, people.