White Striped porn video shock meets race rant
The internet is full of people putting two and two together to make twenty two, not four. I’m still getting emails about Meg White and the sex tape scandal, suggesting these slightly racy pictures are the real reason why White Stripes have cancelled their world tour. http://community.livejournal.com/
Frankly, this is an inventive pornster who has linked his dubious content to this story in an attempt to rustle up viewers and hits to his site. It’s the oldest trick in the book and I’m surprised anyone has fallen for it. I have also been drawn to the debate raging in the
U.S. over a recent photo taken by the highly talented Tung Walsh, recently printed in i-D magazine.http://www.americanapparel.net/
It has received a huge amount of feedback and according to the editorial on the website.” Many people have been deeply offended by the photograph.” From this ..
Posted by: LG 8/16/2007 03:53
This is a horrible, cynical picture. As a black woman, I am usually thrilled to see a model with very dark skin on an ad. But on this one they made her look like a old caricature of a “negresse”. The lipstick, the clothing, the dead eyes, the reference to chocolate cake… It’s so obvious what they were aiming for with this photo. I was shocked by its blatant racism as soon as I saw it in the AA newsletter. Coming from
Senegal, I have uncles who died during WWII, used as canon-fodder by the french army, and aunts who were raped by french officers. The French would often represent our people in caricatures in the same way as this picture does, as “savages” with exaggerated bright lips and dead eyes, in order to ease their conscience about raping them and sending them to death for a war that was not theirs. The message these caricatures would send was something like “Look at their faces, these people are monkeys with no brains, who cares about them”. It’s 2007, when I see that images like this are still being made, it feels very much like a slap in the face, a denial of the pain that many black families have gone through. No, it’s not about self-parody or “taking something historically negative and turning it into something positive”, or “encouraging eht nical diversity in fashion”. This picture is just plainly insulting for any person of african descent with a minimum of knowledge about the history of black people. And it’s NOT up to art directors or to non-black people to decide for us that certain ways of representing us are suddenly ok and “iro nic”.
I am aware that AA did not produce this picture, but I think they should have protested against it and should definitely not be using it in their newsletters AT ALL. And I’m never ever again in my life going to buy an i-D mag.
To thisPosted by: Intern 4 Life 8/15/2007 11:17To F.U. – I revel in this ad! AA fashion is encouraging a diversity of beauty and artistic expression, breaking the mold of typical Romanesque anorexic models, bridging cultures while generating a new standard of fashion. Yes, I am reveling in it! This shot would not have worked with any other brand, not A&F, not Gap, not Urban Outfitters. Try to look beyond your childish emotions and see what the pic represents – its not blackface just because her face is BLACK! his shot does the opposite of blackface, it promotes, not degrades, the essence of black beauty. PEACE!
I am intrigued, is it a subtle stunt to generate publicity and debate for American Apparel or does it signal something deep inside the
U.S. psyche?