So that went so well and now of course I am sorry I responded, especially in my casual this is the email I wrote manner. This response is probably why I was the only blogger to respond. Of course, no one bothers to respond to what Ari said who frankly knows more about fashion, race, class, products, and marketing than all of us put together.
Ugh. I never should have replied to what was obviously a ploy to guilt the “white girl”. Here’s what Phil my white male oppressing counterpart has to say expanding on my point:
This is a fair point, but if you step back and look at the problem through a wider lens, it’s apparent that racial stereotyping is only a small symptom of the much broader problem of female objectification. You can flip through the pages of Vogue and see women of all colors posed, painted, planted and just generally made up to be objects designed to elicit particular desires. These images are, in fact, not
inadvertently racist but are carefully crafted to promote consumption of particular products by particular people.
Aha! Misogyny… He’s the one you’re after! I think I would prefer geisha or warrior to blonde bimbo or Stepford wife anyday. At least in one of them I get to kick the crap out of my mate. You win some and you lose some when you have to deal with penises.
Also, in dealing with brands, the fact that they’re not inclusionary does not mean that they’re being exclusionary. It’s called “positioning”.
UPDATED And for those of you are aren’t good at things being tongue in cheek go check out the comment thread on Real Men Are Not. I stand by everything Phil says and then some. The blogger is upset with me for not addressing the other issues Carmen wrote about like fetishization. Well, I didn’t write about that because it doesn’t interest me that much as a topic because the penis is still a mystery to us all. Fashion fetishizes women. Sorry, it’s nothing personal and it is the downside of the industry that makes us all unhappy.
However, economics, markets, brand positioning, sourcing, and sociology are the larger issues at play.
My post merely pointed out that Carmen’s perceptions of racism in fashion are a minor symptom of a broader disease and I’m disappointed that instead of talking about the issues in any substantive manner people are content to throw around conspiracy theories about “coded language� and male guilt.
Racism in fashion mirrors racism in the real world because it’s *market driven*. Dealing with it in isolation won’t help anyone get anywhere, and it’s frustrating to see all of this discussion about *nothing*. Julie’s post was about class – crass people of all shades Chavs, poor black kids, gotti boys, whatever are ALL BAD FOR LUXURY BRAND POSITIONING. She’s sorry about *responding* to the bullshit people throw on her style and ignoring the substance of the post. *That* is the regret. These comments read like no one has bothered to read either her post or picked up a fashion magazine in the last decade.
I went through W, cataloged the spreads, and came to a different conclusion based on DATA AND EXPERIENCE. The magazines are published this way, too, with an EXACTING PORTRAIT OF THEIR READERSHIP and sell editorial spreads and advertisements accordingly. If you don’t see anything for your particular skin tone, you’re probably just off the grid – or simply illiterate, actually, because at a PR event today I saw a number of editors and beauty experts of SEVERAL RACES experimenting with cosmetics for different skin tones. These people were Julie’s friends and colleagues, by the way.
God forbid you listen to the actual practitioners over the “race is our platform for angst� commentators over on the thread. Legitimate grievances or not, they’ve dealt with the conversation in an extremely offputting matter and I can’t blame her for opting out of the flames.
Also want proof that it is all gridded out ahead of time and really it is nothing personal? If you can’t figure out the many layers of this ad then it probably isn’t worth your time whining about it.
Damn it!I had a reply ready to go and since I forgot to put in the email I lost it all.Lets try this again.
I read your view and Carmen’s.I agree with both of your views and disagree with others.Nobody (at least I) don’t think you’re a honkey white bitch.Since the topic IS partly race, a lot of people have strong views and things get pretty heated quickly.And they make assumptions about people, like some of the people who posted replies here, and at MMW.Hell I’m guilty of it too.
“Ugh. I never should have replied to what was obviously a ploy to guilt the “white girlâ€?.”
That I don’t agree with but that’s just me.You sound like she went out of her way to find white women to guilt trip.If she started calling you and “white opressor” or “honky bitch” then maybe
Mysogeny?What’s that?
I think Carmen is doing her best to start dialogue but I can’t say that her commentors are
Okay, you know, I think it’s really that some people do not know how to dialogue about race. Some of us are really passionate about it and others are scared to death it seems to have an in-depth, potentially transformative discussion about it (even if it is over the internet, lol). Those of us who dig it forget that we can’t always have these convos with everyone. What’s scary to some is exciting and interesting for the rest of us.
But did you even bother to really read and think about some of the comments people left? It’s about trying to let you in on a sliver of what it means to NOT be a white girl/woman in a world where white is the standard and where white people constantly categorize and describe us. Sure there are other factors besides race that play a role, but only someone truly out of it thinks race is minor.
It’s clear your uncomfortable since you decided to fall back on playing the race card with that line about “ploy to guilt the “white girl.â€?
LOL! No one is out to get you, it’s just that sometimes we get tired of teaching otherwise smart people Racism 101 in 2006.
As a young professional black woman, I expect my white friends/peers/colleagues to have more than a clue about the experiences of women of color and the way the world operates with us in it. And when they don’t, it’s disappointing and tiring and there’s almost no excuse for it nowadays, in my opinion.
Anyways, I’m glad you responded to Carmen’s piece. Don’t be sorry at all. You can never be afraid to hang yourself with your own words as a writer (as an esteemed black author once put it). You may not know it yet, but you learned something!
Peace
I don’t think you are racist or a bitch. Many people do feel passionate about race for different reasons. Words are powerful and bring out our differences, and that’s ok. After all, this is the site where “Plato meets Prada”.
Yes well people like gatamala left some fairly disturbing comments calling me both racist and classist and accused me of raining vitriol on people of color. Unhuh, yep that’s me! Also when people say my subconscious translates this post into racism well I gotta say I am not wild about the dialogue. I say what I mean so don’t get all Freudian on me.
I wrote a half formed email to Carmen, she wanted to know if she could post the email I said eh I will just post it myself and then it all comes down.
I appreciate what Joy Princess has to say but I will say that I don’t feel that my experiences or those of my “black friends” (because you know I think of them that way, eh) are that wildly different. What defines us is our interest, passions, and experiences. I don’t feel like I need racism 101. Frankly if anything living on the South Side of Chicago gave me plenty of it. Now I just want to appreciate my friends for who they are. If they have negative experiences because of race well it is my job to not further that negative experience but rather enjoy them for them.
If you prefer that I define you via your race OK your call but I don’t think that is helping anyone.
Julie,
I have to say I’m rather taken aback by your follow-up post.
Correct me if you feel differently, but I have been nothing but friendly, polite and respectful in all of my correspondence with you. Yes, I did critique the arguments you put forth in your post but I did it in a respectful manner and nowhere did I engage in any ad hominem attacks.
I just went back and re-read my first email to you. I don’t see how it is at all “obviously a ploy to guilt the ‘white girl.’” I was simply reaching out to you as a fellow blogger, as many bloggers have done to me, and as I have done to many other bloggers. Isn’t that the point of blogs and other forms of social media? To build relationships and open up dialogue?
Given that you are so analytical on your blog and you talk a lot about the shortcomings of mainstream fashion media, I reached out to you because I thought that as an independent thinker, you would have some interesting thoughts on the issues I brought up. I was expecting to hear what you thought of the New York Times piece and the Prada spokesperson’s comments.
I also thought you might have some things to say about other stuff related to fashion and race: the kind of imagery used in fashion editorial and advertising, the use of non-white models and how they often seem to be cast purely for their “shocking” contrast to white models (like the 80s era Benetton ads that continue to influence current ad imagery, see the new Sony PSP hoopla for that), the extensive cultural appropriation that fashion designers engage in, the fact that newsstand sales slump by 50% anytime a mainstream magazine puts a black woman on the cover — even an A-lister like Halle Berry, etc.
What I was not expecting, however, was for you to completely dismiss these concerns by redirecting the conversation towards class and to paint a picture of Mixed Media Watch’s readers as irrational whiners (”hyperbolic comments about white men raping and pillaging colored women”).
I’m disappointed that you appear to be just as reluctant to acknowledge issues surrounding race as mainstream media people.
“This response is probably why I was the only blogger to respond.”
I really don’t appreciate the fact that you’ve cast me as some kind of race-baiting attention-seeker. In my original post I critiqued specific examples in the fashion industry that I perceived as racist — I wasn’t baiting you or any other fashion bloggers by making personal attacks and accusing **you** of racism. I was opening up a thread of discussion and inviting you all to weigh in — as people in and around the industry.
Again — this is the point of social media: to create relationships where none might exist in the offline world and to open up dialogue.
Also, by referring to yourself as “a honky bitch” you seem to be implying that I am a reverse racist. Is there anything I have written in any of my emails to you or my posts that suggests this?
I am saddened because no one wanted to talk about the issues as I framed them but only wished to critizes me for not framing them as you had. You have been nothing but friendly, polite, and respectful and I appreciate you taking the time to reach out to fashion bloggers like myself.
It is your readers and the various people that have left comments calling me racist and clssist that I don’t appreciate. Sending people over to leave comments on my site that then decided I was vitriolic and racist isn’t something I particularly appreciate.
As Phil said many of these people appear to be “race is my excuse for angst” types which doesn’t further the dialogue.
I didn’t address the issue of festishizing women because I feel it is one for all of fashion and not one particularly for race and thus it wasn’t as compelling to me as brand positioning and class. I wasn’t redirecting the conversation because I was ignoring the issues but rather because I felt the real issues were economics and not psychological in nature.
If you talk about race in isolation you are not going to solve problems and people are very reluctant to admit that there is some other force at place.
“I was expecting to hear what you thought of the New York Times piece and the Prada spokesperson’s comments”
Well you didn’t and I don’t understand why this is so problematic. This is an old news story! It really isn’t that compelling for most people and for much of the time on this blog as is my wont I talk about brand positioning, marketing, and products because I believe fundamentally that economics and industry practitioners are the major agents for change. I am a libertarian and don’t believe in social policies and bellyaching but change that occurs through market forces. Why it is so difficult to understand that magazines are in this to make money and that things are gridded out ahead of time and it isn’t personal. There are magazines for niches and subgroups, I happen to run one, and thus I believe that you shouldn’t expect the mass market to cater to you. That is not it’s job.
*Also people are pissed at me for saying colored people. What the hell term do you want me to use? I never know what is politically correct or not. I don’t keep up with that agenda.
One more thing.
“Aha! Misogyny… He’s the one you’re after!”
You’re implying that I’m just looking for someone to blame (aka white people or “The Man”) and that I enjoy marinating in my own victimhood. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Mixed Media Watch is all about pointing out racist stereotypes and debunking them. If you take even a casual look through the blog, you’ll see that we are just as critical of non-whites who perpetuate stereotypes.
Racism is not just about the white man oppressing everybody else. Racism persists through an intricate web of inter-group and intra-group oppression and privilege. We all have a hand in it.
Carmen, I think Julie was directing that towards the commentators. You’ve been nothing but constructive, whereas others on that thread made it impossible to have a civil discussion.
Thanks Phil, I can’t keep saying it over and over.
Racism is a sympton of our economic structure and if we instead insist on poking at issues of race while ignoring economic, class and institutional barriers then we will get NO WHERE. Until people want to discuss this in a reasonable manner the discussion is closed.
“Why it is so difficult to understand that magazines are in this to make money…”
Thank you! As you said, racism is a symptom of our economic structure. Magazines simply cater to those symptoms. Whether they are immoral, heartless entities for doing so is an entirely different conversation…
Hi Julie:you know I lova ya girl and while I do think some posters shredded you unfairly, I think that happened because you took a fairly flippant tone on a very deep topic–racism–that isn’t easily figured out, and, additionally, is one whose existence has caused many people deep levels of hurt and challenge. One thing for sure, there’s much more to racism than just economics. Just ask the black professionals who knows his money and degrees don’t make a difference to the cop who profiles them based on their skin color,
As for your libertarian outlook, there have been moments in our history where legislation has made a BIG difference in the lives of minorities, including women who got the right to vote not by getting richer, but by agitating for legislation. Those in power don’t always act just based on the bottom line, a lot of time their actions are based on maintaining social systems that are advantageous to them for more reasons than just money.
And while magazines may be all business, I do believe that their perspectives can often be painfully narrow because they do tend to be dominated by white folks. Seriously, you can’t tell me that if a black woman were e-i-c of Vogue, it would look the same as it does today. And while it might not look vastly different, I think it would have a wider lens (which, actually, might make me want to renew my subscription!)
As for the original discussion on lux brands not wanting to be associated with street cultures, eh, I don’t think it’s that cut and dry anymore. For example, Pharrell, who, while not exactly an uber-thug, does like to project a street wise image, just get signed to Vuitton.
p.s. I came over here cause I put up a post in respone to the interview you did with the street label girl. Sorry, can’t remember her name.
Lois,
I in part agree with you. I still believe that market forces inherently prevail because in the end the people with the real power are the participants in any given culture that contribute and push for their own desires. I don’t believe that political lobbying holds the same kind of power now that the most grievious of institional barriers have been eliminated. You cannot legislate people’s feelings, it has to be carefully taught.
As to Pharrell-it has not been something that worked very well for LVMH because of another form of discrimination: homophobia
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/431747p-363859c.html
“The singer was slated to be the face of Vuitton’s fall advertising. But he had a “fag-wa” called against him after his heavies bounced a bevy of influential gay fashionistas (including Elton John’s hubby, David Furnish, and Burberry designer Christopher Bailey) out of his VIP lounge at a GQ magazine party, telling them there was “too much sausage” in the room.
Now Vuitton reps are calling around, “taking the temperature” of the bad press he generated, says an insider, and are mulling whether to pull the campaign.”
Heh–a fag-wa. Too funny. Still, were they bounced for being gay or for having a penis? That’s not clear. No matter! I guess Pharrell has learned that you do not mess with Elton’s husband! That would be akin to hosting a Republican fundraiser and kicking out Bush’s daughter cause her skirt was inappropriate. Not a smooth move!
Well we’ll see if they pull the campaign. I’ll bet they won’t. But even if Pharrel’s issue wasn’t the gay guys in the room, homophobia in the world of hiphop is a horrible problem. Though honestly, I’ve seen some improvement over the past year or so, ever since Kanye spoke up about the issue. All of these artists work with gay stylists, makeup artists, who are very often out of the closet, so to then slam them in their lyrics is horribly hypocritical.
[...] RANT The coded ways people talk about race without appearing to talk about race is the subject of Carmen’s rant today. For more on this topic, check out Ally Work’s post with excerpts from Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Paul Kivel. To see the correspondence that sparked this rant, see here, here, here and here. [...]
a bit off topic but isn’t the statement that fashion fetishises women a bit of a contradiction in terms? isn’t fetishisation what happens when you transfer the sexual impulse to an object other than the human form?
fashion(sometimes) creates idealised and unnatural depictions of women, but what carmen was getting at is that these women are not being looked at as women in the same way as white women, that they are being viewed in a stereotypical way which is symptomatic of the larger problem of racism, which is looking at people only as ethnic oddities and not as individual people.
anyway, i would have agreed with your first post on the subject (where you shifted the issue to class) if i hadn’t read carmen’s post first. for you to put up a post where you encourage people to talk about racism, then in a post where you are asked to talk about it dismiss it completely, is a bit hypocritical. the point of talking about racism is not to catch out secret racists, but to realise that we ourselves have some questionable assumptions. the comments you made which carmen identified (correctly, i think) as coded racism and patronising classism don’t make you into a member of the kkk in training. they just mean you should go back and rethink some of what you said.
i agree that some of the comments on this subject have been rant-like, but that’s just what happens when people who have little experience others write about subjects they are passionate about. it’s the internet.
[...] RANT The coded ways people talk about race without appearing to talk about race is the subject of Carmen’s rant today. For more on this topic, check out Ally Work’s post with excerpts from Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Paul Kivel. To see the correspondence that sparked this rant, see here, here, here and here. [...]