from shakesville, "racism fatigue"

[superblue]

"But we can't all see it in the Vogue cover. So when we start talking about the Vogue cover as part of a long tradition of racist imagery that casts African-American men as aggressive apes, we get a much more useful conversation going. Instead of just a bunch of white liberals saying, "That's horrible!" and a bunch of white supremacists saying, "No

Comments

[fluxions]

Thanks for sharing the link to that essay. I love it when people are much more articulate than I am.

[superblue]

me too. i just was like yes yes yes on the whole thing.

[implicate]

that is awesome. thanks for sharing. is harding a guest-writer on that blog? i've never read shakesville & just know her from her FA work.

[superblue]

she blogs there quite often. she's a regular contributor i believe.

[implicate]

right on. i got your mail the other day by the way. i'm gonna send you something soon. ♥

[sweetchastity]

they put miss jay on paris vogue with a well-known model...i forget which one.

i totally missed the racist slant to the cover. my first thought was "oh cool, lebron james is on the cover of vogue, how edgy and different...nice"

then i thought "hey they are copying paris vogue"

then i thought "i wonder if they're trying to do a 'beauty/beast' contrast thing"

it only crossed my mind as racist until white people started calling it racist - which makes me wonder if white people calling it racist is just another example of them being racist, because they can't believe that a black male athlete can have positive notoriety outside of sports and music (unless they're gay).

just wondering...

[superblue]

i really don't know. i didn't see it as immediately racist, but the picture comparison is what really convinced me. and knowing the racial overtones of king kong just kind of put it over the "just what the hell are they trying to say" threshold for me personally.

i never saw the cover with miss jay on it. what was the article attached to it about?