I can imagine this started out to replicate social media filters, but anyone involved with fashion shows should be aware of the recent fuck-ups at other shows (or anyone with a common sense filter really). To offer as an apology that everybody had been looking the other way is ridiculous.
I’m always surprised by Americans who assume that everyone in the world understands American racism. They don’t. Other countries have their own kinds of racism - it seems to be everywhere - but the American versions of white/black racism and its stereotypes are peculiar to the U.S.A.
So yes, the Chinese student may have not understood the racist buttons his ugly stuff was pushing - but the teachers and supervisors certainly did, and they’re the ones at fault for not explaining this clearly to the student, and preventing it from getting as far as it did. The black student who protested was trying to do this, but instead of being supported was apparently punished for trying to make up for the teachers’ gross deficits.
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Even if the student was unaware of the racial aspects of the masks, where the hell were the adults in the room? Why did no member of staff quietly take them aside and explain why there might be a problem? These
ugly-as-fuck bits of plastic weren’t whipped up in five minutes, so there was plenty of time to fix things before they caused so much upset and embarrassment.
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I assumed from surrounding context that it was the screamer, Richard Thornn. Or at the very least a little piece of worplace culture he’d disseminated.
I don’t think that’s true. Anti-black racism in the UK, for example, promotes most of the same stereotypes.
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Sure. It might not manifest in the same way in China as it does here? There might also be less awareness of it in China?
We do know such imagery is very much understood to be racist here and that if the designer was unaware, then the Americans they were working with should have informed them of that. Instead the African American model got yelled at by the American who helped to put the show together.
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Kinda looks like misogyny was the point of those accessories and racism was a bonus feature. Maybe if your industry is predicated on seeing women as animated clothes hangers, you miss other important things?
UK racism certainly promotes (and depends on) stereotypes, but I am not convinced they are the same as US.
Chinese anti-black racism certainly relies on some of the same animal imagery that you will find in the US and UK.
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Most racist tropes against Black people are rooted in intentional dehumanization; the idea being that slavery isn’t/wasn’t wrong if the people you enslave are less than human.
Such tropes are hundreds of years old, it’s the 21st freakin’ century and the internet is a thing; “we didn’t know” is a complete bullshit excuse, IMO.
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Reading the article I assumed it was this guy but we don’t know for sure. " Richard Thornn, the producer of the show, is reported to have “screamed” at a student who objected before the show and has more explaining to do."
Is that photo the model? She is gorgeous!
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Yep; her name is Amy Lefevre.
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The model informed them. They went ahead with it anyway.
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The designer was a student, and the professor or instructor should have shut this shit down before it got to the presentation part. Instead, he apparently shouted at the model who called it out as racist.
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Where do you see differences? The stereotype of the stupid/lazy/feckless/aggressive/criminal/hypersexual black person certainly seems common to both American and British varieties of racism.
Here’s an example: a British MP describing three random black men he happened to meet in the street as “minor gangsters”:
The men were, in fact, Irish musicians:
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I hope there’s no retaliation. One engineer at my previous employer did some modeling in NYC to help pay for her tuition while schooling there. She said models (at least then) were treated as mannequins who must follow orders.
A case when “artist” – sadly – becomes a pejorative.
Wow. Deep Space Nine got weird for a while.
Is the Daily Mail more vicious?
I can believe that Chinese racism is a very different beast than American racism. But US and UK racism have had huge cross-fertilization for decades. For example:
That’s a classic southern bit of racism that somehow made it’s way to a UK Tory in 2017. Little Britain did some sketches about “Minstrels” (that have not aged well [and were plenty iffy at the time]). Hell, people in other countries fly the confederate flag because they know they can’t fly a Nazi one.
America has huge cultural influence across the English-speaking world and beyond. A lot of countries share America’s flavour of racism, especially Canada and the US.
America has huge cultural reach across the
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