Tuesday, February 2, 2010

... people looking for racism when it isn't there?

Shine's Joanna Douglas is at it again.

This isn't the first time Ms. Douglas has written an article indicating that she really wants to see racism where, in fact, there is none. (I'm thinking of the ridiculous piece she wrote in which she mislabeled Vogue's spread of a white model in varying shades of dark and light body makeup as "blackface" and said that "it could ... be considered racist". Yes, it could, if the person considering it had some sort of agenda, or weren't thinking too clearly.)

So Ms. Douglas, please stop. It's not always about racism. You can't judge everything through that lens.

Ms. Douglas said it best herself: "Vanity Fair may have been looking for the most promising batch of talent for their issue, but they should have been looking for a diverse group of women as well." The point is, she's missing the point. It's not a spread about a diverse group of women; it's a spread of the most promising batch of talent. If Vanity Fair doesn't think that there are any non-white actresses who deserve to be included in that group (and as some posters have pointed out, maybe there aren't any of the same caliber as those pictured on the cover), then it shouldn't change the criteria it is using just for the sake of including some.

People know when they're being included because of their talents and they know when they're being included because of their race. The latter isn't a positive thing. Expecting less of people because they're not white -- what George W. Bush, in a rare fit of eloquence (ok, his speechwriter wrote it), referred to as "the soft bigotry of low expectations" -- achieves inclusiveness in the short run, at the cost of high standards and to the detriment of those being patronized.

And once again, Ms. Douglas: please stop the race-baiting. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes dark body makeup is just dark body makeup, and sometimes a bunch of upcoming stars who happen to be white is just a bunch of upcoming stars who happen to be white.