That’s wrong. Critics lampooned the Wayans brothers for what they did in White Chicks.

Of course it is! Unless it’s satire. If this is “satire”, then I don’t consider it offensive. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.

The main reason this is so controversial is not simply because of Black face’s political roots in American theatre, but also because of issues of representation. In the fashion industry, people of color – especially blacks – are at an immense disadvantage due to preferences for people with European features. In fact, a former model even noted from her experiences with a photographer, who claimed rather bluntly, that he was looking to photograph people of color who looked like “white people with their skin painted.” Sound familiar?

People of color who are selected sometimes get objectified by having them pose semi-naked, etc. in a group of fully clothed models, and that’s not the worst. Given the difficulty of being hired in general, the anger at this so-called shoot celebrating “diversity” is centered around the fact that they didn’t include a single person of color and have instead a presumably caucasian person posing as a person of color, a tactic that seems to be a popular trend if you take the dreck that Lara stone did last year, or that of Claudia Schiffer and similar models.

This problem extends beyond black models, as black figures like Tyra Banks and the rapper Diddy have also been criticized, and it continues to invite a question that many still have not answered: if they truly want to celebrate diversity, then why haven’t they hired models representing the “races” presented to the audience?

I have to agree with Dan’s post.