High-fashion models in blackface, that is.
Well, it’s one model, actually, and it’s causing quite a stir. Kate Moss was recast as a Black woman for the cover of the Independent in Britain. The paper was doing a special issue on the struggle of African woman. Here’s how it starts:
It was still dark, not yet 4am. But outside Letenk’iel was moving already, rekindling the fire from the overnight embers. Inside the mud-walled hut, her husband Gebremariam coughed. Then as the first birds were heard, he swung his legs over the side of a bed made from rough rope strung across a wooden frame. He stood in the doorway and stretched. His wife was already at her morning chores.
As the cold dawn light suffused the sky she sprinkled water from a squat earthenware jar across the mud floor and began to sweep the dampened earth with a brush of long grasses bound tightly together. The day had begun.
Later, after the narrative, which reveals the life of African women (not Kate Moss) as laborious, deprived, and unsanitary, come the numbers. Here’s a selection:
Women: A world apart
Life expectancy
Africa: 46
UK: 80
Chance of a girl going to primary school
Africa: 60 %
UK: 100 %
Minutes worked per day
Africa: 590*
UK: 413
Female literacy
Africa: 53.2%
UK: 99.9%
As usual, Africa is undifferentiated; west, north, south, central, east — all nations are lumped together as one. The numbers citing the plight of the continent are equally sloppy: they are presented as “Africa”, and compared with a single country — “U.K.” I imagine that if they were recalculated to include all of Europe, including the former Iron Curtain countries, they would tell a different story; but no one is talking about that. We’re all focussed on the blackface.
At least one paper (The Guardian) reacted with the kind of outrage that is appropriate: here’s what Hannah Pool & Tomi Ajayi of that paper had to say.
What exactly is this picture of Moss-as-African-woman supposed to portray? I suppose it is meant to be subversive, but what does it say about race today when a quality newspaper decides that its readers will only relate to Africa through a blacked-up white model rather than a real-life black woman? What does it say about the fight against HIV/Aids if that is the only way to make us care? And, as a black woman (born that way), what does this trick say about me?
…
Blacking up has become acceptable in the same way that pole dancing is now sold to women as an empowering thing to do. Both assume that the thing they are poking fun at no longer exists – ie discrimination, racism and sexism. But of course they are wrong. If blacking up existed in a society where racism was not an issue, then it would not be such a problem. But then it would also lose its power to shock. After all, what is so shocking about a white person being made to look black if black and white are equal?
And is it really so hard to relate to those who are different from us? I’m not from Iraq, but I don’t have to dress up as an Iraqi war widow to care about what goes on there. As Robert Bianco wrote of the American TV show Black. White, in which two families did a “race-swap” for six weeks: “Black. White is based on two false premises, one more pernicious than the other: that you can understand someone of a different race simply by putting on makeup, and that you need that kind of understanding in order to treat people as the law and morality.”
And you know, there really are black women who could have done this job. Next time a photograph of an African woman is needed, they should call on Iman. Call on Alek Wek. Call on one of any number of black girls you can see on the street. Call on me.
What concerns me, however, is a little different. The dressing of Kate Moss in blackface and placing her on the cover is not the issue; it is a symptom of the problem, and not the problem itself. Global racism is institutional, and it is far deeper and more immutable than the aesthetic choices made for a magazine cover suggest. Its roots lie in science itself, in the misinterpretation and misapplication of nineteenth century speculation about evolution, in the wholesale adoption of those theories in the construction of a global power structure. The empires of Europe may have been dismantled, but the ideas that undergirded them still remain. The concept of social Darwinism may have been debunked, but its effects continue to shape what we understand as “civilization”, particularly in Europe, which perfected these ideas. Africa is still a lump, a “dark” continent, an outline in a sea, a source of raw material for others’ riches, and all the complexities and challenges of its daily life are smudged by that very charcoal.
The thing is, the world is interconnected. Western wealth, politics and social advancement have deep roots in the exploitation of the third world, and especially in Africa, whose continent continues to supply megacorporations with the most lucrative minerals — oil, gold, diamonds, and so on — to the detriment of its people. The fact that Letenk’iel is still living as her ancestors did — or probably worse than they did, and in more poverty, as the European occupation of that continent disrupted communities and economies with as much efficiency as a Nazi camp, but more silently — is not coincidental to the fact that a major British newspaper paid a white supermodel, a photographer, and a series of special-effects staff megamoney to make a European woman look African. It is connected by a series of old and powerful inequalities that continue today.
{ 12 comments }
Hi Nico:
I found this statement interesting:
“Western wealth, politics and social advancement have deep roots in the exploitation of the third world, and especially in Africa, whose continent continues to supply megacorporations with the most lucrative minerals — oil, gold, diamonds, and so on — to the detriment of its people.”
Africa has been “free” for over 50 years. As guilty as the megacorporatons might be, what responsibility do the African leaders bear at this stage for their not so inspiring leadership and exploitation?
Some responsibility for sure, Rick, but blaming the state of a whole continent on the corruption of a generation and half of leaders is a little facile. After all, it’s not as though Europe and North America haven’t had their share of corrupt leaders throughout their histories, whether they be local or national; most of the monarchies and tyrannies in Europe’s past have been as corrupt and cruel as current African leaderships. There is another fundamental difference that prevents “development” from happening in Africa, and it’s that African “development” does not fit the interests of the businesses that rely on African raw materials for their wealth.
My point is this. “Africa” is a continent made up many different countries and leaderships. Some nations have done fine, with stable economies and political systems, but no one seems to talk about them — Botswana is one, Cote d’Ivoire another, Ghana, Swaziland. If we’re talking about the corruption of leaderships, we ought not to leave out the colonial leaderships that controlled the former Rhodesia or the Congo (among others), who tended to regard the entire territory they controlled as their personal wealth factories, and the people that lived their their own slaves.
Before colonialism, Africa was inhabited by any number of self-governing nations. Some of them were entire kingdoms and empires of their own. It’s equally facile to glory in a romanticized past full of royalties and the like, but the truth is that precolonial Africa, like precolonial America (north to south), had its own societies which were intact and functioned fine with no more than the usual amount of corruption. What European imperial expansion did was to reconstruct the entire continent, creating artificial separations between kingdoms and people that remain today, and turn a self-sufficient economy into one that was designed to channel raw materials into the hands of European businesses and businessmen.
What African leaders have inherited is just that. Many of them also inherited (unlike India, for instance, or the Caribbean even) rudimentary infrastructures; the possession of the African empire came after the need for colonial settlement, and was almost purely a question of grabbing territories rich in minerals like gold, diamonds and oil — the numerous unnatural straight-line borders dividing the “nations” are testimony to that fact. The brief period of colonial rule had also destroyed, in most cases, the local systems of government, either turning the traditional rulers into puppets of the colonial masters, or deposing them (as happened in Rwanda) and putting subordinates in place. The result of decolonization was not “freedom” in many instances, but chaos. It is into this setting that many African leaders stepped, attempting to hold together societies that were historically at odds with one another (the Yoruba and the Igbo in Nigeria, for instance, had originally been neighbouring empires, with the result that shortly after Independence Nigeria erupted into civil war — rather as India did just before its own independence). Corruption is rampant, to be sure, but it is only a small part of the puzzle.
One of the biggest problems is the inability or the unwillingness of the rest of the world to understand that “Africa” is a collection of many different countries with unique histories, and that lumping them together continues the problem without beginning to address it.
Thanks Nicolette:
It is not my intention to downplay what the Europeans et al did in Africa. A lot of it was disgraceful.
I have read enough about Africa to understand the tribal nuances you describe.
My point is we keep dredging up all this stuff and it is used as a crutch to describe why the people there can’t get out of the pit they are in.
What prevents the African leaders meeting to resolve their boundary issues if it is such a problem? There has to be a way forward rather than continual hand wringing??? The
African’s now have to solve their issues together, don’t you think?
Do you think it might be that the African leaders don’t want to give up their feifdoms? Not unlike those Europeans and megacorporations wouldn’t you say?
By the way, you might also enjoy this post over at iPinions Journal: http://www.theipinionsjournal.com/2006/09/good-news-friday-gods-intelligent.html
Rick, thanks for the link.
No politician wants to give up their fiefdom. The problem is as fundamental as the fact that half of Mexico is still part of the USA (and not that much older than some of the African nations, either).
And why should Africans have to solve their issues together? They live in different countries and come from different ancestral traditions; why should they be any more predisposed to talking peacibly to one another than we are to Haiti or the Serbs were to the Croats?
“Africa”‘s issues are not special. They are completely predictable, given the circumstances out of which the countries in that continent arose. “African” leaders are hardly more corrupt than any other leaders (after all, power corrupts), but they have more room in which to exercise their corruption, often having more power than other leaders, thanks to (a) the fragmented infrastructures they inherited in their nations and (b) the riches their nations have to offer, making them ripe to be corrupted by others.
The solutions to the problems that plague the continent of Africa are not special. The “plight” of Africa is not special. Given the same circumstances, any other continent might find itself in the same plight. To assume it is unique springs from the idea, which remains fundamental to many philosophies, that Africa and Africans are different from everybody else — less “evolved”, less “civilized”, more “savage” and more “primitive” than other human beings. And not to question that idea perpetuates the racism on which the modern western economy was built.
IMHO, of course.
I fully agree “given the same circumstances, any other continent might find itself in the same plight.” It has nothing to do with those that believe Africans are “less “evolvedâ€, less “civilizedâ€, more “savage†and more “primitive†than other human beings” in my opinion.
That is obviously not the case.
It has to do with the choices being made there today.
They must change many of the economic models like other countries have done over the years.
Where in the world was more “backward” if you will than Singapore?
How do you propose “fixing” Africa?
Singapore’s a single country. Africa’s a continent. How to “fix” it?
One problem at a time.
Oh really? I didn’t know Africa’s continent
Let me restate The countries on the continent of Africa can start by reforming their economic models.
Agree?
This op-ed by Dr. Milton friedman about how Hong Kong was so successful (although he points out this is chganging) might be a useful policy for some of the African States to consider.
Hong Kong’s growth was remarkable adn it was accomplished with none of the resources the African States have at their disposal.
Sorry I forgot the url for the op-ed: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009051
Rick, I don’t know whether the kind of economic reform that worked for Hong Kong would work for every African nation. The difference is that Africa does have huge mineral resources (unlike many “developing” countries that have done well economically, like Hong Kong or Singapore or even the Atlantic triumvirate of Bermuda, Bahamas and Cayman). The idea that African leaders will ever be left alone by multinationals to make their own economic choices to solve their problems is to my mind far-fetched. I expect that small nations that have relatively little to offer such multinationals (Botswana comes to mind) are more likely to find economic success than others — and in fact Botswana has done just that.
I don’t believe that what works for one must work for all. That is how communism — a very laudable idea in theory — ultimately failed, and why the enforced “development” policies of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s resulted in far more misery than was intended. And in a world whose economy is intertwined, and in which all humans are greedy alike, I don’t see any solution as being simple.
Nicolette – I think it is just as much a mistake to lump all “multinationals” together as it is to lump all “Africans” together. Some corporations behave responsibly; others don’t.
Believe it or not, the ISO 26000 standard for social responsibility addresses many of the concerns you raise. The notion that corporate behavior can be quantified, managed, and improved as if it were machine parts may seem odd at first. But why not? Consumers in developed countries demand their canned tuna be dolphin-safe. They can just as well demand their diamonds, chocolate, and gasoline come from companies that treat developing nations responsibly.
Here’s the link: http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink/fetch/2000/2122/830949/3934883/3935096/home.html?nodeid=4451259&vernum=0
For continuing updates on this and related subjects I would suggest subscribing to the free Public Policy Intelligence Report from http://www.stratfor.com. Unfortunately you can’t access their archive for free. Given your position in goverment, you might be able to get a premium subsription at a discount.
A recurring theme in Stratfor’s analysis is the shift in responsibility for social change away from governments and towards multinationals. In Stratfor’s view, this is not so much a good/bad thing as it is simply a function of multinationals’ better ability to effect change. NGOs recognize this and are changing their tactics accordingly.
If I can find an e-mail address for you on this blog, I will forward a couple of e-mails from Stratfor on conflict diamonds and poverty that you may find interesting.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Bob. Checked out the site. I will look at the possibility of subscriptions, but there is some limited access to information offered for free.
I’ve added a page that tells you how to contact me.
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