Feb 4, 2010 01:00 PM
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New York, 3:29 AM
Sat Jul 31
48 posts in the last 24 hours
After we and Yahoo's Shine site (among others) criticized the lack of diversity in Vanity Fair's "Young Hollywood" issue, Internet commenters helpfully stepped up to remind us that Vanity Fair is for white people, and we'd better just accept it.
Shine's post from Tuesday currently has over 18,000 comments, most of them angry that writer Joanna Douglas would even think to criticize VF. Commenter Jason S kills two birds with one stone: "Mandatory race in EVERYTHING... is just retarded." But most of Douglas's critics appeared to be making the time-honored "double standard" argument, implying that criticisms of racial discrimination are inadmissible because of some notional discrimination against white people that said whites must notionally suffer in silence. Amber Tue says:
OK, so I want to know something. Why is it when there is all white people on the cover, the magazine is being racists, but, when there is no white people involved, you cant say anything? Isn't this called double standards and I get pretty tired of seeing that.
Boy, I can see why she would be tired of all those "Young Hollywood" spreads that only feature actors of color. Oh wait — as Dodai pointed out, Hollywood itself is so white-dominated that it would be hard to even put together such a spread. At a loss for examples of supposed discrimination against whites, commenters took aim at magazines geared to people of color. Says a commenter who goes by "tired of the nonsense.......,"
I've often thought Ebony magazine lacked a certain diversity. Latina magazine is not doing so hot there either.....
Commenter Douglas concurs:
Fair fair, Does NAACP publications show white folks or anyone other than their ethnicity? Do Latino mags show other than their own either?
Of course, here commenters are referencing publications created for specific racial groups, often in response to the total underrepresentation of said groups in places like Vanity Fair. But according to several wise thinkers, the latter really isn't a problem. Says stumper13,
wait a minute! who says there has to be a black, hispanic, asian or ne other race? they own the mag?
ever seen ebony put a white n their mag?
grow up people!
See, black people have "their mag" and white people have theirs (coincidentally, the one that gets to claim to be "mainstream"). Separate but equal! And if we hadn't gotten the message clearly enough, a "tipster" emailed it to us:
You need to get over yourself,maybe we don`t want to see fat ugly black women on the cover,maybe white people want to see pretty young white girls on OUR covers.Don`t force it !
It's disturbing enough that Vanity Fair, Hollywood, and mainstream celebrity culture in general are still overwhelmingly white — but truly terrifying that so many are willing to come out in support of keeping it that way. And not all of them are anonymous internet trolls: the guy who creepily defended "pretty young white girls on OUR covers" actually gave us his name. All of which just goes to show that when you start thinking most racism is subconscious these days, or that at least people are embarrassed about it, some assholes go and prove you wrong. Also, racists have bad grammar.
Vanity Fair's "New Hollywood" Issue Completely Lacks Diversity [Shine]
Earlier: "Young Hollywood" Is White, Thin
Send an email to Anna North, the author of this post, at annanorth@jezebel.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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