1) Aspirationalism--the idea that folks with fair skin are wealthy and therefore admirable, because they don't have to work in the sun and/or can afford products that minimize the effects of the sun.

2) Colonialism--I imagine that when pale people colonized places that were traditionally inhabited by people with darker skin, there were a variety of reactions. One in particular that interests me is post-colonial India, after British rule. There's this whole whole idea that conventionally fair European features are somehow "attractive"--maybe because for hundreds of years, they were the guys with all the money and power and status.

3. Youth - children tend to (on average) have fairer complexions when they're very young.

Whenever I look at ads for fashion/beauty treatments in East Asian and Indian supermarkets, I'm always curious at how Caucasian the models seem to be. I don't think this "fetish" was around forever--it's probably more culturally constructed from Western influences.

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"And agent Carole White, co-founder of Premier Model Management, has admitted that finding work for black clients is harder than for white models. 'Sadly we're in the business where you stock your shelves with what sells. According to the magazines, black models don't sell. We have had casting briefs which say "no ethnics",' she says."

Now what I anticipate is that you will maintain that "ethnic" should not be confined to "black", and was not here. And I will agree.

But what I will extrapolate, quite reasonably I would submit, is that the darker the combination of skin tone, hair color, and eye color, the more likely it is that the model would be excluded from consideration - which still means that your green eyed red haired Caucasian model would secure work under these circumstances that someone with Ms. Wek's skintone would not.

So there's your "disingenous" for you.

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I would also submit that these particular quotes are very much in context.

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ps I meant shouldn't be taken out of context.

Also I have to go out now, so sorry if I miss a valid response. As I said you are right and I retract the initial comment but I hold to the arugment that I believe the post would be stronger if it included the bit you highlighted in the main body of the text.

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"no that's utterly fair enough and I retract my point"

Plus if it were the only point you were really making I hardly think you would have had a reason to retract it.

Do we really need to go on?

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The article says:

"Carole White, the founder of Premier Model Management, said: "In a time of recession, people want to play it safe with blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls.

"It's very much the case at the moment that everyone plays it safe and I think it will get worse in the recession. People don't step out of line."

I'm starting to wonder what it was you actually read.

Are you arguing that the conclusion Dodai drew is not a reasonable one because the quote is not specifically what you claim it was (which I don't believe is what our Jezebel author asserts here in the first place)?

Are you really?

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Initially I felt that the piece was a conflation of two points and that the first quote didn't specifically state what Dodai stated it did.

And I felt that while the implication was there that without a stronger quote it was damning White without fair evidence.

However as I have then stated I hadn't actually read the whole piece (yes I accept this makes me both stupid and lazy). I still think that the second quote by White is the stronger one and should have been highlighted but I accept that this is probably only to prevent lazy people such as myself making snap comments which they can't then justify.

I really didn't think that the quote used was that strong, I thought it was a stupid quote from White but not the quote that the headline on this post suggested it would be.

And that was all I really wanted to draw attention to because I feel that too often in blogs and papers the headlines write a story that the quotes don't justify. In this case there was of course a quote that backed the headline up and so I don't have a leg to stand on because I didn't click on the link.

But really I was trying to make a point about journalism here rather than about race or discrimination, the problem is that I made it extremely badly and was starting from an incorrect premise due to my own desire to shoot my mouth off first rather than reading the actual full piece.

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Because if they were, this statement of yours

"Plus there are all kinds of gradations for white - my family is half Portuguese/half Irish for example. White in European terms definitely but olive skinned, I doubt my colouring is what they want either if they're looking for a traditional blue-eyed blonde.

would have been unnecessary to include because of its complete irrelevance to your alleged points on journalism.

Yet you insisted on this latter assertion's central premise not once, but twice.

In the long, possibly endless, debate on LJ on cultural appropriation there's a theory that majority "Caucasian progressives" of whatever nationality - although the assumption set appears to predominate among the Americans, Canadians, British, English, and Australian - will defend to the death, metaphorically speaking any arguably racist action on the grounds that "they didn't mean it that way."

Setting aside for clarity's sake any arguments on negligent versus intentional injury, there's been a theory propounded that in these people's minds, based on their progressive upbringing, that "racist action" = "bad person" and since they're "good people", they couldn't possibly, EVER, commit any action, or make any assertion, or imagine any assertion that someone with their "fellow" ideals and characteristics could make

This is the bare bones of the argument. I don't really have time for more of it, and I think I'd hoped that you were sufficiently well-read and possibly familiar with the argument, as well as not so defensive, that *rolleyes* would have sufficed to make the point.

But before you retort unthinkingly yet again, if I were you I'd consider carefully the fact that all your assertions, whether they support this premise or not, are on display in the thread for all to see -- so you might want to review whether or not your specific pattern of statements here, particularly as it refers to your rather vigorous defense of Ms. White's quotes as "insufficient to support" the premise of the article, however cloaked they might be in journalism-colored bluster, might be a rather eloquent demonstration of the pattern in support of the theory.

Just think about it.

Or you can continue to support your transparent and *cough* disingenuous *cough* assertions of a journalistic smokescreen, or at best weak secondary support, for your original defensive arguments. It's up to you, really.

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Here's the BFOQ clause of the employment discrimination statute. It lists all of the other protected categories as potential BFOQ's. but not race: (e) Notwithstanding any other provision of this subchapter, (1) it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to hire and employ employees, for an employment agency to classify, or refer for employment any individual, for a labor organization to classify its membership or to classify or refer for employment any individual, or for an employer, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee controlling apprenticeship or other training or retraining programs to admit or employ any individual in any such program, on the basis of his religion, sex, or national origin in those certain instances where religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation ofthat particular business or enterprise, and (2) it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for a school, college, university, or other educational institution or institution of learning to hire and employ employees of a particular religion if such school, college, university, or other educational institution or institution of learning is, in whole or in substantial part, owned, supported, controlled, or managed by a particular religion or by a particular religious corporation, association, or society, or if the curriculum of such school, college, university, or other educational institution or institution of learning is directed toward the propagation of a particular religion, (www.eeoc.gov/policy/vii.html)

The hard part about proving these cases is that acting and modeling are judged on such subjective or specific criteria that it can be hard to prove that race is the reason someone wasn't selected. It's easier to use a paper trail to demonstrate that that one person is, for example, a more qualified surgeon than another, than it is to say that one model is a better model than another, or works better in a particular show or ad campaign. If the people doing to hiring or casting don't explicitly say that race was the reason the person wasn't chosen, it would often be tricky to prove discrimination. And of course, there'd be tremendous industry backlash against the model who sued. But when so many people are walking around openly admitting to discriminating on the basis of race, they seem to be asking to be sued. They are not legally protected here, only protected by social convention. (Of course, this particular woman is in London, and I don't know UK employment law, but agencies in the US have been quoted being similarly blatant.)

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why an unnecessary dig on texas here?

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