{"id":10225,"date":"2013-09-11T07:35:23","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T07:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10225"},"modified":"2013-09-11T07:35:23","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T07:35:23","slug":"black-models-complain-about-racism-in-fashion-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10225","title":{"rendered":"Black models complain about ‘racism’ in fashion industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Bethann<\/a>
Bethann Hardison<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bethann Hardison\u2019s Balance Diversity campaign\u00a0is gaining steam\u2013and some very famous advocates.<\/p>\n

Supermodel icons\u00a0Naomi Campbell\u00a0and Iman, both of whom have persevered over the industry\u2019s prejudice, are publicly throwing their support behind Hardison, who last week sent open letters to the fashion governing bodies of the major fashion cities. The two have joined Hardison\u2019s new advocacy group Diversity Coalition, and yesterday, the three women went on\u00a0Good Morning America<\/em>\u00a0to discuss why the lack of diversity on the runway is so troubling\u2013and why designers should no longer dismiss it as artistic right.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statistics, it\u2019s really shocking,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cHeartbreaking. Your body and beauty, it doesn\u2019t matter what color you are. If you\u2019ve got the right talent, you should be there having the opportunity to do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were more black models working [in the ’70s] than it is happening in 2013,\u201d Iman added. \u201cThere is a time when silence is not acceptable at all. And if the conversation cannot be had publicly in our industry, then inherently there is something wrong with the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell, for one, is calling BS on all this talk of a designer\u2019s \u201ccreative vision.\u201d \u201cI think they hide behind aesthetics,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Yet the three wanted to clarify that, despite the language used in the open letters sent out last week, they aren\u2019t calling designers themselves racist.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, this is not the business of shaming,\u201d Iman said. \u201cAnd as we go back again to clarify it, nobody is calling any of these designers racist. The act itself is racism.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s\u00a0the whole point of Hardison\u2019s campaign: To get designers and casting agents, who probably aren\u2019t racist on a personal level, to examine how they could be contributing to sending such a negative message. \u201cI think they\u2019re ignorant and they\u2019re arrogant, and I think it\u2019s not even about racism,\u201d Hardison says. \u201cI think it\u2019s a sense of laziness and they\u2019ve told themselves a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of the designers named responded to\u00a0Good Morning America<\/em>\u00a0about the campaign\u2013though, to be fair, it\u2019s the middle of fashion week so they\u2019re probably pretty busy. Still, we hope that they\u2019re listening. \u201cChange does not happen easily,\u201d says Iman\u2013but starting a frank discussion about the issues is certainly the first step. – fashionista.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bethann Hardison\u2019s Balance Diversity campaign\u00a0is gaining steam\u2013and some very famous advocates. Supermodel icons\u00a0Naomi Campbell\u00a0and Iman, both of whom have persevered over the industry\u2019s prejudice, are publicly throwing their support behind Hardison, who last week sent open letters to the fashion governing bodies of the major fashion cities. The two have joined Hardison\u2019s new advocacy group … Continue reading “Black models complain about ‘racism’ in fashion industry”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/bethann-hardison1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10228,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10225\/revisions\/10228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}