Bad Ideas in High Fashion: Blackmoor Earrings

From the 2013 Dolce Gabbana collection:

Supposedly a nod to the companies Sicilian roots and the Blackmoor tradition in Sicily, these earring loot to my unsophisticated eye as modified mammy figures and, hence, highly problematic.  This blog piece from The Curatorial gives more photos and nicely counters the defense the company made concluding:

“The Dolce & Gabbana earrings specifically celebrate a “proud” Sicilian cultural tradition which is rooted in the slave trade and negative associations with blackness. As such, the arguments put forth by the Italian commenters on the articles detailing this controversy as well as the statement put out by Dolce & Gabbana don’t do their due diligence in understanding the historical legacy of a cultural tradition. As a result, Dolce & Gabbana has produced an accessory which does in fact play into racist stereotypes and a legacy of racism.”

 

T-Shirt Design: No Flowers for Men

I saw a local school selling T-shirts for a fundraiser.  They had the women’s sample on the wall with a sign noting that the men’s shirt was the same design but without a flower on the logo.  This was a logo featuring the name of the school on the upper left of the chest and for the women a single ornamental flower.  I wonder why there was a need to create two different logos, one sans flower for the men.  It is a small flower, nothing Georgia O’Keeffe or anything like that.  The assumption must be that men do not want any flowers on their shirts (Hawaiian shirts being an exception) and that for fundraising purposes they need a flower free shirt. Now that I think of it, as a man, I do not own any T-shirts that have flowers anywhere on them (although I recall one that I owned about 20 years ago).  That is not to say that I would be adverse to a T-shirt with a flower, but it seems I have been just following societal convention without knowing it.  I guess the school was onto something.

I’d wear this on a T-shirt.
“Morning Glory with Black” by Georgia O’Keeffe
(Cleveland Museum of Art)

Chief Wahoo and the Whities: Visual Critique on Your Head

One could write a long essay on the significance of various versions of Chief Wahoo, the Cleveland Indians’ logo, one can find on hats.  Here is a quick sample ending with my new favorite visual critique–the Whities cap.

There is the current standard version:

Then there is the throwback with certain physical features exaggerated, possibly more offensive.

Then there is the red white and blue mixing stereotype and patriotism.

Then there are the critique versions.  There is this one with the banana.

And lastly my favorite critique, the Whities cap in which the company, Hella Tight, flips things around and presents a stereotypical white figure.

On a cap just like the Indians cap

With this wording on the cap’s back

Buy one now at this site.

Drag Queen Barbie: Yet another controversial version

There have been many controversy inspiring Barbies in the past: pregnant Barbie, math is hard Barbie, pooper scooper Barbie.  Now we have “Drag Queen Barbie.”  The designers did not design her to be a drag queen but that seems to be how she is playing out in the media.

Based on this Daily Beast piece, it seems Mattel is fine with this incarnation.  A spokesperson stated,  “Barbie doesn’t worry about what other people think.”  In reality, this is a special collectors’ edition Barbie not one that will appear at a store near me.  I cannot imagine an actual child being given one to play with, so the most fun will be had with bloggers playing with all the ideas.  If Barbie represents X about American society, what does her being dressed as a “drag queen” show about America?

 

Our Black Year: The Difficulty of Economic Empowerment

I just finished Maggie Anderson’s Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest to Buy Black in America’s Racially Divided Economy.  The book details her family’s efforts to buy goods and services only from black owned businesses for a year.  The effort and book do a fine of job of pointing out the lack of black owned businesses.  Living in Chicago the Andersons cannot find a black owned grocery store or a black owned store to provide new children’s clothing.  Even finding pull ups proves to be a difficulty.  On the other hand, some parts of her argument fail to convince the reader.

The book echos a lot of what Malcolm X said about the need for black owned businesses.  See for example this quotation from his “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech:

“Then you wonder why where you live is always a ghetto or a slum area. And where you and I are concerned, not only do we lose it when we spend it out of the community, but the white man has got all our stores in the community tied up; so that though we spend it in the community, at sundown the man who runs the store takes it over across town somewhere. He’s got us in a vise. So the economic philosophy of black nationalism means in every church, in every civic organization, in every fraternal order, it’s time now for our people to be come conscious of the importance of controlling the economy of our community. If we own the stores, if we operate the businesses, if we try and establish some industry in our own community, then we’re developing to the position where we are creating employment for our own kind.”

However, Anderson makes a point of couching her argument in such a way that it is not militant, in fact striving to avoid any sense that she is following in the footsteps of Malcolm X.  Instead she ties her efforts to W.E.B. DuBois’s  concept of the talented tenth.  She makes an argument that people like her family, the black elite, should support black stores as part of their responsibility to their people.  This choice, while perhaps appealing on one level, does run the risk of elitism on another.

She also seems to over dramatize her family’s predicament.  At one point her daughter does not have shoes that fit because they cannot find a local black owned store selling children’s footwear.  As a reader in 2012, I find it hard to believe that she could not find a black owned shoe store somewhere on the Internet or could not email a friend in another city to buy and  ship some shoes–the insistence on staying in Chicago seems artificial. Likewise, the family winds up eating a lot of food from convenience stores and fast food franchises because of the lack of black owned grocery stores.  At one point the author has to break down and buy produce from a Hispanic store and suffers severe internal turmoil. I see the point, but once again the image seems rather artificially emphasized.

In general the book raised lots of provocative questions, particularly around issues as to why there is a lack of black owned businesses.  Is it the fault of history and lack of black wealth accumulation?  Is it the fault of the black consumer failing to support black businesses?  Would having more black owned businesses result in the cascade of positive community benefits Anderson asserts would result.

It is not a particularly even treatment of issues but makes one think.

 

Olympic Berets: Unamerican

With the revelation of the American uniforms for the Olympic opening ceremonies, there has been a lot of controversy.  I am not talking about the outfits being made in China; I am talking about the outcry over the berets.  Julia Turner of Slate decried the return of the beret to the US Olympic regalia saying that it was ugly, unfashionable and even un-American. I, however, do not mind the beret and would argue that it has its precedents in American culture and history.  First, here is the Olympic outfit.

 

Now then let us consider two other appearances of the beret. First, in the American military there are the Special Forces, particularly the Green Berets.  Now it might be a stretch to draw a parallel between the Olympic athletes and the Special Forces but there is certainly a place of honor for the beret in American military culture.

 

In terms of more controversial US History, the Black Panthers wore berets.  The actions of the Black Panthers were in some cases revolutionary and in some cases criminal, but they were certainly an American creation.  One probably could not completely defend the Olympic beret by drawing a Black Panther parallel.  In fact, such a link might work against hat. Still, if the point is to refute accusations of foreignness, this example gives it a tie to American history.

 

 

 

Adidas Shackle Shoes: More Fashion Faux Pas than Racial Statement

Adidas has cancelled plans to sell the above shoes, the JS Roundhouse Mid.  The shackles reminded some critics of slavery and chain gangs, while the designer said the plastic chains were an homage to My Pet Monster a favorite childhood toy.  I am sure the company at this point wishes they had a larger focus group.  I actually think the shoes are not worth the controversy.  They are ugly and in poor taste, but wearing ugly, tacky shoes is not a crime nor is producing said shoes.  There are probably bigger issues to worry about.  I guess I could connect the shoes to the disproportionate  incarceration of young black men and the idea of jail as an accepted, celebrated part of life in some communities, but even for me that is a stretch.

Check out the Shoes

When I think NBA Finals, I don’t think high heels, but check out these shoes from Herstar.com, website headline “How Chicks Do Sports.”

 HERSTAR™ OKC Thunder LImited Edition Crystal Pumps

Limited Edition Miami Heat also available.  Non-crystal pumps available with all NBA team colors and logos.

My first reaction was, like Adena Andrews on ESPN W, one of dismay as these shoes are the antithesis of Title IX, a visual metaphor for spectatorship at men’s sports instead of participation in women’s sports.  Then I realized that was a false dichotomy,  one could play and watch using different footwear at different times.  Besides, who am I to say what is politically correct feminist footwear.

“Wife Beater” language of fashion trivializing domestic violence

Would anyone wear a piece of clothing called a “mother murderer”?  As in, “Way to rock that mother murderer and those new jeans.”    So, why do we accept “wife beater” as a piece of clothing?  After all, when one beats one’s wife one could easily wind up murdering someone’s mother.

Here is the definition from the Oxford English Dictionary:

It is there in black and white; this term associates the garment with men who commit domestic violence.  Then consider the examples, note how “wife beater” takes on a playful, amusing quality.  It becomes a class marker to be embraced by certain subcultures.  Wife beating should never be referred to in a playful or amusing way.  Wife beating should not be embraced by any subculture.  I know that using the term does not mean one supports wife beating, but the use of the term does show a lack of sensitivity to victims of domestic violence.  If two guys are walking through a store and one asks the other what he’s there to buy, and the answer is, “I need to stock up on wife beaters” what might the survivor of domestic violence pushing a cart the other way think?

I do not believe it would be too great a change to increase awareness and banish this term from our vocabulary.  Some might say such a call is political correctness, but I know political correctness.  Political correctness is calling a manhole cover a utility cover to prevent gender bias.  Eliminating a phrase that trivializes violence against women is not political correctness, it is an essential act of linguistic humanity.

Would people really wear the shirt if it said “wife beater”? Such shirts are on sale. 

David Stern using Domestic Violence to Make Point about NBA Draft

David Stern being interviewed

Public figures really should not use references to domestic violence as rhetorical devices in arguments about relatively trivial matters.

On Jim Rome’s show radio show “Rome is Burning,” Rome asked NBA Commissioner David Stern about the NBA draft being rigged.  Stern, upset with the question, tried to make a point about asking loaded questions by then asking Rome, “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?”  According to ESPN, “Since Rome has no history of spousal abuse, it appears that the commissioner was using a traditional loaded question as a tool to make his point — that the question itself, in this case about the lottery, presumes guilt.”

I understand the idea here of giving an example of a loaded question.  However, this particular loaded question was a poor choice.  Given the seriousness of domestic violence as an issue, using reference to wife beating to score a points about the allocation of players in a game (yes, basketball no matter how big a business is a game)  is wrong.

There is a part of American culture which perceives domestic violence as something trivial, witness the piece sleeveless T-shirt unthinkingly called a “wife beater.”  Stern’s remarks do not help counter that trend.