IN WHICH MARC JACOBS TRIES IT….

When it comes to the fashion industry, the surprises are endless when it comes to racial insensitivity and the myriad of ways designers participate in cultural appropriation and quickly deny doing so or try to write off “cultural appropriation” as a buzzword rather that the complex and violent cultural phenomenon that has been at play since Europeans made contact with us. Just when you thought you’ve seen it all, Gucci decides to have white models wear Mammy Earrings down the runway. Or perhaps you recall D’Squared’s FW15 Show “D’Sq*aw” (the Native equivalent to the C*nt word but a million times more offensive when used by the same race of the people who colonised your land and continue to profit off living on your land). Not to mention the continued use of white models in Blackface instead of using actual Black models and these are just but a few examples that racism is very alive and on steroids in the fashion industry. It shouldn’t be surprising that an industry largely run by white men engages and perpetuates racist tropes, but some choose to stay in denial.

Marc Jacobs can be added to the pile of powerful white gay men who participate in the continued culturally insensitive misappropriation of Black culture, who don’t “get” the issues, nor does he seem interested in doing so as evidenced by his immediately defensive response. *Sigh* This is nothing new, as we have seen time and time again when a white designer in the industry engenders harmful tropes whether in a fashion shoot or a fashion line and then claims to be “colorblind.” Saying one is colorblind is a form of violent erasure of our varied identities and lived experiences. Saying one that you are colorblind doesn’t change the fact that I am Black and have to deal with the realities of being Black in a world that only likes to pick and choose the parts of Black culture it likes. That’s what many fail to see about the harm done when people appropriate marginalized cultures and exclude us from the narrative — it’s a form of social violence to take parts of Black culture for profit while ignoring the very real pain and suffering of Black people. Just as Indigenous people were not allowed to practice any of their cultural traditions but now we must watch as white people are pining to “live off the grid,” wear mocassins, do sweat lodges, steal our cultural designs but do nothing to stop the continued genocide of Native people on this land.

Marc is trying to pull the “Well Black women straighten their hair” card which is an obtuse counterargument that is negligent of the truth that: straight hair is not limited to white people, and that there is no historical precedent for Black people oppressing white people for their hair styles or excluding them from jobs for having straight hair. It’s amazing that in the same character space Marc can accuse People of Color of copying white girls by straightening their hair but also say he doesn’t see color. It would appear he does see color but only when it serves the narrative about race he has created in his head.

White people didn’t say “it’s just hair” when the Tignon Laws were enacted, or when Black women and girls face professional expulsion and humiliation for simply allowing their hair to exist on their head. It’s not “just hair” for the Black girls currently fighting for the right to wear their natural hair in South Africa. It’s so odd that white people want to dictate the way black women wear their hair but are so unfamiliar as to the styles, care, and treatment of Black hair. I’ve been to many photoshoots and sets where PROFESSIONAL stylists aren’t familiar with how to style Black hair. They see curl patterns of the head of black woman and assume it’s ghetto or inappropriate because Blackness is coded as such.

Whether Marc wants to accept it or not, there’s no getting around the fact that the continued oppression of POC is worsened when the oppressors then profit off our culture in an industry that continues to use POC as a backdrop to their larger Eurocentric narrative. ALSO DREADLOCKS ARE AND ALWAYS WILL BE AN EXPLICITLY BLACK STYLE OF HAIR BECAUSE BLACK HAIR TEXTURE IS THE ONLY TYPE OF HAIR WITH THE PROPERTIES REQUIRED TO LOC…STRAIGHT HAIR MATTES AND BONDS TOGETHER WITH DIRT…NOT NATURALLY.

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P.S. The fact that the lovely Jourdan Dunn was in the show doesn’t change any of what is stated uptop and 100% no shade to her.