Blackface EnVogue?

This morning while getting ready I turned on CNN to catch up on the news. Unfortunately I can't find the link to the clip (here it is, but it keeps loading "undefined) I saw this morning but the title link does prove the validity of the story.

Apparently French Vogue released a photo shoot with models wearing "blackface." That's right, high fashion has deemed it appropriate to paint white super-models black.

A brief history lesson, blackface began in the 19th century in the incredibly popular minstrel shows. These shows basically depict white comedians painted to look like Africans. The routines frequently poke fun at African Americans by using "black dialect" and generally making a mockery of their conditions as slaves and second class citizens. In short, it is among the most racist acts in US History and is still a very sensitive subject today.

Why then did French Vogue decide it was "OK" to use blackface? If I remember correctly, the CNN news clip stated that the article was to be a celebration of models. Yet no black super models were used. One such theory states that because many other nations have not had the storied civil war/right history that the United States has, they are less sensitive to the negative ramifications of such an act.

As an African American woman, I believe this photo shoot to be distasteful, demoralizing, degrading, and disgusting!

But it brings up a very interesting question. Just how long do we have to "walk on egg shells" regarding race? When can we all say the "n-word", when can affirmative actions stop, when will everything stop being a black/white issue?

The idealist in me says, soon and very soon. Our President is black, after all.

But stories like this show me that that thought is an illusion.

We will never be able to rid ourselves of history as long as there are those who still remember it, and I believe it is a travesty for any African American to not know our history, how far we've come, and more importantly how far we have to go.

Just as there is an American National Anthem, there is a Negro National Anthem and it's words tell the story of being black in America.

You wouldn't ask a US citizen to stop singing the Star-Spangled Banner, so don't expect the black American to stop singing Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Which subsequently means, don't ask the black American to forget the horrors of the past and allow it to be OK to commit them here in the present or in the future.

Lift Every Voice and Sing - The Negro National Anthem Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of liberty; Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us; Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won. Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet, Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered; Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou Who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou Who hast by Thy might, led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee. Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee. Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand, True to our God, true to our native land.