A friend of mine recently posted these three photographs online, hoping to begin yet another conversation about race. They come from an article in Oprah Magazine and came with the breathless tag line:
"In three devastatingly simple photos, the yawning gap of inequality between white women and women of color is brought to the forefront."
My friend opened the discussion with his own reaction to these pictures thusly:
"Why do these 3 photos make you uncomfortable? When I first saw them I was confused, startled, and upset."
A vigorous discussion followed.
When I first saw the pictures, here's what happened. I was watching a baseball game. During a commercial break, I ran across the photographs. As is usually my habit, I looked at the pictures before I read any of my friends comments, since along with most Americans, my eyes are much more drawn to visuals. I noticed immediately two things, how brilliantly colorful they were, almost as if the color had been enhanced artificially, and the fact that all of the people in the pictures were female. Then I scrolled up to my friend's comments. Immediately I thought, Wait, what did I miss? I looked at them a second time. Still...uncomfortable? Confusing? So only then did I click on the accompanying link to Oprah Magazine. Finally, I got it. Racial roll reversal. Check!
The comment section of my friend's post began filling up with puzzled white people, like myself, who felt confused alright, but not in the way the folks at Oprah Magazine intended. When several people opined that nothing about any of the photographs made them feel in the least bit uncomfortable, a helpful suggestion was made by a commenter that we were all probably lying. Another conversation about race ending up careening into the ditch. So, what to make of all this?
After reading the Oprah piece, it's clear what the purpose of the spread was. They were trying to make white people feel uncomfortable about the fact that, as a majority race, we enjoy most of the power when it comes to retail, and more often than not, we are the ones who get served at places that do pedicures, usually by Asian women, and most of the time, if a maid gets hired, it's by a white person and that maid is either black or Hispanic. By staging pictures that reverse this dynamic, it is supposed to produce guilt and grave soul searching about our inherent privilege. Fair enough.
However, one wonders whether the good people at Oprah Magazine have actually shopped for dolls at a toy store in the past, oh, I don't know, 20 years? The last time I was in the market for dolls was back in the early 1990's. My go-to stores were ToysRus and American Girl. The doll aisle at ToysRus was always a mile long and crammed full of every kind of doll the mind could imagine. Most of them featured white dolls, it's true. Back then, America's population was somewhere around 75% white, so it would make perfect sense that the most predominant doll race would be white. That's called knowing your customer. However, there were always plenty of dolls from a whole host of ethnicities available. I'm not sure of the percentages, but one would assume they were represented in rough proportion to the percentage found in the company's profile of a ToysRus customer. American Girl was a whole other story. Even in the 90's, that place was a globalist one world government dream, a regular United Nations of dolls! Of course, most of them were priced beyond my ability to pay, so...
Now, I'm sure that back in the 50's, one would be hard pressed to find an African-American doll at the local General Store. The fact that this is no longer true makes a point that Oprah Magazine seems unwilling to...that times have changed, largely for the better, in the area of race relations since the 50's.
Moving on to the pedicure shop photo, again...when is the last time the editorial staff at Oprah Magazine has actually been to a nail salon? Although I have no personal knowledge of this subject, my wife does, and in the 30 or so years since she has been getting her nails done, nearly 100% of the time, she is attended by an Asian woman. Why is this? Why do Asian women, particularly Vietnamese women gravitate to this particular profession? I have no idea. But, my hunch is that it has virtually nothing to do with racism. So, a photograph that features smiling Asian women being serviced by white pedicurists proves...what, exactly? Are the Asian women laughing because the white women are doing it all wrong, or what? Why is this supposed to make white people feel some sort of guilt? In this particular picture, it's the white women who are getting paid, and the Asian women who are being grossly overcharged for the guilty pleasure of a pedicure, after all!
The last photograph is even dumber. We see what looks like a young, beautiful, wealthy Hispanic women, being served tea by her uniformed white maid. The stereotype is completed by the lap dog and the omnipresent cellphone. I should point out that this particular white maid is precariously close to getting fired since her eyes are clearly fixed upon her employer instead of the cup into which she is pouring hot tea. One gets the distinct impression that the wealthy Hispanic hero in this photo would be very unforgiving if Fido gets scalded. It is clear that we are supposed to look at this and ponder the irony, or something. When I look at this, I can imagine this actual scene being reproduced in any number of insanely wealthy Hispanic homes in south Florida. Or course, an argument can and should be made that any self respecting Hispanic socialite in Miami should probably hire a fellow Hispanic to attend to her every need, since charity always begins at home.
The fact that none of these pictures had the desired impact on my consciousness is troubling. Why did I not feel the confusion and discomfort that my friend felt? Does this mean that I am insensitive, or ignorant, or both? Perhaps if I had read my friend's comments and clicked on the article first, before looking at the pictures, I would have reacted differently. Or maybe I am stuck in some sort of privilege denial mindset.
Or, maybe the pictures were just...dumb?
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