One of the things that I look forward to every week is Slate Magazine's Political Gabfest Podcast. While some of the people on the show (ehem John Dickerson and sometimes David Plotz) are slightly annoying, the content is usually very good and well informed.
This week on top of talking about the many political in's and out's that have been happening with the Obama transition and terrorists attacks in India, they also very briefly touched on an article in Slate about the call by Women's Wear Daily for designers to design dresses for Michelle Obama. What is interesting about looking at these designs and what was pointed out by the author of the article is that for many of the designers it seems that they are incapable of drawing a stylish and sexy African-American women (some make her look mad, some make her look like Condoleezza Rice, and some even seriously make her like white). While we have come so far in terms of racism and sexism in this country, it is moments like this that make me wonder if what we've done is just push the tendencies below the surface to simmer. Does making sexism and racism less visible eventually lead to it actually going away?
Slate Political Gabfest
Article in Slate
Designs for Michelle Obama
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Yeah, I have mixed feelings about these.
The Betsey Johnson sketch just kinda looks like...well...Betsey Johnson. I'm guessing Marjorie Valbrun is not familiar with Johnson's designs in general, since she didn't spell her name correctly.
The faces on the Christian Lacroix sketches--and some others--were just awful, though. A lot of them completely fail to capture Michelle Obama's natural, warm smile, which you could argue is her most distinctive physical attribute.
And the Michael Kors white lady thing seriously took me to WTFtown.
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