Continuing on the theme of brown people as props in ads and editorials is this truly excellent post on hipster racism in Nylon Magazine published at Threadbared. Below is short excerpt but do yourself a favor and check out the full post. It is extremely well-written and thought provoking. On a side note, does this image reminds anyone else of those old Baby Phat ads that featured Kimora Lee Simmons surround by housekeepers and nannies?
There's much to be said about Beth Ditto, fat and fashion, but the above photograph from Ditto's eight-page editorial in NYLON's recent music issue is about none of these things for me. It's about the woman who may or may not be a real housekeeper at the motel at
which this editorial was photographed, sitting on the edge of the bed with a handful of cards and gazing at Ditto with a weary but guarded expression. In the story that coalesces for me, studying this photograph, she has just been forced to play cards with a guest -- not because she wants to, but because she could lose her job if she doesn't. Nor does the game even feel like a break from her domestic labor; this sort of affective labor is no less taxing. In her mind (in the story I imagine about this editorial), she calculates how much longer she'll have to stay and clean in order to meet her day's quota.
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