The editorial, called “Heritage Heroes,” provides a retrospective overview of creations by designer Marc Jacobs, who is said to have been inspired by African-American style icons including Grace Jones for some of his recent collections.

Fashionista.com translated a caption featured in the spread, which it stated reads: “This collection is inspired by the style of the Parisian showgirl Josephine Baker, mixed with tribal influences.”

Some believe this editorial shoot underscores the high fashion world’s insensitivity to race, and highlights the industry’s poor track record for using models of color.

“It’s particularly troubling that blackface persists in a fashion industry that continues to display an overwhelming preference for white models,” Jezebel.com writer Jenna Sauers stated. “Models of color — even successful ones — often face discrimination on the basis of their race. Black models are told by clients that they won’t be hired because they ‘already have’ a black model, black models talk about encountering makeup artists and hair stylists who refuse to work with them, and black models say they have a harder time breaking into an industry that accords them fewer opportunities than white models.”

Just weeks ago, French publication Numéro ran a controversial series of images under the header “African Queen,” in which a different white model was painted a dusky hue from head to toe and dressed in ethnic garments. This stirred similar accusations that style tastemakers discriminate against black models even when the concept of a creative project might best be served by a black model.

RELATED: Fashion veteran Bethann Hardison on Numéro ‘African Queen’ blackface controversy

Among many other examples, supermodel Claudia Schiffer famously donned blackface for a 2010 editorial that some found shocking.

Not only have there been numerous incidents in recent years of white models in blackface that many have found offensive, clothing designers have been accused of racial insensitivity as well.

Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana was accused of sending earrings that looked like stereotypical “mammies” down the runway in late 2012. In addition, Chanel’s couture chief Karl Lagerfeld sketched an image of President Obama to celebrate his win of a second term — depicting the president as a chef — that some say made the leader of the first world look like a household servant.

“When will fashion brands and magazines come to realize that not alienating a large segment of their possible market is far more advantageous to their bottom line than, say, the potential to be avant-guard or cutting edge?,” asked Yahoo! writer Shereen Dindar about these types of acts that seem to recur in fashion.

TheGrio reached out to Vogue Netherlands for comment, but did not receive a response to questions by publication time.

Follow Alexis Garrett Stodghill on Twitter at @lexisb.

BLACKFACE: Model poses for Vogue Netherlands with a painted black face and kinky black wig.

FASHION MAGAZINE Vogue Netherlands has come under fire for their Marc Jacobs tribute photoshoot after it featured a white model in “blackface” make-up.

Called Heritage Heroes, the article highlights Jacobs’s “tribal influences” in his designs, as well as the styles of black cultural icons Josephine Baker and Grace Jones.

Instead of using black models, who resembled Baker and Jones, Vogue Netherlands chose to use model Querelle Jansen with a painted black face and black kinky wig.

This is not the first time Vogue has caused controversy by using a “blacked-up” model.

In 2009, the Paris edition photographed Dutch supermodel Lara Stone in black body and face paint.

Another French fashion magazine Numero,  painted 16-year-old white model Ondria Hardin black for its African Queen, special in February.

MADE UP: A white model blacked-up for the African Queen special in Numero Magazine

Must Read: CHICK CHAT: It’s Our Fault The Fashion World Still Doesn’t Cast Black Models

According to Fashionista.com, The Netherlands typically go for White models, which is one of those “duh, we’re not even remotely surprised” factoids we hear often when discussing the fashion industry, and obviously echoes American fashion trends and proclivities. At this point, it’s almost amazing with the ongoing prevalence of blackface spreads that people haven’t gotten a massive visual clue and started hiring Black models. You know, if you want to celebrate Black women, you may like, want to hire Black women? We could be crazy, but it’s just a thought.

What do you beauties think about Vogue Netherlands’ blackface fashion spread? Offensive or fashionable?

LIKE HelloBeautiful On Facebook!

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Related Stories:

French Fashion Magazine Puts White Model In ‘African Queen’ Blackface

Blackface Strikes Again In Numero Magazine; When Will It End?

Check Out This Gallery Of REAL Beautiful Black Women!

[ione_media_gallery id="2627273" src="http://hellobeautiful.com"]

Must Read: CHICK CHAT: It’s Our Fault The Fashion World Still Doesn’t Cast Black Models

According to Fashionista.com, The Netherlands typically go for White models, which is one of those “duh, we’re not even remotely surprised” factoids we hear often when discussing the fashion industry, and obviously echoes American fashion trends and proclivities. At this point, it’s almost amazing with the ongoing prevalence of blackface spreads that people haven’t gotten a massive visual clue and started hiring Black models. You know, if you want to celebrate Black women, you may like, want to hire Black women? We could be crazy, but it’s just a thought.

What do you beauties think about Vogue Netherlands’ blackface fashion spread? Offensive or fashionable?

LIKE HelloBeautiful On Facebook!

[ione_facebook_like_box url_segment=hellobeautifulofficial height="260"]
Related Stories:

French Fashion Magazine Puts White Model In ‘African Queen’ Blackface

Blackface Strikes Again In Numero Magazine; When Will It End?

Check Out This Gallery Of REAL Beautiful Black Women!

[ione_media_gallery id="2627273" src="http://hellobeautiful.com"]

Must Read: CHICK CHAT: It’s Our Fault The Fashion World Still Doesn’t Cast Black Models

According to Fashionista.com, The Netherlands typically go for White models, which is one of those “duh, we’re not even remotely surprised” factoids we hear often when discussing the fashion industry, and obviously echoes American fashion trends and proclivities. At this point, it’s almost amazing with the ongoing prevalence of blackface spreads that people haven’t gotten a massive visual clue and started hiring Black models. You know, if you want to celebrate Black women, you may like, want to hire Black women? We could be crazy, but it’s just a thought.

What do you beauties think about Vogue Netherlands’ blackface fashion spread? Offensive or fashionable?

LIKE HelloBeautiful On Facebook!

[ione_facebook_like_box url_segment=hellobeautifulofficial height="260"]
Related Stories:

French Fashion Magazine Puts White Model In ‘African Queen’ Blackface

Blackface Strikes Again In Numero Magazine; When Will It End?

Check Out This Gallery Of REAL Beautiful Black Women!

[ione_media_gallery id="2627273" src="http://hellobeautiful.com"]

Must Read: CHICK CHAT: It’s Our Fault The Fashion World Still Doesn’t Cast Black Models

According to Fashionista, The Netherlands typically go for White models. This isn’t much different from what we experience in America. Black models are constantly overlooked and with the prevalence of blackface spreads, you’d think models of color would be in higher demand.

What do you beauties think about Vogue Netherlands’ blackface fashion spread? Offensive or fashionable?

Related Stories:

French Fashion Magazine Puts White Model In ‘African Queen’ Blackface

Blackface Strikes Again In Numero Magazine; When Will It End?

Check Out This Gallery Of REAL Beautiful Black Women!

[ione_media_gallery id="2627273" src="http://hellobeautiful.com"]

Must Read: CHICK CHAT: It’s Our Fault The Fashion World Still Doesn’t Cast Black Models

According to Fashionista.com, The Netherlands typically go for White models, which is one of those “duh, we’re not even remotely surprised” factoids we hear often when discussing the fashion industry, and obviously echoes American fashion trends and proclivities. At this point, it’s almost amazing with the ongoing prevalence of blackface spreads that people haven’t gotten a massive visual clue and started hiring Black models. You know, if you want to celebrate Black women, you may like, want to hire Black women? We could be crazy, but it’s just a thought.

What do you beauties think about Vogue Netherlands’ blackface fashion spread? Offensive or fashionable?

LIKE HelloBeautiful On Facebook!

[ione_facebook_like_box url_segment=hellobeautifulofficial height="260"]
Related Stories:

French Fashion Magazine Puts White Model In ‘African Queen’ Blackface

Blackface Strikes Again In Numero Magazine; When Will It End?

Check Out This Gallery Of REAL Beautiful Black Women!

[ione_media_gallery id="2627273" src="http://hellobeautiful.com"]

Must Read: CHICK CHAT: It’s Our Fault The Fashion World Still Doesn’t Cast Black Models

According to Fashionista.com, The Netherlands typically go for White models, which is one of those “duh, we’re not even remotely surprised” factoids we hear often when discussing the fashion industry, and obviously echoes American fashion trends and proclivities. At this point, it’s almost amazing with the ongoing prevalence of blackface spreads that people haven’t gotten a massive visual clue and started hiring Black models. You know, if you want to celebrate Black women, you may like, want to hire Black women? We could be crazy, but it’s just a thought.

What do you beauties think about Vogue Netherlands’ blackface fashion spread? Offensive or fashionable?

LIKE HelloBeautiful On Facebook!

[ione_facebook_like_box url_segment=hellobeautifulofficial height="260"]
Related Stories:

French Fashion Magazine Puts White Model In ‘African Queen’ Blackface

Blackface Strikes Again In Numero Magazine; When Will It End?

Check Out This Gallery Of REAL Beautiful Black Women!

[ione_media_gallery id="2627273" src="http://hellobeautiful.com"]

Must Read: CHICK CHAT: It’s Our Fault The Fashion World Still Doesn’t Cast Black Models

According to Fashionista.com, The Netherlands typically go for White models, which is one of those “duh, we’re not even remotely surprised” factoids we hear often when discussing the fashion industry, and obviously echoes American fashion trends and proclivities. At this point, it’s almost amazing with the ongoing prevalence of blackface spreads that people haven’t gotten a massive visual clue and started hiring Black models. You know, if you want to celebrate Black women, you may like, want to hire Black women? We could be crazy, but it’s just a thought.

What do you beauties think about Vogue Netherlands’ blackface fashion spread? Offensive or fashionable?

LIKE HelloBeautiful On Facebook!

[ione_facebook_like_box url_segment=hellobeautifulofficial height="260"]
Related Stories:

French Fashion Magazine Puts White Model In ‘African Queen’ Blackface

Blackface Strikes Again In Numero Magazine; When Will It End?

Check Out This Gallery Of REAL Beautiful Black Women!

[ione_media_gallery id="2627273" src="http://hellobeautiful.com"]

What do you think?

This ad was considered clever and funny by some, but racist by others. Critics felt it was making fun of Jamaicans and the way they speak. Some journalists went as far as to say it was the same kind of racism seen in the character of Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars or “like blackface with voices.” However, many Jamaicans, including the nation’s Minister of Tourism and Entertainment, Wykeham McNeill, disagree with critics, saying that the accent might not be perfect, but the ad respectfully and appropriately portrays the laid-back, positive attitude of Jamaicans. They “view it as a compliment…people should get into their inner Jamaica and get happy.” The teaser video for the commercial has reggae legend Jimmy Cliff bringing angry people together through music. He stands by the ad, saying it’s all about positivity, and having seen the beneficial effects of reggae around the world, this campaign does him proud.

So, translating this issue to music, one can look at the production of reggae, a uniquely Jamaican genre, by non-Jamaicans. Reggae has a fascinating, complex history and evolved from its roots in ska and rocksteady into a variety of forms, which have inspired other subsets and genres, including dub, dancehall, and reggaeton. Reggae, for most people, is synonymous with Bob Marley and Rasta, and this overlap is actually really  important. However, being Rasta is not just choosing to grow dreadlocks or an excuse to smoke pot. Rastafari is a spiritual movement, but one  that transcends categorization as a religion or political stance. Its practitioners have deeply valued beliefs and traditions that make it a way of life. “Smoking weed and loving Bob Marley and reggae music is not what defines the Rastafari Indigenous Culture” has been proclaimed.

Similar to my discussion on cultural appropriation, there is ongoing debate over whether artists who have no ties to Jamaica should be performing and profiting from a music style that has such deep historical and cultural roots. Sometimes referred to as “Jafaicans,” these non-Jamaican artists capitalize on the music and movement, and whether through resources or connections, have often been more successful than Jamaican artists.

A band from my hometown, Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad, is a classic example. I’ve seen them live, I own their music, and I think they’re truly talented. However,  looking at this group of white guys from cold, snowy, upstate New York, where the mentality and lifestyle is nothing like Jamaica, you wonder if they’re really doing the music, and its rich cultural background, justice.

Rocking out to GPGDS [2008]

Coming back to the overlap between reggae, Rasta, and Jamaican culture as portrayed by outsiders, a recent controversy surrounds (the artist formerly known as) Snoop Dogg. Snoop has incited anger from the Rastafari Millennium Council and artists like Bunny Wailer for his sudden conversion to the Rasta lifestyle and change of name to Snoop Lion, as lion is an important symbol for Rastafarians. They believe it’s just publicity stunt for Snoop’s upcoming reggae album, “Reincarnated,” and the film documenting his journey. On the other hand, Bob Marley’s son Rohan has said he approves, as his father would have, of Snoop’s embrace of the Rasta culture and lifestyle.

As evident by the fact that two Jamaicans, both close to Bob Marley, and both Rastafarian, hold completely different views on this issue highlights its divisive nature. What do you think? Do you think this ad or Snoop’s attitude are disrespectful of Jamaican people or the Rasta lifestyle? Or, do you think it’s just the evolution of music and the globalization of reggae, which could even lead to a greater appreciation of Jamaica and its culture?

Today is the birthday of Bert Swor (1878-1943) (or, rather it may be; another source says January 9, 1871 is the actual birthdate).

A native of rural Texas, he got his start as a minstrel performer in saloons and variety theatres in the Dallas area. His four younger brothers were also to follow him into show business, the most famous of which was his brother John. As minstrelsey folded into the new vaudeville industry, he developed a solo act that consisted of a monologue, topped off by a song and dance. He may also have briefly partnered with Charles Mack during these early years. Swor would later act with Moran and Mack in the 1929 film Why Bring That Up? In the early 30s, Swor was brought in as a replacement for George Moran in the team, although it still continued to be called Moran and Mack. (To confuse matters still further, Bert’s brother John Swor had also once partnered with Charles Mack.)

Bert was to act in a number of Mack Sennett shorts in 1929 and 1930, starring the likes of Andy Clyde, Billy Bevan, Harry Gribbon and Marjorie Beebe. In 1938 he was featured in Rainbow’s End, surely one of the last re-creations of an old time minstrel show, starring himself, Gus Van of Van & Schenck, Eddie Peabody and Eddie Leonard. After this he retired to Oklahoma, passing away five years later. Swor’s wife Amy Archer was later to marry Jack Norworth.

To learn more about the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.

And don’t miss my new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc

In The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, Alexander Saxton investigates a key question for historians of the antebellum era in America: how and why did a nation founded on principles of equality and democracy become so fraught with racial inequality?  To answer this question, he takes an “ideological” approach  to 19th century American history, in which he connects political ideas, economic and social practices, and cultural production and consumption into an emergent American worldview.  And by analyzing a variety of texts, from high political discourse to popular forms like blackface, dime novels, and American folk heroes, he shows that the development of a dominant capitalist ideology in nineteenth-century America was intimately tied to white racism.

Rise and Fall is framed around the rise and fall of different political parties in a three-stage dialectical process: the National Republicans or Whigs, whose emphasis on business-friendly hierarchy and racial hierarchy created a kind of structural “soft” racism; the Jacksonians, who combined active racism with the language of equal opportunity to create white populism; and the “Republican synthesis,” which supported both white populism and business-friendly tariffs, infrastructural development, and expansion policies.  Thus, the ideology of white racism developed out of elites’ need to vindicate themselves for profiting from the slave trade and slave labor within the new Republic’s democratic ideals.

Unlike Roediger, who argues that working class whites created racism as a way to feel better about their reduced economic and political power in early industrialization, Saxton argues that racism has a large top-down component: the populists use it to unite poor and rich whites into a single, popular class that erases white guilt for profiting off slavery.  Sean Wilentz hammers this difference home when he argues that Saxton never quite explains why white workers would act against their own class interests and participate in a Populist ideological project.  However, despite this very valid critique, Saxton’s book compliments Roediger’s by examining the process of racialization from an upper-class instead of a working-class position, and by showing that racism continued to operate in the US long after the need to justify slavery had been met because it helped solidify the power of various class coalitions.