white is the new black.

[from the upcoming "I am African" campaign from the Keep A Child Alive organization]

Anyway, I get that she's trying to sympathize with African American plight because "oppressing anything is oppressing everything and so we as more privileged individuals can sympathize with you colored folk and still manage to mess it up in some way" (see Vegetarianism & the PETA incident for more examples). But seriously. I know it's for a good cause, but isn't there a saying that "good intentions pave the road to hell" or something? My 11th grade high school teacher used to say it to us a lot.

1. This is a bio of Gywneth Paltrow (from Wikipedia)

Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, California, to the late Bruce Paltrow, a film director, and Blythe Danner (a well-known character actress); Paltrow's father was Jewish and her mother was raised in the Quaker religion. Raised in Santa Monica, she attended Spence School, a selective private girls' school in New York City, and briefly studied Art History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before dropping out and committing herself to acting.

So the children of a Hollywood director and actress who attended private school can empathize with an entire continent ravaged by economic hardship and the effects of colonialism/imperialism?

2. The words "I am African" on a white person are apparently abundantly clear- as if "race" were limited to necklaces and face paint instead of one's skin color and where one is situated in a colonial dynamic. So points for the pointing out of race as a social construct with certain markers that make us recognize one as one race or another. A bazillion points minus for reducing race relations to commodities of cultural markings and empathy. Also minus for exotifying race to cultural commodities- as if you could say buy a lei and be Hawaiian or own chopsticks and be "Asian" (whatever that means).

3. Boo to the media for continuing to propogate cultural imperialism by putting a white woman to represent African people. I mean really, let's put the face of a blonde blue eyed American to represent AFRICA. As if people would respond more to her instead of, let's say, an actual picture of an African person struggling. It's for a good cause but I don't know how effect it can be if you're making it an issue again about how white people have to save those "savages" again. Benevolent colonialism anyone?

I don't really know who to blame in this situation. The media for distributing this? The marketing team for this organization that thought it would be good? Everyday people for being desensitized so much to images of a ravaged Africa that you need to put a white woman's face on something to actually stop, notice, AND care?

4. What else irks me about this picture is that it is still in a way racist- or actually it embodies more "colorist" ideology. Sidenote: There's also my photographer's eye thinking that marketing and media continually use black and white pictures to make issues "more serious". Gywneth Paltrow is the "colorless" (also color-blind) individual - the universal. White is the only race that can have the privilege of not thinking about race. The makeup on her face and the letters "I am African" serve as a disconnect between Gywneth's actual race and an African's race. Hence, "I sympathize" sentiment with "don't confuse me for being an actual African" line delineated through this colorization. Sure she still happens to wear the African necklace, but again it actually reinforces the idea that one can own cultural markers like jewlry but not be of that culture.

5. For some reason, it kind of reminds me of this poplicks post about the media and the use of "whiteness".

[To supplement] I feel bad about criticizing this organization as it seems to be a positive non-profit group committed to helping with the AIDS pandemic. I mean it could be a soulless corporate machine that have these ads (see poplicks). Yet I can't help but think of these things when I see the ads..even though I haven't seen the entire campaign. AIDS is not just a racial issue which I feel when I see ads like this. And I suppose that was the message that it affects us all, but I wouldn't be who I am without misgivings.


But really, let's not get too upset with this. I'll end with a happy picture (also courtesy of poplicks). P.S. Its a real ad like the one above.