Column:

Tyra Banks trivializes race

By ChaToyya Sewell

Published Nov. 3, 2009

Tyra Banks. Generally she is just a punch line for me, her misguided earnestness an easy source for humor. I can respect the money and the empire she created for herself. I cannot respect the fat suits, on stage colonics and the color face. On one season of "America's Next Top Model," she had the contestants portray another race for a milk ad. Despite the use of adorable children as props, the results were poor. And you’d think Tyra would have let it die there. But this week she was back with color-face redux, larger and filled with enough stupidity to provide fodder for weeks.

Watchers of "America's Next Top Model" will know every season they take the contestants on a trip to another country; this year the contestants got the shaft and were taken to the fashion capital of Hawaii. In addition to being the fashion capital Tyra would like us to believe it is, Hawaii is also the mixed-race capital of the world.

Following a bit of revisionist history, "races" were given out. I am not using scarequotes around race because I ascribe to some colorblind "we are the world" bullshit, but because half the time what Tyra was giving out and describing as races weren't. Botswana is a country with multiple ethnic groups, not a race. Tyra then proceeded to give some half-ass disclaimer about how they were not representing these peoples in the present or even historically but doing a fashion interpretation of that history, which I clearly took as: "Look at these ugly faux traditional clothes, it's fashuuuun dahling."

And the ignorance just rose. As one girl who was Tibetan and Egyptian for the day said, "I don't know anything about Tibet, except that it needs to be freed." I buried my face in my hands hoping she had some idea as to why people protest for Tibetan freedom that was cut by some malicious editing assistant. Later another contestant extolling the virtues of her look was pleased by looking "exotic," and here's a major issue: This idea that white is a normative American and everything else is some hyphenate or foreigner. If a child was Tibetan and Egyptian and born in Hawaii that child might ascribe or identify with parts of his or her background, but he or she would also be as American as you or I or apple pies.

Another major issue was just the abundance of stereotypes being shouted during the shoot and judging. From Jay Manuel shouting "Feel Tibet, it's all about ritual over there," to Tyra's classic, "Everywhere you go in Botswana music is playing, feel the drums," to Nigel Barker's horrific, "I can see Botswana in this. It's almost National Geographic," we get the image not of a country full of individual people doing individual things, but of a flat Westernized image of it.

To add to the frustration the one black woman, was not made to appear lighter for her Morrocan/Russian mix, further proving the theory because her body is already racially marked she is not allowed to step outside her race unlike the white women and one Asian.

"Everything but the burden" is this idea people of color's identities are allowed to be put on for the enjoyment of white people — white people are taking everything but the burden of being a minority from other races. The identities can be worn until the moment it is no longer enjoyable, at which time you can just wash your face. Unlike Tyra would lead you to believe, my identity as a woman of color is not something I can wash off the moment it gets hard. It's not something I can play up to feel exotic and remove the moment I want to feel "normal" again.