The Race issue

***Double Standards***

Why is it that Italian Vogue was allowed to print a 'groundbreaking' issue last year which only featured black models without anyone really saying a word about it...but if they were to do an issue featuring only blonde, white models (and marketing it as such) there would be a huge race outrage?

This has always bothered me. For all those who spout equality, hundreds of years after slavery was abolished why is it that race is still such a huge issue? I mean, take Oprah for example...most of what she does is championing black causes...isn't this racist? Ok I get that maybe in the US the race issues between black and white is so much bigger than in Europe (who have other conflicts such as Turks in Germany, Roma gypsies in Italy, etc), but really these separation mentalities are as good as reverse apartheid.

Oh and another thing. For even the most liberal of people, dating outside ones own race is often frowned upon...Season 3 of Sex and The City where Samantha is dating a cute black record industry guy and her 'friend', his sister warns her off him saying she doesn't want her only brother to date a white woman.

Take another example. I was in Woolworths before it closed down one or two years ago and was in the queue to pay for some stationary. This was in Hackney. I heard one girl say to another, "you can't buy Vogue, because there aren't any black models in it and all the powerful people behind the magazine are white". My thoughts were WTF??!!! Never would a 'white' person be allowed to voice this opinion out loud without shit hitting the fan!

It's all pretty ridiculous in my opinion. Its perfectly acceptable to me to use the differences in upbringing, values, education and culture as a point of difference but the colour thing is BS. Take the South Africa view that many black people outside the country possess. Yes, there was apartheid and actually it wasn't around for very long but even so, its over now yet people see all white South Africans are racist. From what I saw over the course of about a year in Johannesburg at least (ok Durban is!) is mixed groups of friends of all ages, met white people who fought for the end of apartheid and are members of the ANC...and you know what else I saw? Business rules which say you have to hire X number of black people for every white person in your company. Sure, whites there are a minority so in theory this may make sense. The reality is that when I walked into an office to get a holiday visa extension, the lawyer woman was white and there were 10 black women in the office doing absolutely nothing because there was nothing to do. Their job? To go into the CBD (which many white people are afraid to go because of the crime rates there - lots of Nigerian drug dealers, guns, etc.) and queue up to get a stamp in a passport. Also, you actually get asked your race on job application forms as a compulsory question! Now is that reverse discrimination or what? Whatever happened to talent or actual skills?