French ELLE Article’s Racist Remarks Spark Boycott

If a fashion writer for French Elle is to be believed—and she is not—African-Americans weren’t stylish until the Obama family came into office.

“For the first time, the chic has become a plausible option for a community so far pegged [only] to its street wear codes,” writes Nathalie Dolivo in a post translated from the magazine’s website titled ‘Black Fashion Power.’

And if this sweeping stereotyping and flat-out ignorance weren’t already off base, Dolivo goes on to explain why the so-called Obama renaissance of style is so “chic.” According to her assessment, it embraces “white codes” while still making what she calls “a bourgeois ethnic reference (a batik-printed turban/robe, a shell necklace, a ‘créole de rappeur’) reminiscent [of] the roots.”

Dolivo’s story was inspired by a recent New York Times article about a popular website called Street Etiquette, which curates and interprets black men’s fashion through a historical lens.  “I truly believe there wasn’t any malice in [Dolivo’s] remarks,” site co-founder Joshua Kissi told Shine in an email. “With that said, I think she wasn’t perfectly equipped in discussing the often muddy issues of ‘ethnicity’ and ‘fashion’ in the same vein.”

The reaction from commenters after the post went up was less forgiving. One reader put the author straight: “How, in 2012, in a France where there are at least three million blacks and mixed people, can you write such nonsense? You are too kind when you write that in 2012 we have incorporated the white codes … what do you think, in 2011, we dressed in hay and burlap bags?”

Another wrote: “You really think we waited until the Obama’s to know style and let go of our ‘street wear’ proclivities?”

The disturbing blog post has since been removed from Elle’s website, but the firestorm is just getting warmed up.

Fellow fashion writers are taking a stand against Dolivo’s message. The Cut’s Alex Rees describes the post as “misguided and prejudiced.” Sarah Nicole Prickett of Canada’s Fashion Magazine labels the article itself a “white supremacist.”

“We are not one monolithic group to be written about like zoo animals,” admonishes Fashion Bomb Daily’s Clair Sulmers.

Read More: http://shine.yahoo.com/fashion/french-elle-articles-racist-remarks-sparks-boycott-222900939.html