Some things may just be coincidence, but people are going to question the timing of the publishing of this atrocious photo that exemplifies historical racism and further projects the concept of white supremacy.
On the very day that the nation — and many parts of the world — pause to pay homage to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and commemorate the 50th anniversary of the passage of the monumental 1964 Civil Rights Bill, a Russian magazine, Miroslava Duma’s new online magazine Buro 247, published an article on Russian socialite Dasha Zhukova, sitting on a “black woman” chair.
The editor-in-chief of Garage magazine is perched on a chair atop a black “dummy” — the black woman is not real — and she is nude save for panties, a garter belt, elbow-length gloves, and knee-high boots. Zhukova is gazing into the camera with a subtle arrogant look scrawled across her face as she enjoys her comfort at the expense of the black female underling.
What’s the point of this photograph? To continue to propagate images of white world dominance and superiority and the complete and utter degradation of the black woman who only exists at the white woman’s leisure.
That black women are treated as hypersexualized jezebels is far from a new concept. Almost every day, there are scores of images that are beamed through television, movies and magazines that paint the narrative of black women as not only a resident at the very bottom of the world’s socioeconomic strata, but that their existence is of little consequence on the world stage.
It will undoubtedly be seen as a slap in the face that Buro 247 chose to publish this article today on Dr. King’s national holiday, though no such commemoration exists in Russia.
The art and fashion industries remain one of the few industries where unrestrained hate, racism and ignorance are allowed run rampant.
