Ready-Made Headlines For The Clueless White Magazine Editor

Replying here, because I won’t give you the honor of a comment on your blog:

You write: “Although I’m not a minority in my valley, I’m a religious minority in the United States.”

Yes, Jeanette, the plight of the Mormon is EXACTLY like the plight of African Americans. Clueless + Clueless does not equal redemption.

You also write: “Although hundreds shared their opinions online or in an e-mail, I don’t believe one person clearly articulated WHY this headline was offensive.”

The fact that you don’t know why it was insensitive is perhaps the most frightening thing about this whole story.

Ultimately, we’re just a humor site, and we point out things that are funny. Your snafu, unfortunately for you, was pretty hilarious. I do hope some good comes out of this, and we truly mean you no harm.

Ms. Bennett, because you asked for clarification in your blog, I will attempt to succinctly explain why this has sparked the outrage you describe. While the term “person of color” may not, in and of itself, carry a negative connotation, it is precariously close to the label of “colored person” which is an entirely inappropriate way to refer to someone from a dark skinned ethnicity. It is a heavily loaded term that recalls a disgraceful period in our history of segregation and outright bigotry that we as a nation are still working to overcome. And while “person of color” might be appropriately used in the proper context, for instance in a thoughtful analysis of race relations as a neutral way of referring to non-white persons, it is entirely inappropriate to use as a punny headline over-top a picture of a group of all white women. I don’t think you’re a racist, or meant to hurt or offend people with this headline, and comments such as “setting civil rights back x number of decades” are hyperbolic and kind of silly, your lack of judgment in using a phrase you knew had racial connotations is remarkable. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an article on farts to which I need to add sound effects. Good day to you.

Speaking AS a “woman of color”, let me tell you WHY this is wrong. You say you were not trivializing or making light of the black experience. 1) That comment is like saying, “No animals were tested in the making of this product.” 2) The fact that you had all white people (and oops, my bad – a half-Mexican woman, so that totally gives you street cred! right-on!), all smiling and happy, with a tagline that is used as a label to all women who are not white. A label, that while slightly above-board, is quite insensitive and classifies a group of women not based on their individual talents and ethnic backgrounds, but simply by the color of their skin. Add that to a society that still views white women as the epitome of beauty and sexiness and black women as hypersexualized objects and undesirable, and lady, you got yourself a whole lot of people pissed off.
So while I’m sure you genuinely didn’t feel that you were offending a lot of people and I don’t believe you’re racist, you have what we call “white privilege.” The advantage of being white is that you don’t understand what it is like to be treated a certain way because of your skin color. That you don’t have people labeling you or objectifying you or arbitrarily determining your skill set or education because of what you look like. And to equate your struggle as a religious minority with that of being a racial minority is like equating the Civil Rights Movement with cheese. Nonsensical, right? Because you can’t compare how people MAY judge you because you’re LDS, as opposed to people who are judged EVERY DAY by simply not being white. Last time I checked, no one has ever killed LDS members for being in an area where “they’re not supposed to be in” or beat or raped members of the LDS just because they could. Or that LDS members have to bust ass THAT much harder to overcome stereotypes when applying for jobs or ON the job because they’re scrutinized infinitely more than their religious majority counterparts. And I’m sure that millions of people erroneously cite as FACT that LDS members, while the minority of the population, are the majority of people on welfare and who get abortions.
Better yet, let me put it to you this way. Using the term “people of color” is like using the term “Negro” or “Oriental.” While not an epithet, it’s just effing rude. Not only is it rude to say that TO “people of color”, it’s ruder STILL to use it as a play on words, like it’s a popular catchprase of the day, LOLZ! If after this you STILL don’t understand why you pissed off a bunch of people, then you are, in fact, clueless.