Sometimes, when I go out with my boyfriend in public, people stare…and stare…and stare. Unfortunately, it’s not because I’m drop-dead gorgeous or because my boyfriend is a total stud (although to me he is). It’s because his skin is brown and mine is white.

Before I go any further, I’m going to offer up a disclaimer: a lot of people don’t stare. Most people don’t even give a second look. And I don’t assume that those who do are staring only because we’re an interracial couple…but it sure does seem the most likely reason.

Honestly, when I started dating him, I was expecting the most conservative of the conservative white folk to be the ones who stared. As much as we’re living in the 21st century here, interracial relationships are still a little too futuristic for some people.

So imagine my surprise when it turned out to be all the Indians who stared. Read More »

Everyone knows that the fashion industry can be bitchy, but now there are reports that it actually might be racist.

UK magazine The Independent recently ran an article about the lack of black and minority models on the runway.

Dee Doocey, a former fashion manager who’s currently campaigning for diversity on the catwalk says she can’t remember “being sent a model who wasn’t white,” during her days in the field “I don’t know if it’s racism, or just the fashion industry languishing in the doldrums”, Doocey continues, “but it needs to change. Agencies only seem interested in leggy white blonde girls.”

While none-white people make up about “30 percent” of London’s population, they “don’t even make up 1 percent of the models”, a ratio that sounds like it might have a reflection in America as well.

One managing director at a London agency that specializes in ethnically diverse models illustrated the crux of the problem by explaining her difficulty in getting work for her black models.

“The racism you come across is not underlying, it’s blatant” she reveals, going on to say that “People will say things like ‘Don’t send any more black models’, and one designer even said black people didn’t suit his clothes. And we’re not talking about small designers here; it’s all the big ones.” Read More »