Tyra Banks puts models in blackface

I decried French Vogue’s recent use of blackface, and now apply the same standard to America’s Next Top Model. In the most recent installment of ANTM, Tyra Banks (the show’s creator and a producer) had the aspiring models made to appear bi-racial, and included several ethnic combinations, including Mexican and Greek, Botswanan and Polynesian, and Malagasy and Japanese. This isn’t a first for the show—in season 4, Banks did something similar. As I’ve said before, it is problematic to use  blackface, whiteface or any other kind of “face” to represent a particular people group—ethnic heritage is more than a game of dress up. Hopefully Banks doesn’t think that anyone is teaching or learning any profound lessons on racial identity when the makeup (unlike an ethnic identity) washes off easily and at-will.

This one’s a fail; video below: