Vogue Italia’s “Black Issue” Doesn’t Address The Real Issue

I can’t remember the last time I picked up a lady mag and saw an African-American woman on the cover that wasn’t Halle Berry. The beauty and hair advice doled out in these magazines is targeted at white women unless otherwise noted and the major runway shows are pitifully powder white (Eastern-European is very in). It’s sucky, to say the least. Vogue Italia decided to do something about it, declaring their July issue “The Black Issue”—all of the featured models would be Black and all the featured content would address Black women. This is all fine and dandy on a purely surface level I suppose, except that by making this issue “special” they’ve defined all other, white-centric issues as the usual and the norm. Rather than having more women of color in every issue, targeting a single issue at one ethnic group doesn’t really do anything to increase diversity, now does it? That’s weak. [NY Times]