Comments on: An ongoing discussion

By: Miriam

Miriam — Wed, 04 May 2011 13:49:05 +0000

hello! I found this post randomly while doing a google search for HR fabric. I feel kinda guilty that I hadn’t even noticed the lily whiteness of the figures in her fabric! I agree with you that there are far worse offenders when it comes to “all white, all the time” kind of imgery, but still I was pretty dispointed by the callusness of her response to the issue when it was brought up with her.

my husband works at an academic library and was able to bring home a copy of “Race: the power of an illusion” and we’ve been watching it. it’s really amazing! I LOVED the first episode about how little we are different from each other DNA-wise.

thank you for such an enlighted post on this issue and I’ll be sure to check in on your blog again!

By: Nan

Nan — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:43:18 +0000

Well written and needed. Thank you for writing this. As a mother of pale skinned blond boys (3) I feel like often we are allowed out of the solution to this problem. We talk often with the boys about this and how the world looks to people who do not look like them. My 10 year old is just starting to get a bit of a handle on this. IT is easier as we live in an urban fringe environment so we have a lot more diversity and the boys have many people they actually love there are not white. This was a choice made by us as a family and I agree and would like to see Ms. Ross make choices that will move us forward as humans as well.

By: The Heather Ross Dogpile « Feather and Fan

The Heather Ross Dogpile « Feather and Fan — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 08:29:37 +0000

[...] wrote a poignant response where she discusses her children’s excitement at finding dolls that looked like them. I grew [...]

By: Liz E.

Liz E. — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:40:59 +0000

Thank you for such a balanced set of thoughts on such a complicated subject. It’s so, so easy to forget that pretty much every day we all make judgments based on looks, whether we mean to or not.

I’m reminded of a really sad study where kids as young as 2-4 years old associated things like ‘smart’ and ‘pretty’ with images of light-skinned children and ‘lazy’ and ‘troublemaker’ with images dark-skinned children. (Study in question was somewhat rigged — the question was “point to the smartest one, point to the laziest one, etc” as opposed to “which of these children are smart/lazy/troublemakers/etc” but the point stands.

I think that an artist has a right to create whatever she pleases… but I think in this day and age it’s naive to try and brush criticism off as “well, these are my memories, I’m not trying to be racist.” I don’t think that there’s really anything wrong with naivete per se, and there’s certainly an amount of entitlement in consumers that’s inevitably frustrating on both sides… but I think certain kinds of it are dangerous in a direct-from-creator-to-consumer business. At that point, how you brand yourself, including what you say in public forums matters a lot more than if you have, for example, a publicist or image consultant who acts as a diplomat. While the end decision might not change for various creative and business reasons, people will feel very differently when the “official statement” is a little more inclusive, aware and humble.

By: Kristen

Kristen — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 02:49:55 +0000

Amanda, I wanted to read the essay you linked before I responded to you, but though I have it printed out and I’ve started it many times, I still haven’t done so. Regardless, thank you. It looks like a good read, and a necessary one.

I didn’t get to queer families in my post, but this brings up an important point as well, because queer families are pretty much the only families left who are deliberately made invisible. I think it’s genuine oversight and privilege that work to leave out people of color, but I’ve seen too many campaigns to literally hide the existence of queer families to think that the oversight there is accidental. I also think that people who haven’t experienced invisibility, either personally, or on behalf of a loved one, may have trouble understanding how it can damage a person. That is a whole ‘nother post, though, I guess!

By: Sara Bee

Sara Bee — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:23:37 +0000

My friend mentioned this controversy to me, so I started poking around to learn what the substance of it is. Your post is the most thoughtful one I have seen … but this all seems like so much to-do about very little. I have to say, it’s hard to care. Heather Ross is an artist, and is entitled to create whatever she wants. The popularity of her product does not entitle her consumers to demand changes. If people can depict Jesus swimming in urine, among other atrocious themes too numerous to count, then this woman can darn well design fabrics depicting whatever color of children she wants to. If people want cute fabrics with children of color on them, which is not at all an unreasonable desire, then they can either *politely ask* Ms Ross to rerelease a few of her designs with children of color, or (gasp!) they can design their own. This attitude of entitlement whereby people with (entirely self-made) influence owe some of that influence to promote the ends of people without influence, completely runs contrary to my personal ethic. This is frivolous and petty and totally unjustified, in my opinion–feminist rhetoric notwithstanding.

By: Cate

Cate — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 01:14:08 +0000

What a lovely, thoughtful post…I’ve been turning it over in my head since I first read it this morning. Thank you.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:59:07 +0000

Hey Kristen, Pam just pointed me here and I wanted to say thanks for this post, especially the super-thoughtful notes about white privilege (which I obviously needed to frame much, much, much more clearly in my post!) and on the power of representation. Such a great contribution to the conversation! And yeah, how great is that documentary? I’ve taught bits and pieces of it and it really does do a great job of explaining both the complete artifice of race as a construct and the ramifications for all of us living within the structures realized by those arbitrary definitions.

By: JulieFrick

JulieFrick — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:15:22 +0000

Thank you so much for adding to the conversation. It gets to me when people say that they “don’t see race” or that seeing themselves in popular the world around them isn’t important because they look within themselves…or some such. The first is a well-meaning but truly dishonest and ultimately detrimental attitude,and the second, while it may be true of an individual, seems really unlikely to me. As a woman I am constantly on the lookout for how women will be represented in movies, on t.v., in magazine advertisements, and as crafters we need to look at the materials we’re using too.

By: mick

mick — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:08:51 +0000

This was really thoughtful and beautifully written, as usual. I truly enjoyed reading this, and your thoughts about the importance of little girls playing with something not marked as overtly feminine is a really great point. In addition, thanks for voicing your ideas about artists of color representing themselves. I noticed that trend in the comments on Pam’s blog, too, and your response makes a very important point in response.