Mixed Race Studies

The First Black Supermodel, Whom History Forgot

The Cut
2013-07-10

Keli Goff

Photo: Woodgate/Associated Newspapers/Rex USA

Fashion has a notoriously complicated history when it comes to black models, but the past month felt particularly loaded with talking points: Prada hired their first black model for a campaign in nineteen years; Kinee Diouf became the first black model on the cover of Vogue Netherlands, months after the magazine had painted a white model in “blackface”; and then Raf Simons cast black runway models – six of them – in his Dior couture show for the first time since he arrived at the house.

It’s slow progress since Donyale Luna became the first black supermodel nearly 50 years ago. Especially since most inveterate fashion-watchers don’t even know Luna’s name…

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I’d thought I was alone, or just unlucky, but as I spoke to other women — 13 for this piece — I realized it wasn’t just me. Targeted harassment from Asian-American men toward Asian-American women over choosing a non-Asian partner or having multiracial children, I discovered, is widespread, vicious, and devastating. We tell kids, “Ignore bullies and they’ll go away,” but the thing about ignoring bullies is that even if they leave you alone, they find other targets.

Celeste Ng, “When Asian Women Are Harassed for Marrying Non-Asian Men,” The Cut. October 12, 2018. https://www.thecut.com/2018/10/when-asian-women-are-harassed-for-marrying-non-asian-men.html.

When Asian Women Are Harassed for Marrying Non-Asian Men

The Cut
2018-10-12

Celest Ng

Photo: Jade/Getty Images/Blend Images

The men who harass me know three things: I’m Chinese-American, my husband is white, and our son is multiracial. You hate Asian men, they insist; you hate your own child. You hate yourself. I once received 27 tweets — calling me everything from “irrelevant” to “liar” to “coward” to “neglectful gaslighting mother” — in 48 hours, from one person. I save these messages in a folder on my computer to document the abuse. Whenever I upgrade my laptop, I copy them over, little packets of poison I must keep and carry forever.

I’ve gotten messages like this for more than four years, ever since my first novel — featuring a family with an Asian father and a white mother — was published and my own mixed family became public knowledge. But this message arrived in August — #AsianAugust, some were calling it, because of the huge success of Asian-centered films like Crazy Rich Asians, Searching, and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. It was a moment when Asian-Americans were celebrating as a community, yet here was a hate message plummeting out of the blue into my inbox. And like most of the harassing messages I receive, it came from an Asian man…

Read the entire article here.