Things do get complicated when you enter the funhouse of progressive identity obsession.
On Friday, September 1, L’Oreal Paris fired Munroe Bergdorf, its newly hired transgender model for making comments about racism on Facebook. The model complained that white people “don’t even realize or refuse to acknowledge that your existence, privilege and success as a race is built on the backs, blood and death of people of colour. Your entire existence is drenched in racism.” The remarks were deleted and the model was promptly fired from L’Oreal.
While outlets like Time told the full story, The Independent had a very different spin: “We are socialised under white supremacy and patriarchy from birth. What she said is factual.”
While the model said on Facebook that the controversial remark “was a direct response to the violence of WHITE SUPREMACISTS in Charlottesville.”
Bergdorf went on to say, “I was addressing the fact that western society as a whole, is a system rooted in white supremacy--designed to benefit, prioritise and protect white people before anyone of any other race.”
Western society, as a whole, was built in a part of the world where the minorities were quite literally the minority. Bergdorf and The Independent apparently failed to take this into account. The Independent’s Otamere Guobadia cited President Obama, saying that he “absolutely” suffered racism in the White House.
The source also criticized L’Oreal for firing Bergdorf, “L’Oreal have acted particularly cowardly and shown us their true colours [uh, would those be white?], and they must be held accountable for their lip service to diversity and failure to do anything but uphold the status quo.”
The company has stated that the views held by Bergdorf “were at odds with our values” because in perpetrating reverse racism, Bergdorf actually is working against diversity.
