NY Museum Will Move Teddy Roosevelt Statue Viewed As Overtly Racist

“The world does not need statues, relics of another age, that reflect neither the values of the person they intend to honor nor the values of equality and justice,” said Theodore Roosevelt IV, a great-grandson of the 26th president, said in a statement approving the removal.Credit...Caitlin Ochs for The New York Times

The bronze statue of America’s 26th president, Teddy Roosevelt, will be moved.from the entrance to the American Museum of History in New York, where it has resided since 1940. I’ve passed it many times on my way into the museum and never seriously considered how it impacted people of color — especially those of African lineage — and Native Americans.

Looking at it now, I understand completely why the statue had come to symbolize a painful legacy of colonial expansion and racial discrimination.

“Over the last few weeks, our museum community has been profoundly moved by the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the killing of George Floyd,” the museum’s president, Ellen V. Futter, said in an interview with the New York Times. “We have watched as the attention of the world and the country has increasingly turned to statues as powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism.”

Futter made it clear that the museum’s decision is based on the “hierarchical composition” of the statue and not Roosevelt the man, who is revered as “a pioneering conservationist.” I will add that Roosevelt being clothed and the other two men more naked sends its own message beyond physical scale.

A Roosevelt family member released a statement approving the removal.

“The world does not need statues, relics of another age, that reflect neither the values of the person they intend to honor nor the values of equality and justice,” said Theodore Roosevelt IV, age 77, a great-grandson of the 26th president and a museum trustee. “The composition of the Equestrian Statue does not reflect Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy. It is time to move the statue and move forward.”

In a compensatory gesture, the museum is naming its Hall of Biodiversity for Roosevelt “in recognition of his conservation legacy,” Futter said.

Not all critics agree with the argument that President Theodore Roosevelt didn’t embrace racial hierarchy.

[They] “have pointed to President Roosevelt’s opinions about racial hierarchy, his support of eugenics theories and his pivotal role in the Spanish-American War. Some see Roosevelt as an imperialist who led fighting in the Caribbean that ultimately resulted in American expansion into colonies there and in the Pacific including Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, Cuba and the Philippines.

A nationalist, Roosevelt, in his later years became overtly racist, historians say, endorsing sterilization of the poor and the intellectually disabled.”

Anne Trips Over Coddington's Mammy Jars As Joan Smalls Confronts Fashion Industry Racism

Joan Smalls Confronts Fashion Industry Racism, As Anne Trips Into Grace's Mammy Jars

The first black person I ever saw in life was a real black woman Aunt Jemima. I remember her serving little appetizer-size pancakes in a grocery store in a tiny Minnesota town when I was growing up. I thought she was magnificent — independent and on the road, creating her own life, traveling to new places, center stage in the grocery store lighting up the place like Christmas in July.

If only I could be like her when I grew up. To me, she was a movie star — a beautiful, talented movie star — and I loved her skin, her smile and — most of all — her self-confidence.

For the Love of Mammy

For reasons I’ve never fully understood, I was committed to civil rights at a very young age — and not because we discussed the issue at the family dinner table. Only when I became a teenager and watched the agonizing brutality of civil rights protests on TV, did I understand that perhaps Aunt Jemima’s life wasn’t so totally wonderful after all.

I was shocked to discover this weekend that former Creative Director of American Vogue Grace Coddington proudly displayed her collection of mammy jars in a French lifestyle magazine last year. Frankly, I was totally disgusted with a woman I’ve admired greatly in fashion world.

You’re reading the words of someone who became so agitated at a dinner party in Connecticut 25 years ago, that I feigned a migraine just so I could excuse myself from the other guests and lie down.

Not wanting to embarrass my investment banker partner, I needed to exit stage right from the despicable dinner table conversations about people of color. He knew, of course, what was going on, and when he came to check on me in the guest room, I suggested to him that I would just return to Manhattan alone on the train and he could come Sunday morning. To his credit, he told our hosts and other guests that I had a terrible history of migraines (not true) and he wanted to take me back to New York.

After reading Anna Wintour’s apology regarding racism at Condé Nast (see article), I find it impossible to believe that none of Grace Coddington’s fashion friends suggested to her that her black mammys should be retired for good.

Grace Coddington’s home spread coincided with the infamous Prada Soho store key chain incident and accusations of blackface against Gucci.

The History of Aunt Jemima

Sarah Doneghy shares the facts of Aunt Jemima’s birth as a cultural icon in her 2018 Black Excellence essay: It Was Never About the Pancakes.

Aunt Jemima was first introduced as a minstrel show character. The characters in these shows were white people in blackface, portraying black people as “dimwitted, lazy, easily frightened, chronically idle, superstitious, happy-go-lucky buffoons,” writes Doneghy.

Her roots came from an old Billy Kersands song “Old Aunt Jemima”, a story sung by slave hands.

The lyrics tell of the promise to be set free yet remaining a slave forever. “My old missus promise me  . . .When she died she-d set me free . . . She lived so long her head got bald . . . She swore she would not die at all . . .” were some of the lyrics.

Many argue that the stage vision of Mammy — the one on Grace Coddington’s jars and pancake mix boxes — never really existed. “The Mammy pictured female household slaves as: fat, middle-aged, dark-skinned, undesirable . . . happy to serve whites, always smiling . . . The ugly truth is that they were: thin . . . young . . . light-skinned, a daughter of rape; desirable to white men and therefore raped, utterly powerless, extremely unhappy . . .” writes Doneghy.

Time To Retire the Mammy Jars, Grace. Perhaps a Public Smashing?

If true, this is one more reason for Grace Coddington to ditch her mammy jars, as they are very dark skinned and deliberately designed to appear unattractive to white men — and, therefore, not a threat to white women. That’s a whole lotta baggage around one set of jars, Grace Coddington.

Now that Vogue Global Artistic Director, Global Content Advisor and Editor-in-Chief of American Vogue Anna Wintour is determined to root out racism at Condé Nast, those jars could be the first post in a new monthly Vogue feature.

Consider a confessional column “How I Confronted My Own Quiet Racism”, with current and former Condé Nast execs leading by example. It could be on Instagram — asking other owners of racist memorabilia to share pictures of them taking out the trash. It might be a bit embarrassing, but think of all the street cred Vogue could build. Beyoncé could write a song. Vogue could be honored at the next Global Citizen festival. This could be big . . . very big.”

Condé Nast could launch this campaign the day after voters send Donald Trump packing in November. America is turning a new page and Grace’s mammy jars are step one. We work our way to the Biden Inauguration, one gesture each day. I love it!! ~ Anne

June 9, 2020 George Floyd Buried in Houston | June 10, 2020 Samira Nasr Now Leads Harper's Bazaar US

June 9, 2020 George Floyd Buried in Houston | June 10, 2020 Samira Nasr Now Leads Harper's Bazaar US

On this day June 10, 2020, you might think that the landing page of Harper’s Bazaar US has left the fashion business. I considered posting an old Temptations song ‘Ball of Confusion’ but what we are actually seeing is a ‘Ball of Clarity’.

Somebody needs to write a new song to describe this moment in America and the fashion industry. What does fashion even mean at this point?

One answer is the escapist route of the Chanel Cruise show, an effort that “totally ignored the cataclysmic context in which they would be worn. It was more like a return to some of high fashion’s escapist failings of the past rather than a meaningful step toward the future,” wrote Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times.

If this is how a fashion house “adapts” to the changing world — if these are the clothes that are the response, if escapism is presented as an answer, if photographs and video simply attempt to mimic what once was, as opposed to reframing what could be, if a statement from a designer can’t even acknowledge the pain and complications of her consumers, even the rich ones — then, pretty as the products may be, it is not doing its job.

In the pain and promise of our global fashion moment, voices matter. Who steps up? Who stands down?The fashion gods have delivered a new voice to the dialogue.

The new editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar US, Samira Nasr now carries a bigger megaphone. Talk about an epic moment for a fashion editor to take the reins of a major US fashion magazine.

Tory Burch's 'Walk the Walk' Campaign Needs to Take Luxury in a New Direction

Tory Burch's 'Walk the Walk' Campaign Needs to Take Luxury in a New Direction

Tory Burch’s Spring Summer 2020 campaign celebrates Ambition with Purpose. Mikael Jansson photographed Anok Yai and Natalia Vodianova, who talk about the positive side of ambition in Tory Burch’s 2020 ‘Walk The Walk’ campaign.

The successful fashion business leader has been a champion of women and girls — and especially as entrepreneurs — for a decade through The Tory Burch Foundation.

The fashion industry entered late May, immersed in deep conversation about changes long overdue in our business sector. Now we add America total crisis over racism and inequality. Tory Burch is among the luxury brands who has learned some lessons on the topic of racism and cultural appropriation. We have every expectation that she will rise as a leader on the future of luxury brands and the fashion calendar — but even more critical now, the status and social/economic obligations in an American society who is saying “enough is enough”.

Put the anarchists and looters aside. Many want to destroy Tory Burch and every other luxury company on the planet. Across this land, tens of millions of Americans — and especially young Americans — cannot live any longer in a world so totally out of whack between the so-called 1% and everybody else.

Major rethinks are required, and Tory Burch’s voice, anchored as well by her marriage to  Pierre-Yves Roussel, a former LVMH Moët Hennessey Louis Vuitton executive, has a perspective that will be critical as we consider how best to move forward.

Revisiting the Johanna Ortiz X H&M Spring 2020 Collab In A Flower Power World

Revisiting the Johanna Ortiz X H&M Spring 2020 Collab In A Flower Power World

The Johanna Ortiz X H&M Spring 2020 collab is one of the Spring 2020 beauties lost in the COVID-19 pandemic. Following on the success of her Fall 2019 collection for H&M, Ortiz returned for spring. Describing the designer, H&M wrote:

If you don’t know that Johanna Ortiz hails from the birthplace of salsa, her energetic designs will give you some immediate pointers. Dramatic, luscious, extravagant — Johanna Ortiz’s dresses are the kind of pieces you’ll want to throw on and start dancing in. They tap their own beat, and demand the wearer does the same.

It’s not only fashion lovers who feel the rhythm of Ortiz’s collections. There’s an irresistible sense of joy and power at the heart of the Colombian designer’s work that has the world’s most powerful women smitten. Michelle Obama opted for Johanna Ortiz during her book tour, at parties, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Alexa Chung and Jessica Biel count Ortiz’s designs as must-haves. Olivia Palermo wears Ortiz to set her style agenda, and when it came to serving a major look at Jennifer Lawrence’s wedding, it was Johanna Ortiz that Sienna Miller favored. 

H&M Magazine then interviewed Ortiz about her frankly-feminine, design vision that resonates deeply with so many women leaders.