Eye: Rihanna Channels Queen Nefertiti As Cultural Appropriation Cries Mount Against Vogue Arabia

Mega star Rihanna covers the November 2017 issue of Vogue Arabia, channeling Queen Nefertiti. Riri loves the ancient Egyptian queen with such passion that she even has a Queen Neferti tattoo on her torso. Vogue Arabia writes:

Ruling over Ancient Egypt next to Pharaoh Akhenaten almost 3 500 years ago, Nefertitiis still one of the most beloved icons of the Middle East. Known for her unmatched beauty, the queen had a very active role in the country’s political sphere, giving mankind an early lesson in women empowerment. Although her death is still shrouded in mystery, Nefertiti’s myth took on a new dimension at the beginning of the 20th century, when German Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt and his team discovered a painted limestone bust of the royal in Amarna. It was found in the ruins of the workshop of court sculptor Thutmose, and was described by Borchardt as “the most alive Egyptian artwork.”

The expected claims of cultural appropriation from the Twitter-universe are proliferating social media. Some loud voices in social media demand that only a model of Egyptian or Arab descent is allowed to channel Queen Nefertiti. The cultural appropriation police are further pounding the drums, demanding that black and African models not be used in an interchangeable manner. A black model -- or presumably an African American model of Kenyan descent cannot channel a Kenyan woman because she is technically American. You get my drift. The rules about who can model what and where are increasingly governed by a very, very tight noose of allowable creativity by the cultural appropriation police. It will be interesting to see how all this ends up in our melting pot world. It seems that the cultural appropriation police do not permit intermixing of racial identities and heritages, or being inspired by cultural influences. They are total purists about intermarriage, color mixing, and any other attempts to water down purity. Sounds pretty white nationalist to me. 

How Vogue Arabia even allowed Anya Ziourova, a member of the so-called 'Russian Fashion Pack', to style a shoot for an Arab magazine is mind-boggling. Good goddess! Then we have the audacity of allowing Greg Kadel to shoot 'Song of the Dessert' in the first place.

Where is the culturally appropriate photographer? You know -- French staff for French magazines; Brits for British magazines -- but only white people for British magazines, in spite of the colonies, because there one is only allowed to use . . . sorry, sorry, I gotta map out all these rules in my human,fusion-pot mind and learn to be more rigid in my thinking. If I was a student on an American university campus, I would run to my safe room to sort all this out. The real world is so challenging because it's all mixed up, and alas, I have no place to run and hide.  ~ Anne