White privilege is everywhere, even your bra, according to the editorial board of the University of Oklahoma’s Daily.
That’s because the fashion industry has defined certain colors as “nude” or “flesh-colored,” the editorial explains:
Imagine this: you are a young African American woman who has run to the local department store to grab a “nude” colored bra to wear under a sheer outfit, say a game-day dress or a work interview blouse. But when you get to the store there is no “nude” lingerie, at least not for you. Bras in slightly different shades of pale peach abound, but there are few to no options for darker-skinned women and they aren’t advertised as nude-colored. How would it make you feel that the fashion industry and society at large has based its ideal of nude on Caucasian people? That the color of your skin doesn’t count as “nude?” …
Or think about nearly every advertisement you’ve ever seen for “nude” makeup or “flesh-colored” clothing? What exactly was the tone of those flesh colors? Almost definitely not shades of brown or anything darker than a pale pink, which is ridiculous considering nearly a third of the U.S. population was non-white as of the 2010 census.
The board is also bothered by Band-Aids.
These are all examples of “subtle” white privilege and even racism, the board argues. Its column is actually a pitch for a new lingerie company called Nubian Skin, which “creates nude lingerie and hosiery for women of color and is built on the foundation that all women should have access to the same beauty products”:
The concept is so new that the brand’s online storefront hasn’t launched yet, but we posit the company will do quite well. After all, it is filling a hole in the market that larger lingerie brands have chosen to overlook.
And more power to Nubian Skin to fill an untapped market niche. If it succeeds, that’s an example of good entrepreneurship, like ride-sharing services using the excess capacity in most cars to make transit more efficient. But under the editorial board’s logic, that would make drivers without passengers guilty of genocide. Albeit “subtly.”
If you weren’t already afraid enough of making unintended racist gestures every day, the board wants you to dwell on it:
We encourage all of our readers to think critically about the small instances of racial bias they encounter each and every day.
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