Daily News Feed 7.15.08

Lack of Black Models Keeps Naomi Campbell Going
British supermodel Naomi Campbell refuses to retire after more than two decades on the world’s catwalks because there are still too few black beauties in the fashion industry. While many of her colleagues of the late 1980s — like Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington — have moved on from the runways, the 38-year-old icon continues to turn heads at the world’s top fashion shows. “I’m very grateful for my career, but I worry for the girls after me for the opportunities they get — the way they get treated. And this is one of the reasons I still do what I do,” she told Reuters in a weekend interview in Nigeria. Campbell, who as a teenager was the first black model to grace the covers of the French and British editions of Vogue magazine, said many fashion designers still favored fair-skinned models over their dark-skinned counterparts. (Continue Reading…)

McLaughlin Takes Heat for ‘Oreo’ Comment
Longtime Washington talk-show host John McLaughlin is facing fire Monday for referring to Barack Obama as an “Oreo” during a segment on his Sunday political program, “The McLaughlin Group. The veteran Washington journalist was discussing the recent comments from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was caught last week by an open microphone on Fox News saying the Illinois senator is “talking down to black people” as he campaigns for the White House. Those remarks were largely seen in reference to Obama’s recent admonishment at a Chicago church of some black men who he said were not living up to their responsibilities as parents. Referencing Jackson’s comments, McLaughlin said Obama “fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo — a black on the outside, a white on the inside.” (Continue Reading…)

New Yorker Editor Defends Obama Cover
Satire is the thinnest of tightropes, especially in a 24-hour news cycle where every political utterance or image is parsed, gnawed and spit out. That explains why New Yorker editor David Remnick has spent the past day trying to explain that the latest cover of his magazine – depicting Sen. Barack Obama in Muslim garb and his wife, Michelle, as an Afro-sporting gun packer – is intended as a satire. “The fact is, it’s not a satire about Obama – it’s a satire about the distortions and misconceptions and prejudices about Obama,” Remnick said in an interview with the Huffington Post on Monday. Remnick’s problem is that a lot of people aren’t laughing, especially when a significant portion of the country still believes falsehoods about the Obamas’ backgrounds. Critics say that a satire about misconceptions is a bit hard to grasp without much context in an image full of racially and culturally loaded images. The magazine is not even getting slack from those who respect the liberal weekly, an award-winning publication whose editorials have been generally supportive of the Illinois senator’s presidential candidacy. (Continue Reading…)