Think about how much fashion profits from black culture and how underrepresented we are in the industry. If you insist on using black celebrities to peddle your merchandise and add a cool factor to your front row, it is indecent to not care about the plights of that person's community.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and supporting black culture within the fashion industry.
Kerby Jean-Raymond highlights the paradox of the fashion industry profiting from black culture while failing to adequately represent and support black individuals and communities. He argues that using black celebrities for marketing without considering their communities' struggles is not only hypocritical but also morally questionable.
In practice
In a panel discussion on diversity in fashion, this quote can highlight the need for greater representation.
The work of black creatives seems to always get undermined in one way or another, and that's what this new generation is actively changing by speaking up. We aren't accepting group categorization and group classifications to describe our work anymore - it just leads to group dismissal.
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Here in Cameroon, football is our leading political party. It's football alone that that unites us, it's football alone that brings us good things - football is the window into our country - so we don't mess around with it.
Food culture in the United States has long been cast as the property of a privileged class. It is nothing of the kind. Culture is the property of a species.
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