Professor Block is a handsome fellow. But he is not likely to appear on the catwalk anytime soon. FULL ARTICLE by Ben O’Neill
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/16255/omg-theres-discrimination-in-the-modeling-industry/
OMG! There’s Discrimination in the Modeling Industry!
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Race discrimination is a reasonable approach in the modelling industry. Certain colors and clothing designs just don’t look good on people with certain skin tones, body features, or facial features. I would look absolutely ridiculous in a traditional Indian garb while that same individual would look ridiculous wearing my 18th century family tartan, which I look good in. Because I have pale skin, brighter colors clash and look bad on me. So, for instance, I wouldn’t buy a colorful shirt becuase it looks good on a darker skinned fellow.
Perth is heavily caucasian, so any models attempting to sell products in that region would also be heavily caucasian. Ms. Rajandran may look stunning in an ensemble, but the potential customers of that very dress would look horrible in it because the customer base isn’t Indian. Colors that go well with her bronze skin don’t go well with lighter skin tones.
A good model has enough superficial similarities with potential customers to show off the clothing, but not so ordinary as to allow the customer to project themselves into that model. No matter how hard she may try, a white woman will never be able to project herself into the place of an Indian model on a poster. She may think that the clothing being sold by the store is just out of her league, whereas a white female, though still a model, would have a better chance of selling that dress.
It is the same basic premise for both music and movies as well. I often visit our local hookah bar, where they play videos of the latest artists in the Arabic world. What, no white people? Yet there’s nothing inherently wrong with this idea. In a business, it is our goal to feed customers items they will want.
Of course, even unreasonable approaches to race discrimination must be respected in a free market. If a hotel chooses not to let whites stay there, why should they be denied? There cannot be a thing such as private property without the option to deny entrance, regardless of reason.
I am outraged! This should have been the image used to compare Walter Block with the Indian model – http://mises.org/jefffiles/block.jpg
Much less discriminating
That picture was the moment Ms. Rajandran walked into the room.
A lovely picture, but a bit out of date now. (I suspect that Ms Rajandran would not yet have been conceived when this picture was taken.) I used the more current picture of Prof Block, partly to tip the scales in favour of my point! How dastardly of me!
Ms. Rajandran is beautiful woman, but a little dim. Modeling is a inherently superficial and therefore discriminatory industry, that she doesn’t understand this is sad.
It is good the article was clear they were talking about Perth. In New York models need to look ‘exotic’ which may or may not include Indians, but doesn’t include many Americans. Presumably Indian models do well in India – which is considerably larger than Perth.
The quote that she “hoped that by her speaking out about it, the practice of culling models based solely on their appearance would change.” is priceless.
I think part of the theme is that she’s shocked, shocked, that Perth is not as ‘multi-cultural’ and desiring of non-Caucasians in ads as other places she’s been.
I think that things here are a bit more complicated than that. I admit that probably Ms. Rajandran is a rather ungrateful and slimy individual. I mean, she should have thanked the agency for a good, honest advice about the local market – instead, she brought the whole issue to the public, ruining the reputation of her agents, hoping to gain something out of the mess she caused. At least, this is my opinion.
Nevertheless, discrimination IS a problem in other contexts and I think that a minimal legislative apparatus is a necessary burden to avoid more severe violations of natural rights. I will tell you an episode I had to face myself, few years ago. I was with my wife, we were back from a walk in the woods – so our dressing code was rather informal. We spotted a small bakery on the way home, so we decided to bring a small cake home. I parked the car and, since I was covered in leaves and dirt, I asked my more presentable wife to go inside and buy something. She is from Lithuania, so she speaks with some heavy accent, but quite correctly and clearly. I had to enter inside the shop myself, after a wait of ten minutes in the car, because the redneck behind the desk would not serve cakes to “russians” (that was how my wife was identified) and therefore was ignoring her presence in the shop. We are talking about food here. That was a stupid cake, but it was really an unpleasant situation. My wife remained quiet and sad for the whole day.
So, my point is – not all forms of discriminations are equal. Some of them are necessary and useful. Others, definitely not. A civilized society cannot allow that certain individuals or groups were forbidden to access to any market (as consumers, producers, or traders). I do believe in particular that when your entrepreneurial activity is supposed to satisfy certain basic needs of the public (food, shelter, et similia) you cannot simply refuse this or that type of customer. Certain closed, traditional communities are very suspicious towards “different” individuals and there really might be no alternative source of food for a “strange” stranger. A foreigner might not be allowed to earn honestly his living, if employers would refuse to hire him just for his accent. Yes, these are stupid entrepreneurial choices – but, guess what, sometimes you stumble upon packs of stupid fellows.
“I think that things here are a bit more complicated than that.”
I disagree.
“I admit that probably Ms. Rajandran is a rather ungrateful and slimy individual.”
I don’t know. I think she’s just confused. There are plenty of people with good character that are sometimes mistaken.
In regards to your story, the solution is to let the market work out. The owner of the bakery didn’t want a particular customer’s money, and in turning away people, he’s giving possible business to someone else. HIs discrimination costs him and benefits his competitors. (I’m assuming of course, you didn’t give the man your business. I wouldn’t. In fact, I’d tell everyone I could that the man is a fool and not worthy of any business.)
“Certain closed, traditional communities are very suspicious towards ‘different’ individuals and there really might be no alternative source of food for a ‘strange’ stranger.”
Then why go to those communities in the first place? If a group of people wish to voluntary segregate themselves, I don’t agree with that at all, but that is their business. Provided they aren’t using violent means, there is no ethical problem with people entering or not entering into what are voluntary relationships.
“A foreigner might not be allowed to earn honestly his living, if employers would refuse to hire him just for his accent.”
I’ve seen people that can barely speak english get hired in positions of customer service because they worked cheap enough. It’s a trade off. So long as the foreigner ins’t an outright liability in the workplace, he’ll always have a job somewhere. Maybe some might discriminate, but business is about productivity and profits. People that are interested in profit will not engage in the kind of discrimination you’re talking about. And markets always favor the people that are the most accessible.
It’d be great if everyone treated everyone else well, and never left a bad feeling, but making it illegal to do otherwise would be a much, much worse world to live in.
“A civilized society cannot allow that certain individuals or groups were forbidden to access to any market (as consumers, producers, or traders). ”
Why can’t it? Who are you to determine whose preferences are more legitimate than anyone else’s in the market economy?
As for the article, caucasian women can have long, slim noses too. In fact, there is some overlap between Indian and so-called caucasian features, aside from things like skin colour. I wish this moron would get over herself and that people would stop shouting “DISCRIMINATION!” for every little thing, because people discriminate ALL the time. It is inevitable in a world of scarcity. Unless it’s violent, there is absolutely nothing – nada, zip – wrong with it, at all.
I agree with both the specific and general point of the article. Yet, it should be pointed out, nothing in the article supports the general point. In fact, the article as a whole may be seen as arguing against the major point. The author clearly suggests that the discrimination in the modeling industry is of the sort which selects features relevant to the job. The argument made here cannot be used to argue, say, that companies should be permitted to discriminate based on race when selecting software engineers. Yet, they most certainly should be.
The Mises Institute should end this heinous discrimination by launching a Walter Block fashion line.
Indeed, Walter Block should go to Perth and ask the modeling agency how he’d do as a female model, and then when they advise him against it, as he’s male and older (sex and age discrimination!), contact the media in a similar was as this model has. That might make some real change for the good.
From HERE:
A civilized society should never let the government decide with whom they can, cannot or must interact on their own property, either for business or for leisure. Yes, that shopper is a rude idiot and a bigot, so buy somewhere else and tell everyone you know.
BTW, I know a Lithuanian girl and a Russian one; both are beautiful and very nice.
I originally was going to express my desire for her to be subject to mental capacity discrimination, but then I remembered that the modeling industry seems notorious for rewarding those without the ability to engage in “logic.” She should probably have a decent career.
OK guys, I stand corrected on this one. I admit that most of my ideas about discrimination stem from that one episode and its emotional background, not from a careful analysis. I still think – somebody should teach that bigot a good lesson, but of course this is a matter of personal revenge (and a similar mentality is probably behind many “reparational” legislative interventions).
It is incredibly unpleasant to be discriminated, especially on ethnic grounds. Even worse when this happens to somebody you care for. Yet, what Barry points out is probably very correct. You cannot really enforce any oppressive discrimination, without the intervention of some kind of coercive authority, with its discriminating rules and efficient cops. Capitalism, in its pure, anarchic form, is likely to remove discriminations anyway on the long run, thanks to progressive economic (and therefore social) integration of different groups.
in much less statist societies than today, discrimination occurred and was extremely apparent. to imagine that discrimination is going to fade away absent the state (an aggravant, sure) is ahistoric and utopian.
strength through diversity is a statist propaganda nonsense, though it’s now trumpeted from all institutional quarters. birds of a feather has stood the test of time.
At the same time a competitive market does not generally reward people who discriminate blindly.
If I refuse to hire Russian (for example) workers even if they are the most qualified for the job, I will have lower productivity and higher costs than my competitors who hire the best candidates. At that point, unless my customers are willing to pay higher prices just to avoid the possibility of dealing with a Russian I will loose money.
There may be some areas where people will genuinely be willing to pay more to shop at a store where Russians (or Latinos, or Blacks, etc.) are banned, but I seriously doubt that this would become very common, particularly given the huge number of people who would actively shun a store with those types of policies, regardless of who is being discriminated against.
All predictions aside, though, I am perfectly willing to let people decide freely through the market which model of business to reward.
“strength through diversity is a statist propaganda nonsense…”
And extraordinarily ironic. The state is intolerant of actual diversity.
Witness the evolution and devolution of the public school system, just one of many institutions that celebrates diversity by squashing it. And funded by you and me.
I absolutely agree. Some people are just jerks, and they do hurtful things to other people. The bigot storekeeper that you mentioned deserves to be ridiculed, shunned, boycotted and insulted.
That being said, I do not think that it would be just to take his store away, or make him pay a fine, or put him in jail.
Most people automatically think when they hear that sort of story “that is awful, the government should put a stop to it”. Knowing as we do that government intervention is almost certainly going to make matters worse, libertarians are forced to say “that is awful, maybe I should do something about that”.
For the record, I “absolutely agree” with André above…
“OK guys, I stand corrected on this one. I admit that most of my ideas about discrimination stem from that one episode and its emotional background, not from a careful analysis. I still think – somebody should teach that bigot a good lesson, but of course this is a matter of personal revenge (and a similar mentality is probably behind many “reparational” legislative interventions).”
In a free society, you could put a large billboard next to this bakery indicating, “non-white are not welcome in this establishment”.
If you do it today, you risk having the baker sue you for libel…
I would use a mechanical one that looks like it’s teabagging the establishment from the correct angle.
In a free society you always have the option of consumer boycott and to inform others of this kind of behavior of the shopkeeper.
It’s always the market: If someone is willing to be friendly to others (eg by serving goods regardless of color etc) he will profit from that behavior if enough customers support it.
It’s the same with environmentalism and so on.
Dear all,
Thanks for your comments on my article. I’m glad you guys found it interesting.
Update: To be fair to the young lady featured in the article, people might want to have a look at her comments about the matter on her blog at http://kemaraj.blogspot.com/. (Her blog post was written after I had written my own article on the subject, but before it was published by the Mises Institute.) This gives a more detailed description of her views than the snippets of information in the media reports. Many of her views on this issue are quite reasonable, though some are misguided.
One interesting part of her blog is that she takes issue with the accuracy of some of what the media have reported (I believe her when she claims that she never described anyone as racist). In particular, with respect to a media report that I featured in my article, she says (of the media report – not of my article):
Note that although she insinuates journalistic misstatement here (that people jumping on it was “astounding”), she does not actually explicitly deny what was written by the journalist (i.e., it is a non-denial denial). In fact, she seems to tangentially confirm it, by elaborating on what she meant, and the other factors cited in her elaboration are all parts of a person’s appearance. This suggests that the media report on this part of what she said to them is probably accurate (at least in substance) and that her objection to it is a semantic one. (In my own article, I report what the media said with an “According to media reports,” though I implicitly endorse that position as an accurate statement by making follow up comments on it. If Ms Rajandran is willing to explicitly deny she said what was reported then I would be happy to include her denial as a note in the article.)
If you read Ms Rajandran’s blog on the issue you will see that she is actually quite intelligent, and has a fairly considered view on these issues (though wrong on quite a few things). Her views are not unusual, especially for someone who is quite young. My main objection to her actions is that she has precipitated the involvement of government authorities in something that is none of their business, and now cites approvingly the statements of tyrant “human-rights” commissioners who want to use force to impose themselves on the free decisions of others.
Cheers,
Ben.
Obviously, she’s indian.
/sarcasm
I’m posting this comment here because it was deleted from its appropriate thread, then comments were disallowed. (http://blog.mises.org/16256/clarifying-the-ftcs-censorship-demands/)
I thought that an article advocating First Amendment rights would welcome civil comments or criticisms; I was wrong.
I suspect my comments will be deleted again, but perhaps people will get to read them beforehand:
S.M. Olivia writes:
“I don’t see how anyone — and certainly not the FTC — can objectively determine which religious messages are false, given that all religions rely on things that cannot be empirically proven.”
That’s not what the case is about. The FTC does not have the authority to regulate religion or religious statements, nor were they attempting such a tyrannical power-grab.
Here’s what the court documents say (linked on the author’s preceding post):
“Following a trial, an Administrative Law Judge concluded that Defendants violated the FTC Act by making unsubstantiated claims that BioShark, 7 Herb Formula, GDU, and BioMixx prevented, treated, or cured tumors or cancer.”
The defendants broke a law that’s in place for a reason. That reason has nothing to do with religion.
Good article,but with one mistake. Most Indians,racially, are considered Caucasian. They are further defined as dark skinned Caucasians. To use the term Caucasian in the article was incorrect. Perhaps the term “white” would have been more descriptive and useful.
no, there was no mistake: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Caucasian+race
Thank you for the information.
Whether the anthropology definition of Caucasian includes Indians is not really relevant here. The point is that the agency intended this as a reference to white people, and both the young lady involved and the media took it as intended. (Apologies if I have proliferated an error.)
wait, i know this one, i know this one!
“Everyone has a right to model, at the expense of modeling agencies and their clients.”
Did I get it right?
“because she is not Caucasian”
Technically she is considered Caucasian by those in the scientific community;
“The Races of Europe by Carlton Stevens Coon. From Chapter XI: The Mediterranean World – Introduction: “This third racial zone stretches from Spain across the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco, and thence along the southern Mediterranean shores into Arabia, East Africa, Mesopotamia, and the Persian highlands; and across Afghanistan into India.”
Maybe a more specific term should be White-Caucasian only, but that would be politically incorrect.
According to Supreme Court of America she is.
Something that occurred to me in this whole episode was the potentially huge favor the agency did for the young model. Had she moved to Perth, a substantial investment, and not been able to find adequate work, then it would have been a waste of her time and money, and that of the agency as well. Having advance knowledge of one’s prospects allows an entrepreneur to seek other avenues of business. Thanks to them, she can now search for jobs in other markets, and with the knowledge that her appearance will likely be in greater demand in a society whose people share her general appearance.
Excellent article by the way, thank you.
Actually, according to her blog, she was already living in Perth when she applied to the agency (I think she said she grew up there).
Ah, well there you have it.
Just believe yourself…
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