nefermaathotep:

On newsstands across Spain, Michelle Obama can be seen gracing the August 2012 cover of Magazine Fuera de Serie, a lifestyle supplement to the newspaper Expansión.  She is seated on a chair draped in the American flag, partially nude in slave attire, complete with one of Aunt Jemima’s chicer headscarves.  Perhaps because it seems so obviously offensive, the mind attempts to rationalize; “Did this get lost in translation, or is this as racist as I think?”

As a black British woman, born and raised in London, I am acutely aware of other recent European racist train wrecks concerning the representation of black womanhood: the Dutch magazine Jackie“deconstructing” Rihanna’s style under the obscene headline “De Ni**ab*tch” and Sweden’s minister of culture cutting into a cake depicting a caricature of a naked black woman to name but two.  Unfortunately, this Michelle Obama/Slave Woman mash-up sees Europe produce yet another epic fail in black female representation.