Prada Meets The Pink Police State
Nobody feels sorry for fashionistas, but pay attention to this: it’s scary as hell. From the NYT:
In December 2018, Chinyere Ezie, a civil rights lawyer, posted a picture on Twitter that seemed to encapsulate a year’s worth of racial and cultural faux pas from major fashion brands.
It showed the window of the Prada shop in downtown New York filled with Pradamalia figurines that resembled monkeys in blackface. “I don’t make a lot of public posts, but right now I’m shaking with anger,” Ms. Ezie, who works at the Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote on Facebook.
Social media, especially the Twitterati and the fashion industry watchdog Diet Prada — soon to be furious over a Gucci blackface sweater and already outraged over a Dolce & Gabbana video that caricatured Chinese culture — took up the cause. Charges of racism flew.
In short order, Prada had done away with the offending objects, apologized and vociferously declared its intention to focus on diversity.
Not everyone was satisfied.
No, of course not. An apology is never enough. We must discipline and punish — and shake down. The New York City Commission on Human Rights has been proctologically probing Prada, searching for signs of ideological incorrectness. More:
Prada denied any discrimination but has committed to internal re-education, engaging in financial and employment outreach with minority communities, and submitting to external monitoring of its progress for the next two years.
And Prada is not the only brand under the commission’s microscope. It has also been negotiating with Gucci post-blackface incident, and Christian Dior, for its Sauvage campaign, which perpetrated Native American stereotypes. Together these cases represent new territory for city government, which has never focused so specifically on the images and products fashion brands disseminate.
The move has rattled many in the industry, where traditionally such value judgments are left to the consumer, and brands will often do almost anything to avoid tarnishing their halo or upsetting the market.
It gets worse:
The commission agreement, which was seen by The New York Times, requires Prada to provide sensitivity training, including “racial equity training,” for all New York employees within 120 days of signing the agreement — as well as for executives in Milan since the commission argued that decisions made in Italy have repercussions in New York.
In other words, Miuccia Prada as well as Patrizio Bertelli, her husband and the Prada chief executive, and Mr. Mazzi will all go through training. The general counsel of Prada will report back to the commission on the executives’ compliance.
This is an absolutely extraordinary intrusion of state bureaucracy into micromanaging the way a company is run, to ensure that a very particular view of ideological correctness is instituted there. Prada is a global company, but a local bureaucracy in a single city is forcing this on the corporation. Prada is Italian. How on earth is an Italian company supposed to be aware of the constantly-changing standards in the United States on what constitutes racial incorrectness? Look at those trinkets. Most Americans would have recognized them as potentially problematic, but should Italians be aware? OK, make them aware, let them apologize — but why does making a faux pas require the involvement of the government, and it taking over part of the company’s management, to re-educate it in politically correct standards.
That’s happening to Prada in New York. What about the Human Rights Commissions of other cities? What if they apply different, stricter standards? It’s a nightmare. It gives tyrannical powers over freedom of expression to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. Why on earth do the American people stand for this?
Hey Republican members of Congress: campaign this fall on passing a law to forbid this kind of thing. Defend the First Amendment! No company is going to stand up to it, because they don’t want to be shamed by activists who will accuse them of defending bigotry. The GOP has been way too timid on the First Amendment front, probably for the same reason. Somebody is going to have to stand up to these bullies.
Ragazzi, I’m flying back from Rome today, so comments-approving will be non-existent till I’m back in ‘Murka. I am currently experimenting with just how much cheese and dried pasta I can bring back without breaking the straps on my carry-on bag. My kids prefer me bringing real Italian pasta home to chocolate.
