Plus-size modeling and race: When ‘diversity’ isn’t

Editor’s Note: Lisa Respers France is a senior producer for CNN Digital and host of the “Lisa’s Desk” video franchise. There she was, in all her bountiful glory, with the headline “The World’s First Size 22 Supermodel!” Plus-size model Tess Holliday’s #EffYourBeautyStandards inspires But I was disappointed when I looked at the models featured inside the magazine as members of “The Plus-Size Revolution.” At first glance there appeared to be no women of color among the four women featured. “It doesn’t take into account differences in body composition between genders, race/ethnicity groups and across the life span.” The standard of beauty among the black women I know and grew up with was never about how thin you could be but rather about how well you “carried your weight.” Perhaps that is why I never quite understood the level of celebration now over fashion being “more inclusive,” with larger models everywhere from the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to the cover of People now. In the latest ‘Body Issue’ you affirm the ‘Plus Size Revolution’ without one highly accomplished Beautiful Brown Plus Model.” One of the women Moses included in her post is my friend Liris Crosse. Charing Ball writes in a piece titled “The Fight for Inclusion Within the Plus-Size Revolution” that “in spite of what appears to be a changing tide in how the mainstream defines and markets beauty, one thing remains the same: Racially, that standard continues to be pretty homogenous and exclusionary to women of color.” “Not only are most of the faces featured in the ads for this recent plus-size renaissance white women, but when there are women of color featured in these body positive campaigns, they are usually featured in a sea of white bodies, this even as Black women remain the face of obesity in America,” Ball writes.