Kanye West and Kim Kardashian arrived in New York ahead of the VMAs two weekends ago. They brought their two children, and in the past week, we’ve seen lots of photos of Kim and the kids, not to mention Kanye. The photos in this post are of Kanye (separately) and Kim and North stepping out late last week. No, I don’t understand any of the outfits happening here, nor do I understand Kim’s reliance on those ugly heels. I do think North’s hair looks adorable though.
Because I’m an idiot, I actually wondered why they were still in New York after the VMAs. I didn’t realize that, oh right, New York Fashion Week is coming up and Kanye is presenting his latest collection under the Adidas + Yeezy umbrella. The Adidas collaboration had a rocky start, but in the past year, the Yeezy-wear has really taken off and the whole thing is seen as a major success. Page Six reports that Kim and the kids are sticking around New York because they will obviously be front-and-center during Kanye’s show. Kanye is also scheduled to perform at the Harper’s Bazaar Icons event this Friday, and Kim and the Kardashian-Jenners are scheduled to appear too.
As Kanye prepares his NYFW show, he tweeted out a casting call. He asked for “multiracial women only.”
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) September 3, 2016
It’s a loaded term and many believe he wants mixed-race, light-skinned women exclusively. But does he? “Multiracial” is such an odd word to choose if he just wants light-skinned women, because he’s Kanye and he has no filter and if he only wanted light-skinned women, he would totally say that. Like, I would include myself in a “multiracial” umbrella, because I’m white and Indian. Kanye’s children are multi-racial because they are half-white and half-black. I think many black women would call themselves multiracial as well, as would many Hispanic women. So who is he talking about?! Also… still others are criticizing this casting call because they think Kanye is saying he won’t hire any white women. This casting call is a Kanye-style enigma wrapped in a riddle, dusted with racial tension.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
North is just a stunningly gorgeous girl! I love her hair in these pics.
I know. I was about to say, I don’t care about Kanye and his craziness one bit. But North is gorgeous and I hope she becomes all that she wants to be!
I was thinking that too–love her hair. So cute.
I’d rather see a kid that age in a less voluminous hairstyle. Braids would be fine. I wouldn’t want anything to interfere with a kid being able to easily run around. It looks like a hairstyle that is hard to forget about when you’re rolling around on the ground…. Inhibiting, basically. No problem for adults long past their mud-rolling days.
She always looks so worried, though. I don’t think they should make her run the paparazzi gauntlet the way they do.
True. It must be frightening as a child to have people surrounding you and yelling at you.
I’m Puerto Rican. My kids are White and Hispanic. I have no issue identifying them as multi-racial. It is what it is.
If he has a vision for his video and it involves only multi-racial women, then I’m fine with that, he doesn’t have to cater to every audience every time. And it’s not like he hasn’t had just Caucasian or African American women in his videos before.
Yes but imagine if someone posted an advert and requested white models only.
It all reeks of double standards.
Casting calls might not say “only white models,” but the overwhelming majority of runway models being hired are white.
But that’s the thing though. I’ve seen casting calls like these all the time. I’ve seen casting calls where they only want redheaded men over 6 feet tall. If that’s what they want to do with their video, then let them. As long as there is no dodgy propaganda with it, then I’m OK reserving judgment for now.
Well said biancazul. Why is Kanye even getting the Harpers Bazaar thing. Fashion is not what it used to be, anyone with $ n fame can be a designer. Funny how he actually believes he is one. If he had a line worth something fine but with was that debacle last year. And Kim dumb Bermuda shorts? Ugh, still wearing the off the shoulder jackets. She looooves the paps, other real celebrities go in n out where she strolls acting annoyed. But when u have ud kid throwing a tantrum cause she ain’t in this scene, time to be a parent. Oh the $2000 purse Nori had, ridiculous.
THIS
plus, he wants attention.
DING DING DING. if he were casting a play or Movie where the characters race was meaningful to the plot, I wouldn’t blink an eye. But where a characters race isn’t meaningful to the story, I feel differently.
If any one did similarly say “white women only ” in my modeling show, there would be outrage…..but not here ? I’ve never bought the concept that only white people can discriminate. People with power have the ability to discriminate and yes — KW has power.
It is indeed a double standard in my opinion.
lol,, aka Taylor Swift wanna bes..?? He doesn’t like vanilla. And Kendall is just vanilla with chocolate frosting.
I agree with Kaiser 100%. Why is everyone getting their panties in a twist? Why can’t he ask for multi-racial models? I find it interesting how non-multi-racial/non people of color always find it hard to not be outraged/call double standard when white people are excluded. Get over it.
I work in media and a lot of casting calls in the UK all have specific Caucasian male / female requests. The man is a giant douche, but hating him for this casting call is ridiculous! Besides, he is not just excluding Caucasian models but any model who is not mixed.
I’m Puerto Rican and Central American as well and I am multi-racial (White, Native American and African) and I identify as Multi-racial. It’s such a broad spectrum to ask, especially this day and age and in NYC? There will be a plethora of women coming to that audition. I know so many mixes. Whether they hail from Trinidad and other parts of the West Indies and the Caribbean, through Central and South America, everyone from those locations can be considered and most likely are multi-racial anyway.
Meh, it’s what he wants, I have no problem with it..
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Fashion show casting calls are most of the time “white tall skinny blonde” kind of thing, and I’m glad he’s flat out calling for everyone else who rarely get a shot at these events – even if it’s Kanye’s pseudo-fashion we’re talking about.
I’m saying this as a black african designer who’s never had a chance at casting anyone, but who usually wants to get a model that fits in the clothes – last minute changes/adjustments are THE WORST. Also, models in my country are super tiny. It’s a nightmare.
I have no issue with his casting call and am looking fwd to seeing what he comes up with. visually.
The problem when people cast only white models is racism. Casting “multiracial” women is not racism and therefore, not a problem. Furthermore, Kanye is all about the future, and in the future we will have a much more blended/multiracial society than we do now. So I could easily see this being an artistic call as well.
I guess he could have just written beige models only please.. And as a multi ethnic myself, I am all for it.
I don’t think we should drag him through the coals for making an esthetic choice for his runway show..
Agree. It’s his video, and if he wants to just cast multiracial women in it, that’s his choice and his right. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.
Your children are really considered white having a white father. My Daughter who is Puerto Rican because her father is and I’m Black, identifies as Black because she grew up in a Black family. People make to much of biracial these days and it makes me sad. Leave it to an idiot with very little scruples to use this to bring attention to himself because he has biracial kids…sad. He is in a longline of colorstruck Blacks.
I’m feeling superficial this morning, maybe he just didn’t want to have to hire Kendall.
Or even worse: Kylie.
Kylie is multimaterial: half make-up, half plastic.
100% recyclable
@Hannah – LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL 😀
Not actually being multiracial doesn’t stop Kylie from doing her damnedest to look as if she could be, tho.
Again with the thotler outfits. This Is a crying shame.
No opinion yet on the casting but ready for season 4.
I don’t know what he meant but I’d suspect he does not want obviously white (the pale skin, blonde, blue eyes type (and yes, I know they can be biracial)), or dark black (even though they can be biracial as well), or classic Indian face etc. If I’m kind, he might want something as universal as possible, something most can relate to, when looking at clothes.
I think he meant mixed anything, not a special blend like light skin black+white , I believe if he clarifies he’ll say it’s something about humanity mixing, not a certain aesthetic
I think he is looking for medium skin tones, maybe his clothes won’t be beige etc and actually have some color to them and he thinks that will set them off better. And maybe he’s also looking for a more exotic appearance, and figures people identifying as multiracial are more likely to not look like everybody else around them. We’ll know soon enough.
Except so many people are basically multiracial (ok, everybody in the world if you want to get technical…), whether they identify that way or not, it would be better to at least specify a skin tone directly if that’s what he’s after. Genes mix in mysterious ways, so you can be multiracial and very pale or very dark.
If the casting call say:” White woman only”. Everyone would be calling racism!
But when the casting call doesn’t say white woman only, but by “chance” the designer only hires white female models, POC scream racism, and white people continue to say they were just hiring the “most qualified”. #kayneshrug
“When you come from a place of privilege, equality looks like oppression.”
I agree. They don’t have to say “white women only” because that is usually the end result. And he didn’t say what races counted, he wanted multi racial. You could be Caucasian and Korean! I think he just has a vision of his show and wants to also make sure he’s representing an under represented facet of the industry.
Exactly what Nikki said
Pretty sure he doesn´t discriminate against white people. “Multiracial” is usually code for when you want “urban/streetstyle” but don´t want (dark skinned) black. But yeah, it is always about white people, sure. Because of course it is! Like, you don’t even need to specify, white people still make everything about themselves, because society treats them like they were the center of the universe.
I think so. We’ll see soon enough.
That’s right, we prefer our racism to be at least under a veneer of acceptability. You know that runways models that are hired for NYFW are overwhelmingly white?
Oh. And casting notes actually frequently do read as wanting someone white/caucasian, and no one bats an eye.
Yeah, that’s why they disguise using hair color language. I see it all the time, “please submit blondes, brunettes, red heads only”. We’ve learned that as the code for whites only.
Well, Kanye is quite dark-skinned. I think it was just a casting call for what he wanted. I mean…he does realize Kim is white, right? Of course he does. But in Yeezy Land, he’s the All Mighty Inspiration for All Creation, so…Kanye knows best. (Ugh)
Race is a social construct so Kim is as mixed or not mixed as anyone. But he may consider the half armenian ladies mixed
He may consider it, but it’s just not true. People (general people, not you) jump through hoops to legitimise the Kardashians and their appropriation of the multiracial/mixed race/African American identity.
I’m Armenian. Born and raised in Yerevan. I’m darker, naturally, than Kim. But we are white. We may be “white with a twist” or, as someone else once put it, mayo with olive oil, but we’re still white. Come to Yerevan and say we’re not white. You’d be crucified. Armenia is not a racism free paradise, and especially with all the messed up political issues that are ongoing where to be not white is to be “other” which, believe me, in Armenia is not a good thing. It’s the main reason I left.
Not every white person looks like Gwyneth Paltrow or Damian Lewis. They also look like Luke Pasqualino, Jason Mantzoukas, Cheryl Cole and Alessia Cara. Brown eyes/tan skin and being white are not mutually exclusive, regardless what those idiots at Aryan Nation say.
Ignoring our privilege is a dangerous thing as it legitimises the erasure of POC in favor of non-WASP looking whites.
Now, what Kanye wants to do to cast his show is really up to him. But it’s probably more as a tribute to his multiracial nuclear family rather than just to his white wife. Kim may be a good businesswoman. But she has not redefined race.
Sorry for the rant. But this whole Armenians are not white thing that comes up around the Kardashians is really some white power validating nonsense.
Thank you for the response— I do mean that white/Caucasian and race Are both social constructs. So for example Kim is as mixed as my friend who calls herself mixed Chinese Vietnamese. I’ve met an Armenian guy (I remember his look well as he sold me two cars) and he was more “regular white” looking. You know, Amber Rose is certainly mixed, right? Maybe that made him enamoured with the concept of “mixed” but really it’s not a biological “other” nor a certain look
thanks for letting us know armenian is just white 😀
Didn’t the casting call for “Hamilton” specify that there would be no white actors hired? No one seemed to mind that. But because it’s Kanye everyone is out to cry foul.
Many people took offense to the Hamilton casting call.There are dozens of articles about how they came under fire.Actor’s Equity even complained about it.
Which is odd because they did have white actors in it…? I suppose those same people don’t get upset about the fact that almost EVERY OTHER ROLE is written for them…and then they even get some that aren’t.
Glad I saw your comment first because I was going to mention that. Actually, there was one particular white actor who I believe threatened legal action and Lin-Manuel and others agreed to let him in and change the rules about casting. I didn’t agree with that at all! Part of the genius of the show is that it used minorities to tell the story because Hamilton was a minority in his time.
Personally I don’t see anything wrong with Kanye’s casting call. If he has a vision, so be it. I realize that these things can quickly get tricky, but I mean, you can’t just get upset if you want a job you’re unqualified for. Discrimination is alive and well, but not everything that is exclusive is discriminatory.
So I’m german, spanish and celtic. Am I multiracial? Or to be multiracial do you need to have a combination of white and black in you?
Ethnicity =/= race, FYI.
You’d be no more multiracial than someone who’s Bengali, Tamil and Gujarati (ie not multiracial at all)
Eeeeh…. race is kind of a social construct, “invented” by a white racist man. Just because in the US people are divided into race= skin colour, in the rest of the world people define themselves by their ethnicities.
@Val – exactly. Unless a spaniard, a german, and a celt are the same ethnicity, I, like many in the American continent, are multiracial or multiethnic (is this even a word?)
Race is a headache. It has specific meanings in the US. If you have any African in your genetics, then you are black even if you look like a pale Swede. White is defined more by negatives, actually, than by actual ethnicity even though people often say it means of European heritage (including English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish). It’s not quite that simple. If you are not black or Asian or Native American, you are generally considered white. Except if you are a Caucasian from India, you will probably be considered not white in the US since skin color is a major factor if African-related features aren’t obvious, so if you’re dark enjoy your discrimination experience as you walk down the street…. Likewise if you are darker though of European extraction. Southern European immigrants (particularly children) sometimes ended up as slaves here for various reasons, it worked because they couldn’t speak English and were dark enough to pass. The whole concept of race really doesn’t work well anthropologically or as a means for explaining what people really look like (such as in police bulletins, for instance), but we’re stuck with it and people actually will argue about whether someone on tv is white or black…. It’s like how people get if they can’t figure out if an infant or toddler is a girl or a boy. It so affects the way we think about the other person and how we interact, even at a subconscious level, that we just have to know the category. We are in a basically racist society, manifested in the fact that this distinction is still so important.
The racial distinctions will become unimportant and drop to the interesting level only when the distinction no longer matters in the way people are treated, both individually and as a group. We saw this happen with the Irish in the US. My generation rarely can even recognize Irish features. I was surprised by an old guy from the Netherlands decades ago, when he pegged me as Irish right away even though neither my first nor last name revealed it. He said I had the map of Ireland on my face… He was of a generation where the distinction between such ethnic groups was still important and so people knew how to tell, even though we were pretty much out of the serious discriminatory phase against Irish by that time (religious prejudices still linger). People sometimes say that European ethnic groups could overcome prejudice more easily because they can blend with the others, but there is no way I could have been able to pass as non-Irish in the olden days. The blending in comes later, after discrimination dies down and people don’t need to tell the difference. Other things are more crucial in breaking down discriminatory barriers.
TY. i do find race/ethnicity in the US quite complicated, especially when i have to explain why I’m white even though I was born in Latin America.
I find it refreshing that there’s a casting call not aimed at caucasians. There needs to be more diversity in media. I would love to see white latinos, for example. Or just any kind of latino who is not automatically mexican and a drug dealer. Mexicans are treated like crap in US media.
I love that Kim finally freed North’s hair, it’s adorable.
Me, too!
Do they check their Ancestry.com DNA results to verify they are “multiracial”?
Well race is made up…
More important, why do they dress North in slip dresses constantly? Also, another day, another way to be talked about and kept relevant. Will wait and see what type of models he uses as multiracial can mean many things.
Why do they keep put choker necklaces on a three year old?
That child is so gorgeous.
She truly is
North is so beautiful.
I guess I don’t see the big fuss in wanting multiracial women only.
I read it as “all mixed and non-white women,” but I could see it either way. He does have a mixed daughter with a Caucasian woman (God I hate that term, race is so meaningless on a genetic level), so perhaps the song highlights his relationship with her.
Edit: OH MY GOD some of these comments. You guys cannot seriously be comparing a multi-racial casting call to the kind of white-washing typically done. HUGE discrepancy in the power dynamic and media presence there. It’s not a double standard if white people are ALWAYS the standard, ya’ll.
I LOVE your Edit and totally agree!
The issue most people had with this casting call (check Twitter, instagram etc) was that they were worried this was a veiled attempt to discriminate towards dark skinned African American women. Which has been a huge, huge problem in the fashion industry. Most people saw this as Kanye wanting light skinned women only, and his association with the kardashians (and all their ways of appropriation- to essentially look like light skinned african American women) isn’t helping the cause.
That’s how I felt when I heard this news too.
Conspiracy theory: Kim regrets her surgically enhanced huge rear end (as she should) and covers it up so we forget how unnaturally colossal it is while she gets more surgery to make it closer to normal sized. Then she’ll say it got smaller because of weight loss.
I watched the show for a little bit last night. Kim looked ridiculous from the side (she didn’t have anything covering it). She looked so thin and good from the front, but sideways and from the rear, it looked so weird! Thin everywhere else with a huge butt way out of proportion to the rest of her body. Yes, I agree, she will keep it covered up so no one can see the transition from huge to normal. At the beginning of the scene, she hurried out of the camera view. Looking back on it, it was probably because she didn’t have her rear covered.
I took this to mean no white women
I’m not picking on your comment specifically as this seems to be a recurring sentiment here, but how is multiracial/mixed the opposite of white? Mixed is also the opposite of black, the opposite of Asian, etc.
I can’t fathom how multiracial is the opposite of only white in any context except the questionable perspective where white is some sort of aracial standard-bearer baseline and everything else is a deviation, which just smacks of some elitism bias.
Cause in America, mixed or multiracial is considered non-white. My husband is Filipino, Mexican, native American and black, oh and white. Mom is black and native American, dad white and Filipino. And he has Hispanic blood in his family line. He’s considered black here. So when people say multicultural, I always think non-white. Especially in the old days and even now, one drop of black makes you considered black to many people. In the slave days, there were mixed babies because the owner would sleep with the slaves. But they were still considered black. I think that’s what they call the one drop theory? Halle berry is particular believes in the one drop theory, and she has said she considers herself black and believes in the one drop line of thinking. Google one drop rule
Basically he wants “exxoticals”.
Just when I think he can’t get any worse, he does.
Yeah maybe. I’m thinking of the women in his circles/Hollywood that are “mixed”:
Rihanna (I think?)
Beyoncé (mom has some Caucasian ancestry)
Chrissy teigen
Zendaya
Zoe Saldana, zoe kravitz
Amber Rose
Yeah I can see why he’d want “mixed”
Yes, he’s perfectly entitled to cast according to his’ vision’ but ‘multiracial’ is troubling.
I’m looking forward to his explanation.
as a white woman, i am continually embarrassed by all this #whitefragility. who f***ing cares if he doesn’t want white models in his show?! pretty sure they can get work in EVERY OTHER FASHION SHOW EVER
A lot of women were taking it to mean he doesn’t want dark skinned women in his show. For a long time in the hip-hop game, many ignorant men have made comments about not wanting to date or even feature very dark Black women in their videos and it shows. The women are always “bi-racials” or “Latinas” or any combination of what they deem “exotic” looking women who have tanned skin, very long and somewhat relaxed or less coarse hair and seem racially ambiguous. Kanye had made comments like these in the past. It’s a very sensitive topic for darker skinned black women as it should be because they feel marginalised by their own men. I don’t know what motive Kanye has behind the casting, but I definitely get the anger and frustration at the thought of this happening here.
i think he is trying to pull the whole “in the future everyone is going to be multiracial” and wants that to show in his work. people can identify and how can anyone feel left out when many races will be represented? i adore me some kanye <3
I see no problem with it at all, it’s his project. My only concern would be simply the confusion about what constitutes ‘multi-racial.’ Technically speaking, I’m multi-racial (Puerto-Rican, Nativ American and Swedish) but I look pretty damn white and I’m guessing that’s not what he’s looking for, but I bet he’ll get a lot of them. But, as with all casting calls, there’s a specific look he’s going for and I are no problem with it.
Interesting, personally I’ve never thought of Kim as ‘white’.
In the US, people often judge race according to skin color even if the features don’t look African. I think that if Kim is walking with her child or her husband, if she weren’t famous people could easily assume she was a light-skinned black woman. Context matters also. Walking alone, she probably wouldn’t be identified as black in big cities at least.
Kim doesn’t have any known African genetics in her and is half-Armenian (considered white everywhere else), but her skin tone can let her pass for black in the US especially among people not familiar with Armenian and related ethnic features.
I don’t think for a minute anyone would look at Kim and think she was a light skin black women. By her skin tone people in the US would not consider her black. By your logic all Latinos are considered black based on their skin tone which the are not.
If anything people would assume Kim was Latino not black.
I agree. She could be taken for a light-skinned black woman. More so than Latin, IMO.
Okay, I have a potentially offensive and dumb question–but it’s meant with absolutely NO MALICE:
Based on this discussion, wouldn’t ALL casting calls then be in some way offensive? If I’m casting a movie about a, I don’t know, Puerto Rican twenty something man on a hunger strike, would it be offensive to plaintively say on the casting call “I need a skinny Puerto Rican male in his 20s?” Obviously the lack of diversity in Hollywood is another topic ALTOGETHER, if someone wants a specific look for a specific character….is that really that wrong or am I just completely confused?
Idk, I’m confused too. I don’t know how to determine when it’s considered discrimination and when it’s not. Sigh.
In his previous shows he’s tried to make some type of statement about society and I’m sure he’s going there with this…that in his ideal world there is no black, white, Asian, etc…everyone is a mix of something else.