Pro-Pizza (Evidence of a Global Community)

Most of you have probably heard about the giant protests taking place in Madison, Wisconsin, against Governor Walker's bill to strip collective bargaining rights from nearly all public sector employees. They're closing out what I believe is their 8th day of protests, and by the time you read this, have probably settled down to partake of some solidarity pizza.

Madison, WI protesters: image via

Yes, you read that right. Solidarity pizza. Apparently, last Tuesday, 2/15/11, the folks at Ian's Pizza - an establishment that's just a block away from the capitol building, decided to take their end-of-night pizzas - the ones that are left over and would have otherwise been thrown away - to the protesters camping out at the capitol building. The next morning, they received a call from California, from someone who said they'd heard what they'd done and they wondered if they could buy a pizza to be delivered that night. Ian's agreed, and before they knew it, orders started rolling in from around the country and around the globe, from people who wanted to support the protesters with the purchase of a pizza. Orders have come in from nearly every state in the country and from countries including Morocco, France, Denmark, Egypt, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, the Netherlands, and even Antarctica (!!!).

Image via

Ian's says they've been working "all hands on deck," to get the pizzas made and delivered and that other pizza places in Madison near the capitol have also been handling requests for Solidarity Pizzas. When asked for a statement regarding their position on the issue, they replied that they are "pro pizza." ^_^

I love this story, not because I support public sector employees' rights (though I do), but because it illustrates to me how people can be compassionate and empathetic regardless of where they are and who they are. That someone in Egypt, who arguably has quite a lot to deal with right now, what with the recent revolution and the government-building that's going on over there, would take the time to make an international call and spend the money to send pizzas to strangers in a show of support - well, that's a beautiful thing.

As my favorite late-night talk show host and author, Craig Ferguson might say, this is a terrific example of "the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism." It happens.

Ian's on State - in case you wanted to send a Solidarity Pizza.

Nordstrom and Women of Color

A couple days ago, I was perusing my copy of the Nordstrom February 2011 catalogue, when I noticed an interesting phenomenon: the majority of the photographs in this volume featured models of color. In fact, of the 64 pages (including front and back cover shots) that included photographs of women, 47 of them featured minority women. I did not miss the full page spread noting Nordstrom's support of Black History Month, and the Be The Match Registry (which, by the way, is enormously generous - they're offering to support the cost of adding a new member to the bone marrow donor registry up to $75,000 - more on that in a later post) so the choice of minority models for the February catalogue may have occurred in coordination with that, but I will also say, Nordstrom does seem to make pretty consistent use of diverse models (women of color, as well as plus size models) on their website and in their  catalogues, as a rule, which I've always appreciated.

Nordstrom Catalogue, February 2011, front cover

Equity issues have been on my mind lately, as I recently attended an internal professional development/workshop at work, addressing the challenges faced by African American male students. In the past, I've mostly found myself absorbed with issues of gender equity, seeing as how racial equity issues seem a whole heck of a lot more complicated (to me, anyway), but I'm beginning to realize more and more that these things really go hand in hand. 

Nordstrom Catalogue, February 2011, pgs. 16-17

We women are familiar with the token diversity that plays out on the pages of most retail catalogues - J. Crew is one that comes to mind for me, where there is usually at least one image of an Asian model (those are the ones that pop out at me, because...well, they look like me more than the others), usually in a suit (because we're industrious like that). However, this doesn't really make me feel represented by this company or their catalogues. While recycling the same photos of an Asian model in a suit might be cost effective, and a way to claim that you're addressing diversity in your catalogue/website, it's not the same as making a real and meaningful commitment to racial equity in your company's media.

Nordstrom Catalogue, February 2011, pgs. 47-48

I'm not saying that J. Crew and other retail companies are institutionally racist, but it's not a stretch to say that there may be some structural racism* at play here. Just to illustrate, I took a look at the websites of four retailers I commonly visit - Nordstrom, Anthropologie, J. Crew, and Bloomingdales. Anthropologie's website is slightly different from the others, as most of their garments are photographed on dress forms, but they do have some styling pages that use models. I started counting the number of images that were easily accessed, that used images of models, but decided that the sample was too small to make meaningful comparison to the other three sites. I am, therefore, discounting them from this comparison. I did a count of the models of color used on each retailer's "Womens: Dresses" pages, and as of 3:30 PM PST, 2/17/11, these are the percentages of models of color utilized in each company's website:

Nordstrom had the highest percentage of minority women modeling their products, with 32 of 99 images (just their first page of dresses) featuring minority women. Bloomingdales had 17 of 96 (also their first page, when you clicked on the "view 96 per page" option), and J. Crew had a pretty poor 3 out of 145 (this is when you clicked on their "view all" option - without that option, they would have had zero models of color on their first page of dresses. Note: I did not include any dress form images in the total count of 145 for J. Crew). Now, this was a somewhat unscientific polling, if you will, since I didn't have the census information for the individual models and have no idea how the women personally identify themselves, but I think that's okay, because for the purposes of this type of exercise, it's really what the consumer is perceiving that matters.

So, kudos to Nordstrom - just another reason for me to love this company and spend my dollars there. But what about you? How do you feel about racial equity in the composition of a retailer's media? Do you personally feel under or even over-represented in fashion-related media?

*Structural Racism: The cumulative impact of racism on multiple institutions over time. It encompasses (1) history which lies beneath the surface providing the foundation for white racial advantage, (2) culture which serves to normalize and replicate racist images and ideas, and (3) interconnected institutions and policies that perpetuate and reinforce racial power disparities.