Tyra Banks, Whiteface, and the Importance of Historical Context in Racial Formation

For currently ongoing New York Fashion Week, Tyra Banks posted images on Twitter of her posing as three famous models – Cara Delevingne, Kate Moss, and Cindy Crawford – all of whom happen to be white. As such, the photoshoot involved Banks donning skin-lightening makeup, prompting select portions of the Internet to respond with cries of whiteface and outrage. Angry netizens stated that if a white model had paid similar tribute to a model of color by using blackface, she would have immediately been lambasted for racism, of which Banks has not been criticized.

L-R: Tyra Banks as Kate Moss, Cara Delevingne, and Cindy Crawford

However, these claims ignore the very different contexts behind whiteface and blackface – namely that the former has never had the same power as the latter. Throughout history, blackface has been used in conjunction with white privilege to dehumanize and stereotype black people; whiteface has never had the same impact. According to Michael Omi and Howard Winant's definition of a racial project in Racial Formation, Banks' photoshoot cannot not qualify as racist because it does not "create or reproduce structures of domination based on essentialist categories of race" (71) Without any "significant institutional and social structural dimensions" behind whiteface, it cannot be fairly called racist in the way blackface can (75).