Is This Picture Racist And Highly Offensive Or Are We Just Over Reacting?(Photos)

There is this photo that has been making rounds on the internet; it’s a picture of Russian Socialite and Editor-in-Chief of Garage magazine, Dasha Zhukova, sitting on a black Bondage Chair.

The black bondage chair is made from a mannequin of a black woman on her back and legs in the air. The chair was designed by Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard and was inspired by an earlier 1969 piece by British artist Allen Jones.Allen back in 1969 created a couple of sculptures, a table chair and a hat-stand that incorporated mannequins of white women in a submissive position scantily dressed in leather.

Understandably this sparked fiery protest form women who felt that it objectified women, turning them into nothing more than a piece of furniture, something on which men could sit on or put their cups on.

About fifty years later, another artiste decides to add fuel on wild fire and make not one but many of such nasty obscene furniture and included black women mannequins. The artist asserts ‘Woman as An Armchair’ was actually a protest against sexism and was not meant to offend anyone. But this chair is driving people berserk especially black people and feminist but mostly black feminists especially due to the fact that it’s a Caucasian woman sitting on a naked ” African woman”

Dasha Zhukova who is also the girlfriend Roman Abramovich (the owner of Chelsea’s football club) has received quite the backlash for this chair especially due to the fact that it appeared online on Martin Luther King Day. She has faced accusations of racism and has been forced to apologize after the internets threw hissy fit over it. This is what she said ‘This photograph, which has been published completely out of context, is of an art work intended specifically as a commentary on gender and racial politics. I utterly abhor racism, and would like to apologize to anyone who has been offended by this image.”

If we are looking for offensive, I think this furniture is utterly and completely offensive to women everywhere regardless of whether you are black or white. Its offensive in that once again, women are turned into a mere piece of furniture, its offensive because these women are scantily dressed, its offensive because the chairs are specifically labeled as black or white. Its offensive when a Caucasian thinks it’s okay to pose on a “black woman” after the years Africans have had to deal with slavery, racism and colonialism. Its offensive because the Mau Mau had to bust their asses in the jungle, braving the cold nights and the gunfire and dying in order to free us from British colonialism.

This photo spits in the face of women like Wangari Matahi ,Mekatilili,Rosa Parks who fought to get us freedom . It’s distasteful to women like Lupita and Oprah who have worked their butts off to get recognize in Hollywood,an industry who i hear has a racist underbelly.

This photo would still be offensive if it was a black woman sitting on a “white woman”. This photo is offensive in so many levels and what’s with the bondage? There are many ways to portray sexism through art; it does not have to be through bonded scantily dressed women.

What do you guys think? Is this photo extremely offensive or are people over reacting?