From One Survivor to Another

[image description: Cira Robinson, a black woman who is a ballet dancer, captured in mid leap, her arms up and legs bent.]

gemmaseymour:

Cira Robinson started “pancaking” her ballet shoes when she was 18: “I use foundation. The colour is Caribbean coffee – it’s basic cheap make-up, but it works. Pointe shoes come only in the traditional pink, unless they’re red for a show. It would look strange if there was a pink shoe at the end of a brown leg, so it helps with the line. My pointe shoes are brown because my skin is brown.

You’d think Freed and Capezio would have wised up by now…

This immediately strikes me as an issue of white privilege, similar to “flesh colored” band-aids and skin colored crayons. I didn’t think of it, either. So maybe it’s just light-skin privilege