David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

Not satire this time: In New Zealand, one model cries discrimination

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After Tuesday’s satire about ugly people suing for the right to become models, I got some evidence that my satire didn’t go far enough. In New Zealand, an ethnically Indian model has gotten a lot of publicity with her recent charges that she isn’t hired for enough jobs because she’s Indian. Redmond Weissenberger sent me a link to a piece done for the website of the Ludwig von Mises Institute just a few months ago. It’s well-worth a read to see how people are conditioned today to believe that the state’s rhetoric about equality means the realities of the marketplace don’t apply to them.

This is a good opportunity to mention that I’m a big fan of the Mises Institute. The organization is headquartered just a couple of hours down the road from me in Auburn, Ala. (As a University of Alabama alum, I’m not terribly happy with the group’s proximity to my school’s biggest rival, Auburn University, but I try not to hold that against them. Honest.)

Weissenberger is the director of the very new Mises Institute of Canada, which deserves your attention and support, too, especially if you’re in Canada. You can read blog posts from Weissenberger and others, too, for a Canadian perspective on freedom.

OMG! There’s Discrimination in the Modeling Industry!

 

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Ugly folks sue modeling industry, alleging unlawful discrimination

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The fashion world and major modeling agencies were shaken today by news that the National Association for Ugly People (NAUP) has sued a wide group of designers, agencies and photographers, alleging that the defendants have engaged in a widespread conspiracy of illegal discrimination against less-attractive people.

“For too long, it’s been acceptable for pretty women and hunky men to be on the front covers of magazines and strutting down fashion runways,” said Fenster Beckworth, the executive director of NAUP. “Our members have been the invisible people of this world, cleaning their toilets, cooking their meals and running their cash registers. It’s time for ugly people to get their day in the limelight.”

Beckworth said because ugliness is a birth defect that many people have no control over, it is covered under the Americans With Disabilities Act and that discriminating on the basis of looks is flatly illegal.

Bertha Dalrymple, 36, of Wilmington Heights, Tenn., is the lead plaintiff in the suit. (See photo provided by NAUP.) Beckworth said Dalrymple has tried unsuccessfully for more than 15 years to get modeling jobs, but she’s been turned down despite having high qualifications. Dalrymple took several years of modeling classes as a teen-ager and is a member of multiple professional organizations.

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‘All animals are equal, but [deaf] animals are more equal than others’

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I’m sympathetic to conditions of people who were born with disabilities or somehow become disabled during their lives, but I lose sympathy for those people when they try to use political power to force the rest of society to do what they want.

Unfortunately, more and more militant advocacy groups for disabled people are using the state to compel companies to do what they want. They’re getting away with it because most of the people who think it’s ridiculous have been shamed into being quiet — for fear of being criticized for lack of compassion.

Deaf activists filed a lawsuit against Netflix last week claiming that the movie rental company is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act because it doesn’t yet offer closed captioning for most of its movies. Netflix says it wants to offer more movies with closed captioning, but that there are technical issues standing in the way. The National Association for the Deaf says that’s not good enough.

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