The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Isabella Kwai, a reporter with the Australia bureau.
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Adut Akech is a 19-year-old modeling superstar. She’s earned a coveted spot in a Chanel haute couture show and graced magazine covers, and she was recently singled out in British Vogue by Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, as one of fifteen women who are forces for change.
But when she saw the Who magazine profile of her during a trip back home to Australia, she noticed something amiss: the accompanying photo was not of her, but of Flavia Lazarus, another black model.
“I felt angry, hurt and disrespected, all at once,” she said when she spoke to me over the phone from Melbourne this week, ahead of the city’s Fashion Week. Even worse, the photo ran next to an interview in which she reflected on racism and her experience of growing up as a Sudanese Australian.
It was like a slap in the face, she said. “How is it that you can’t tell it’s not me?”
On Instagram, she decided to speak up. “We know that this doesn’t happen with white models,” she wrote, adding: “Australia, you’ve a lot of work to do.”
Her post about the misprint has fed into an ongoing conversation about the racism people of color confront in fashion and entertainment where, although diversity is having a moment, white faces are still the norm.
Since she started her career with Chadwick Models three years ago, Adut has become more outspoken about discrimination generally, while becoming one of the industry’s most sought after models. It’s an issue she’s dealt with for years. She arrived in Australia as a child refugee after her family fled South Sudan for Kenya and grew up in Adelaide, where teachers at school called her “Mary” because they could not pronounce her name.
With Who magazine, she said, the photo must have been seen by several editors before it went to print, adding that in her career she had never seen white models being mistaken for one other. “This is an important conversation that needs to happen,” she said.
The magazine has apologized for the error, along with OPR, the public relations agency that sent photos containing of Adut and other models from Melbourne Fashion Week to Who.
But it is not the first example of prominent magazine outlets making mistakes with nonwhite subjects. In January this year, Vogue magazine apologized after Noor Tagouri, a Libyan American journalist, was misidentified as Pakistani actress Noor Bukhari in its American issue. Actors from the film “Crazy Rich Asians” also pointed out some of their castmates were misidentified in a photo on People’s digital site.
In Australia, some conservative commentators have defended Who magazine, saying mistakes have occurred to white people too. But Adut is one of many others that say such incidents have been a constant refrain for nonwhite models — and they are no longer staying quiet about it.
While the fashion industry at large needs to improve, she said, Australia is behind in terms of recognizing diversity and the fact that the incident is happening in the place she considers home has saddened her. “It wouldn’t hurt me or surprise me as much if it happened elsewhere,” she told me.
“I don’t want this to ever happen with somebody else,” she said. “This needs to stop right here.”
Do you think Australia does enough to recognize diversity? Write to me at nytaustralia@nytimes.com.
Now on to stories this week from the region.
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New Zealand Vowed to Listen to Muslims After Christchurch. It’s Failing, They Say: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said an inquiry into the massacre would make a priority of consulting with Muslims. But so far, they say they have been shut out.
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Who Is Killing Wallabies in Northern Australia? With 37 of the animals found dead since last Wednesday in the same area near the city of Cairns, foul play is strongly suspected.
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Malnutrition Case Stirs Debate About Vegan Diets for Babies: A judge in Australia said a couple had left their baby “severely malnourished” on a strict vegan diet. Experts said that, with proper guidance, children can be on a totally plant-based diet.
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Johnson & Johnson’s Brand Falters Over Its Role in the Opioid Crisis: An Oklahoma court case highlights the health care giant’s role in the epidemic as a leading supplier of opioid ingredients, made from poppy fields in Tasmania.
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Australian Writer Yang Hengjun Charged With Espionage in China: China’s treatment of Dr. Yang, whose work includes fiction and essays critical of Beijing, has escalated tensions between Australia and China.
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Trump’s Trade War Washes Up on Australia’s Shore: Australia’s economy is not taking a direct hit from the trade wars, but its central bank is reacting — a sign of how interlinked the world has become.
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These Marsupials Go Out With a Bang: A new study confirms that male kalutas, mouselike mammals native to Northwestern Australia, drop dead shortly after mating.
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Ningali Lawford-Wolf, Indigenous Australian Actress, Dies: Known for her role in the movie “Rabbit-Proof Fence,” she also had a rich stage career, including a critically praised one-woman show.
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Nick Kyrgios: On a Path to Glory, Suspension or Both? After an outburst at a U.S. Open news conference on Tuesday, one of the most exciting young players in tennis may be suspended by the ATP even as he pursues a Grand Slam title.
Around The Times
And Over to You …
Last week, we wrote about how the conflict in Hong Kong is playing out in Australia and asked you for your experiences.
“The Hong Kong protests are on almost all the time in our household. My family is from Hong Kong, having immigrated here about 20 years ago.
I can understand the pro-democracy slant; it would be baffling if I couldn’t appreciate the freedoms afforded to me as an Australian citizen. That said, I certainly cannot agree with the actions of a subset of the slingshot-wielding, lightpole-chopping, bamboo-pole wielding protesters.
I would summarize my opinion as “conflicted” because I try to understand the reasoning of opinions from both sides (not that I get people candidly explaining both sides to me). I am for a Hong Kong whereby the people can choose a majority government from their own crowd. However I try to ask myself to what extent is democracy worth it? Not to the extent of “give me liberty or give me death,” but what level of social upheaval is worth it? Again with the extremes, would I rather be a free peasant or a shackled elite?”
-Bryan Ho
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