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January Jones criticised following racist Instagram picture.

 

 

January Jones has found herself in a spot of hot water after posting a ‘Throwback Thursday’ picture on Instagram that was a bit, um, racist.

The Mad Men actress was criticised by her followers after she posted this picture to her account with the caption: “I finally found it! #tbt to my first paid ‘modeling’ gig for a knitting magazine in South Dakota #nailedit.”

We’re not sure what’s more disturbing: the fact that this image was created less than twenty years ago (Jones is 36) or that it was created for a regional KNITTING MAGAZINE.

Jones’s followers were quick to point out why the image was inappropriate, with one person commenting:

“The representation of naked black women, amidst a white fully-clothed female ‘model’ is problematic. It’s not racist in that it’s discriminatory, but it follows a long history of animalizing black people in relation to (chaste, pure) white womanhood. Also the wording of the catalogue is not doing it any favors (‘unexpected arrangement of colors’ is hopefully not an intentional racial remark.)”

The photo was eventually deleted and replaced with this one, which Jones captioned: “I had to swap my #tbt pics because I was receiving to many negative comments and assumptions. #thisforumshouldbeahappyandfunplaceihavenopatienceforhate”

But was what January Jones faced really “hate”? Or just a reasonable objection to what is – to many people – a deeply offensive image?

Samantha Escobar wrote for The Gloss, “if you know you are posting something that is widely considered controversial, then either own it or don’t post it in the first place. Don’t give some half-assed pseudo-apology manufactured by your PR team; just say, ‘Yep, I did this, and I don’t give a F what you think about it.'”

“Or really, just don’t do it at all.”

Do you think January Jones crossed the line?