In yesterday’s post about Gigi Hadid’s alleged (or not so much) mocking of Asian people generally and the Buddha specifically, some of you mentioned this Vogue Italia shoot with Gigi. I’m not sure why this shoot suddenly re-entered the discussion over the past week, especially considering the original shoot was done back in 2015. I think Vogue Italia re-published some of the photos, maybe? And suddenly people were like “yikes, easy cultural appropriation” and “if Vogue wants to do a photoshoot with an afro’d model, perhaps they should actually hire a black model.” So this is just a reminder: Gigi has been part of conversations about race, racism and cultural appropriation before.

Call out @vogue_italia for putting @GiGiHadid, who is not a woman of color, in an afro wig and blackface. pic.twitter.com/s0jKf2TfjY

— Derek Sherry (@RealDerekSherry) February 7, 2017

Anyway, back to the Buddha uproar. Many of the people yelling about Gigi’s racism were huge Zayn Malik fans. They are the kinds of fans who want to see Gigi and Zayn break up. So some of them tweeted at Zayn – who is British-Pakistani – asking him what he thinks, as an British-Asian man, about his girlfriend mocking Asian people. This is what happened on his Twitter:

@KristopherRod trust me.. she likes asians ??

— zayn (@zaynmalik) February 7, 2017

People’s nerve to call me ignorant, when any chance they get I’m a terrorist!! to be a racist goes against my very existence..

— zayn (@zaynmalik) February 7, 2017

So please don’t try to educate me ??

— zayn (@zaynmalik) February 7, 2017

If you actually go to Zayn’s Twitter and read the comments on those tweets, you might get a good laugh. Like, there are SO MANY TWEETS by unhinged fangirls who are trying to “educate” Zayn on why he should be offended and why (of course) he needs to break up with Gigi (and presumably date someone else, like them).

I said yesterday that I thought Gigi’s mimicry of the Buddha cookie was racist, but I also think it’s one of those teachable moments – she’s a young woman and she really hasn’t been exposed to a lot of racial politics. I’m not canceling her – I just hope she does better in the future. And please, no more editorials with afro wigs.

Cover courtesy of Vogue Italia, photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.