Have you ever wondered what Kate Moss would look like as a black woman? No, me neither, but for those of you who have - well now we know, thanks to a picture taken by Nick Knight for yesterday's Africa issue of the Independent newspaper.
You can just imagine the meeting. "Let's do an Africa issue," says Well Meaning Executive Number 1. "Great, who shall we get on the cover? Iman? Naomi?" asks WME 2. "Nah ... too obvious. I know, how about Kate Moss? Let's make her look African!" Cue much back-slapping at their own cleverness, followed by, perhaps, a lunch of jollof rice and curried goat to seal the deal.
But this picture of Moss is little more than a cheap, old-fashioned blacking-up trick, and the fact that it is being used to highlight the battle against Aids in Africa is a disgrace.
Val Garland, the makeup artist credited with making one of today's most iconic white women black, was too busy with London Fashion Week to come to the phone. However, makeup special effects experts Screenface suggest it is unlikely that Garland used boot polish on Moss. "There would be numerous ways to create this look. Ideally it would be airbrushes using products such as Skin Illustrator or Temptu to create a fresh, dewy look," they say.
But it's not just about skin tone, as we know - black people have different features, too, don't they? So the cheekbones and nose have been reshaped. The lips have been enlarged, the eyebrows thickened and deepened. She looks shiny (it is hot out there) and just a little bit bony, maybe like she's starving, maybe like she's got HIV.
What exactly is this picture of Moss-as-African-woman supposed to portray? I suppose it is meant to be subversive, but what does it say about race today when a quality newspaper decides that its readers will only relate to Africa through a blacked-up white model rather than a real-life black woman? What does it say about the fight against HIV/Aids if that is the only way to make us care? And, as a black woman (born that way), what does this trick say about me?
The phenomenon of white entertainers putting boot polish on their faces to "look black" is nothing new, but like Jim Davidson and mother-in-law gags, it was supposed to be something that was banished to the underground eschelons of the entertainment circuit.
And yet it's back. From Bo' Selecta!, whose grotesque imitations of Michael Jackson and Mel B (always wearing leopardskin to signify her wildness) to Big Brother's Glyn blacking up, to Samantha Fox dressed up as an Asian woman, to white actors pretending to be black to play Othello. But the most high-profile example is Little Britain, the hugely popular comedy series that has won two Baftas, and its sketch featuring the white actor David Walliams playing Desiree, an overweight black woman with a love of the sauna. She is fat and has that weird wiry hair and funny skin colour.
When Mark Lawson questioned Walliams and comedy partner Matt Lucas about the issue on his Radio 4 programme Front Row, they said it was acceptable because the conceit of the show is that they play all the characters, no matter who they are: they play women even though they are not women, and they play black characters even though they are not black. But given that they have made room for Rob Brydon, I am not sure the other argument works. So even if we give Lucas and Walliams the benefit of the doubt and assume they were trying to even up the racial balance of the show, why didn't they go the whole hog and employ a black actor instead ?
Following the path set by Little Britain, earlier this month Charlotte Church donned prosthetics and face paint to become a black man for a speed-dating sketch. (It must be said that this was one of the least convincing black men you could ever imagine - you could almost see the boot-polish smears.)
What were they thinking? Not about race, according to a spokesperson for the show: "The only reason Charlotte's skin tone was changed ... was due to the practical reason that the professional prosthetics company making her disguise had advised us that the prosthetics would not look convincing if they were white."
So both Little Britain and Charlotte Church deny that their blacking up had anything to do with race or politics. At least they're not employing the irony defence so beloved of lads' magazines, who claim the sexist images between their covers is "ironic" because we are all past caring about sexism any more. But the underlying message is the same: stop taking yourself so seriously, stop being politically correct, we're only having a laugh.
This is not a new line. George Inns, a producer on the Black and White Minstrel Show, once said, according to black TV historian Stephen Bourne: "I've never had a letter from a coloured person complaining about the show ... I don't see how you can bring politics into it, this is an innocent programe providing entertainment."
Why has it become OK for people to black up? "People feel free to play with this stuff because they are operating in an environment where the criticisim of being politcally correct allows you to do what you want," says academic Paul Gilroy. "The threat of being labelled politically correct creates an environment where we are scared to voice our objections." Given the context, the Kate Moss picture is "empty nihilism," he says.
Blacking up has become acceptable in the same way that pole dancing is now sold to women as an empowering thing to do. Both assume that the thing they are poking fun at no longer exists - ie discrimination, racism and sexism. But of course they are wrong. If blacking up existed in a society where racism was not an issue, then it would not be such a problem. But then it would also lose its power to shock. After all, what is so shocking about a white person being made to look black if black and white are equal?
And is it really so hard to relate to those who are different from us? I'm not from Iraq, but I don't have to dress up as an Iraqi war widow to care about what goes on there. As Robert Bianco wrote of the American TV show Black. White, in which two families did a "race-swap" for six weeks: "Black. White is based on two false premises, one more pernicious than the other: that you can understand someone of a different race simply by putting on makeup, and that you need that kind of understanding in order to treat people as the law and morality."
And you know, there really are black women who could have done this job. Next time a photograph of an African woman is needed, they should call on Iman. Call on Alek Wek. Call on one of any number of black girls you can see on the street. Call on me.
· Additional reporting by Tomi Ajayi.