Spain’s postal service accused of racism over flesh-toned stamps

[Boiler 45,941]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/28/spains-postal-service-accused-of-racism-over-flesh-toned-stamps

 

Spain’s state-owned postal service has been accused of a damaging and counterproductive approach to equality after issuing a set of flesh-toned, anti-racism stamps in which the stamp with the lightest skin colour is worth more than twice as much as the darkest one.

On Tuesday, Correos España unveiled the set of four “equality stamps”: a pale, €1.60 one, a slightly darker €1.50 one, a brown €0.80 one, and a black €0.70 one.

The postal service said the initiative, which was developed in collaboration with the national SOS Racismo federation, had been launched on the first anniversary of the murder of George Floyd to help highlight enduring inequalities.

 

 

 I for one will not buying any stamps from them.

 

 

[laylalex 7,300]

This was handled poorly and it didn't have to be. If the denominations were flipped, so that the darkest were the most dear, then there would be calls of racism too. Apparently in Spain, the standard first class stamp for domestic mail is actually the lowest stamp of these above, so the darkest ones are actually most likely to be used (a point of note to people worried about pale skin representation!).

 

There was an elegant solution that appears to have evaded the Spanish postal service -- make the series only for one denomination of stamp (for example, the first class mail one) available in a book with all four colors represented in the same numbers in that book. Need a stamp? Use what's left in the book. Need another denomination? I see Spain already has a bunch of lovely ones in other designs.

[TBoneTX 45,918]

If we're reduced to agonizing over crises like these, the world is sunk.