LiD There would be nothing 'wrong' with it at all from a human perspective, but from a commercial perspective it's completely unrealistic to expect that in a country with only around 14% BME, any form of media, be it film, TV, or the plugging of the fashion or beauty industry that is aimed at the GENERAL POPULATION rather than a minority section (or sub-section) of it, will gear a hugely disproportionate percentage of their whole business model around appealing largely to tiny minority. And it would be tiny, because (generally speaking) black women of African or Caribbean heritage do not aspire to look the same as 'black' women of Indian subcontinent heritage, who are not the same as south east Asian women, who are not the same as Arab women…..and all would quite rightly have their own preferences and tastes based (at least to some extent) on their ethnicity and sometimes their cultural identity.
As a white woman how would you feel (honestly) if you grabbed a hair magazine off the newsstand that featured a lots of white women on the front, and when you got home you flicked through it for inspiration only to find that 50% of the hairstyle photos were geared towards black/afro hair, and there was a four page spread on different ways to wear your hijab? You'd be bewildered. Admit it. A bit of diversity is all very well, but you just wanted to get ideas for blonde highlights and textured bobs for fine hair….
If that if that magazine kept up that policy it would go bust in no time at all, because it wouldn't serve either white women or black women well by trying to be all things to all (wo)men. What all woman wants is a magazine that speaks to them and understands what they aspire to look like, given their unchangeable limitations, which includes their ehtnicity.
Fashion is a bit different to beauty; anyone can visualise themselves in a dress regardless of the race of the model wearing it, whereas hair and makeup is hardly ever one-size-fits-all, ethnically speaking. Any publishing company is always going to focus on their biggest core market first and foremost, because they know that's what makes commercial sense.
Whiteness is considered the default in this society.
That's because whiteness IS still the default in this society. Just as blackness is the default in many others. It will continue to be the default for a few years yet, but not forever. Outside of urban areas many people will (rightly or wrongly) still assume an unseen person (perhaps a new next door neighbour or work colleague) will be white until evidence shows them otherwise. It's a perfectly understandable assumption based on their experience to date of their surroundings. At the risk of stating the obvious, that's because it's the UK, where 86% of people are white, and most of the other 14% tend to live clustered together in urban areas.
It makes some white people very uncomfortable when that is questioned doesn't it?
Yes I have would agree it does. Rapid change and fear of the unknown always makes ordinary people feel vulnerable. It happened with the industrial revolution but the Luddites got over it eventually. 