Wikihow tried it! But, that's kind of what they do. When it comes to pushing the envelope, the self-proclaimed curator of the 'world's most popular how-to' tutorials, offers up easy, step-by-step, illustrated instructions for everything from "How to Oil Your Hair," to "How to Hide an Erection." The website pushed the limits with their tutorial on “How to Become a Congressman” which featured the following whitewashed image of President Barack Obama, Beyoncé, and Jay Z.
Photo: Wikihow
Ya'll know the Beyhive wasn't having it, right? After the illustration gained traction on a Beyoncé fan account, the volunteer contributor-based website quickly retracted the image and released a seven-part statement on Twitter:
“When we saw the whitewashed image of Obama, Jay Z and Beyoncé, we were disgusted & ashamed. It never should have been on wikiHow. Within minutes of the 1st tweet, a volunteer removed the image. We then started investigating how it got on wikiHow at all. We learned it was made 3 years ago by a team of illustrators who work as one. One person sketches, the other person colors. The sketcher sent the colorist a black and white sketch. The colorist did not know the race of the models. The colorist wasn’t aware it was Obama and Beyoncé. We don’t think the illustrator intentionally whitewashed here. This doesn’t excuse the fact that we hosted a terrible image on wikiHow and we needed more diversity on that article period,” WikiHow added. “We’re talking with our illustrators to prevent recurrence and encourage diversity. Especially in positions of power.”
Bloop! And there you have it.
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