It seems that some African American women are still upset still with Essence magazine, so much so that they recently protested on the streets of New York. Why? Because the magazine has a new fashion director, Ellianna Placas.
They are really upset because she is white.
I do not understand why this situation would be worthy of a protest, it is not as if they won’t let you sit at any restaurant and order food, or like they make you sit in the back of a bus or an innocent man is sitting on death row. No it is not about anything important such as the aforementioned but rather the lack of diversity in the world of fashion.
“Diversity” in this sense equals African American women.
On the first day of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week N.Y. Spring 2011, a small coterie of young black women dressed in black and wearing black sunglasses marched from Time Inc.’s headquarters to Lincoln Center. Completely silent, the women carried signs that read, “I am a fashion director,” and “I am Susan Taylor” — along with the names of African Americans who have served in the fashion director role at Essence in the past.
It’s cool, to protest but in most cases it should be about something important. What is wrong with having a white fashion editor? After all, most of the clothing these women wear isn’t even made by African Americans. From Polo, to Coach, to Vera Wang, To Gucci to Louis Vuitton, most African Americans wear attire that is made by folks of European descent. But they do not protest that. Who better to talk about clothes and accessories made by whites that black women wear than a white person?
This is the dumbest protest I have ever heard of. It basically shows that we choose issues without any serious thought, and even worse, that what we really value is materialism. Protesting against Essence magazine is a real fashion faux pas. –torrance stephens, ph.d.
