This post originally appeared on The Maynard Institute’s Richard Prince’s Journalisms. Look for links to other articles concerning the hire of Ellianna Placas, including Harriette Cole on TheRoot.com and Mark Anthony Neal with Tony Cox on NPR, below.

Whites at Essence: So What?s New?

Monday, August 2, 2010

Returning Aug. 6

Better Question May Be Who Gets the Plum Assignments

The July 19 announcement that Essence magazine has named a white woman, Ellianna Placas, as its fashion director, continues to inspire commentary. Audrey Edwards, who was associated with Essence magazine in various capacities for 20 years, wrote this observation for Journal-isms:

By Audrey Edwards

In all the brouhaha over the hiring of a white woman to be the fashion director at Essence magazine, one fact continued to be overlooked: Essence, once known as ?The Magazine for Today?s Black Woman,? has always had whites in key positions. During the five years I worked there between 1981 and 1986, first as executive editor and then editor, there were no less than three white men running crucial departments. A white art director was at the top of the masthead, positioned side by side with Susan L. Taylor, the editor-in-chief. The managing editor, just under me on the masthead, was also white, as was the circulation director.

In those days, when the magazine was still black-owned, the only people complaining about this were the black photographers and illustrators who weren?t getting work from the magazine?s white art director. That?s because he invariably gave the plum freelance assignments to people who most resembled him ? white, male and gay.

“I understand,” I used to tell the art director. “You?re supposed to give some of the assignments to your friends in the business.” The problem, however, and one we constantly fought about, was that most of the coveted and especially lucrative photo assignments ? namely, cover and celebrity shoots ? were going to his friends and others in the business who just happened to mostly be white.

Unlike a fashion director, whose role is confined to creating and executing a vision for how clothes and accessories will be showcased, a magazine?s art director is the arbiter for the entire visuals of the publication. And much like a fashion director, he (or she) often chooses the photographers, the illustrators, the models, the stylists, and the hair and makeup people critical to the creation and branding of a magazine?s visual image.

Essence’s August issue. Ellianna Placas starts as fashion director with the 40th Anniversary September issue.Essence’s August issueJust as often at a black-oriented publication, an art director?s vision for this image is filtered through the prism of personal sensibilities shaped by history and circumstance, race and politics. What made the presence of a white art director at Essence problematic is that his own vision was distorted by the myth of white male superiority, that old bugaboo still undermining black aspirations ? even in black-owned corporations.

The reason the white art director didn?t hire black photographers and illustrators, he would actually have the nerve to say during senior staff meetings, was that there weren?t many who were “qualified.” The fact that he really believed this made him not only blatantly racist at a black magazine, of all places, but poorly qualified in thinking and outlook to be an art director of any stripe. He was fired.

The recent hiring of a white fashion director at Essence reflects new history and changed circumstance. For the last five of its 40-year history, the magazine has been owned by Time Warner, with issues of race and politics now refracted through the prism of a white-run behemoth. All the old bets are off.

Blacks are now sparsely sprinkled in prime positions at major Time Warner publications (read white-oriented ones). So can a black-oriented publication, owned by a white media superpower, dare to discriminate when it comes to hiring whites for top positions? Not really. Besides, it never did in the past.

But what the past has shown is that there is still a clear and ever-present danger of racial belief systems compromising management decisions. Truth be told, it shouldn?t matter what race a fashion director is, even at a black woman?s magazine. Women, both black and white, all wear pretty much the same clothes.

But specific particulars about such decisions as which fashion models are used to display those clothes; their skin color, size and shape; which designer?s clothes get showcased; and who gets hired and paid for lucrative fashion jobs such as styling hair, doing makeup or coordinating garments, are the kind of economic, esthetic and racial issues that will continue to resonate in black fashion media.

The hiring of a white fashion director to be the arbiter of style and taste for black women, interpreting what constitutes glamour and beauty within their own culture, is a leap of diversity, to be sure. Let?s hope it won?t prove to be problematic.

* Harriette Cole, theRoot.com: The Essence Hire: It’s Personal and Professional
* Jozen Cummings, theRoot.com: News Flash: Black Magazines Aren’t Always That Black
* Mark Anthony Neal with Tony Cox, “Talk of the Nation,” NPR: ‘Essence’ Names White Fashion Director
* Sophia Nelson, CNN: Essence magazine offers lesson on race