Magazine Cover Discrimination

Have you ever walked down the magazine aisle at your local Grocery Store and wondered were all the African-American women are? I know that I have definitely noticed a lack of fashion magazines in general not placing women of color on their covers. In the past year the Elle magazine cover archive showed that they have only had two African-American women on their cover Beyonce and Rihanna. Yet celebrities like Jennifer Anisten and Sarah Jessica Parker have appeared a combined total of five times. I feel that this lake of representation to the black community helps to perpetuate the idea that African-American women are somehow less desirable than white women. It in tern gives the impression that to be black is to not be fashionable or appealing.

And even when African-Americans are placed on the covers they sometimes create quit a controversy. Like with the Lebron James and Gisele Bundchen Vogue cover pictured above. In one ABC news article it claimed that the cover showed them almost like, "a black beast clutching a white damsel in distress". This brings up a very stereotypical idea of African-American men being over sexed and dangerous to white women. It also in some ways portrays the idea that he is almost animalistic and she is wanting to flee from his grip. In the same article Robin Givhan an African-American and former associate editor at Vogue brings up a different point about the cover. She says, "It's so exhausting that every time people see an image of a black person they work themselves into a tizzy that somehow it doesn't adhere to the way they think a black person should be presented". I feel that her point is very true. Are people uncomfortable with the cover just because he is a black man and she is a white women or is it because it somehow does not fit what they feel is an acceptable way to portray African-Americans in the media.

When it comes to fashion in many ways African-Americans have always been excluded. Yet when we chose to not give them the same equal opportunities to be seen as white women we are once again segregating ourselves. By not showing African-American women on the covers of fashion magazines we are letting it be okay to not allow them to walk in fashion runways, appear on fashion centered television shows such as Style, and even to go so far as to exclude them from the larger media outlet of all magazines in general. This lack of fashion media coverage does not just hurt those who read fashion magazines but also anyone who is walking down that same Grocery aisle. They see only white faces staring up at them and the idea that white is better is exemplified in their mind. If we do not change this then the media stereotypes that we so often see will only keep being spread.