CinnaSlim
Queen of Swords
Teen Vogue’s Senegalese Twist Editorial Featured NO Medium or Dark Skinned Black Women
21 CULTURE FOR DISCUSSION
by BGLH STAFF – June 24, 2015
It all started when Teen Vogue beauty director, Elaine Welteroth (pictured above) documented her trip to Kigali, Rwanda in an online editorial. Welteroth highlighted her trip to a braiding salon to receive the Senegalese hairstyle.
“Adopting this hairstyle became an integral aspect of drinking in the cultural experience as a first-time visitor to East Africa—women sported braids and twists everywhere. But I wasn’t sure how people would react back home in New York City,” said Welteroth.
Um. Pretty sure folks in New York are used to seeing Senegalese twists and box braids. You mean you’ve never heard of the talented NYC-based @HairbySusy? That’s another story for another day.
What really got folks riled up was the printed edition of Welteroth’s piece. The piece was no longer accompanied with photos of Welteroth in the East African braid hut. Instead Welteroth’s images were all but replaced with an ethnically ambiguous model, Phillipa Steele. On a model.com profile, the model describes herself as “half Fijan, and also Tongan, French, English, and American.”
That’s when twitter users went AWF:
The discourse eventually made it’s way back to Welteroth who responding to one commenter on her instagram:
But the African women who conceptualized this style are deep/dark brown women, and the women in America who popularized it are overwhelmingly deep/dark/medium brown skinned. Why have they been totally scrubbed from the piece?
21 CULTURE FOR DISCUSSION
by BGLH STAFF – June 24, 2015
It all started when Teen Vogue beauty director, Elaine Welteroth (pictured above) documented her trip to Kigali, Rwanda in an online editorial. Welteroth highlighted her trip to a braiding salon to receive the Senegalese hairstyle.
“Adopting this hairstyle became an integral aspect of drinking in the cultural experience as a first-time visitor to East Africa—women sported braids and twists everywhere. But I wasn’t sure how people would react back home in New York City,” said Welteroth.
Um. Pretty sure folks in New York are used to seeing Senegalese twists and box braids. You mean you’ve never heard of the talented NYC-based @HairbySusy? That’s another story for another day.
What really got folks riled up was the printed edition of Welteroth’s piece. The piece was no longer accompanied with photos of Welteroth in the East African braid hut. Instead Welteroth’s images were all but replaced with an ethnically ambiguous model, Phillipa Steele. On a model.com profile, the model describes herself as “half Fijan, and also Tongan, French, English, and American.”
That’s when twitter users went AWF:
The discourse eventually made it’s way back to Welteroth who responding to one commenter on her instagram:
But the African women who conceptualized this style are deep/dark brown women, and the women in America who popularized it are overwhelmingly deep/dark/medium brown skinned. Why have they been totally scrubbed from the piece?
Just goes to show you how a large portion of biracials are not currently connected to the black community.
