Is Essence Magazine Trying To Become The New O Magazine & Reach A White Female Audience?

Angela Burt Murray the current editor in chief of Essence Magazine says  Elliana Palcas is an “excellent addition to the team.” Why doesn’t Angela Burt Murray just be honest? The real reason Essence Magazine hired Palcas a white woman to become the new fashion director is due to money.

Black women are constantly bombarded with racist and sexist messages that the ideal North American woman is a white woman or a mixed race woman. Black magazines and the mainstream promote mixed race female celebrities such as  Mariah Carey,  Alicia Keys, Halle Berry, Rihanna, or Beyonce but they are all part white.

How many black women work in high profile positions at Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle Magazine? The answer is probably zero.

Essence Magazine will probably become the new O Magazine. Remember, O Magazine is just “blackface” on the cover.

So will skinny young white female celebrities now appear on the cover of Essence Magazine? Only time will tell? Would Essence Magazine readers be thrilled if Charlize Theron, Angelina Jolie, Megan Fox began appearing on the cover of Essence? It just might happen.

Oprah Winfrey would never create a magazine specifically for black women because she’s only concerned about “profit” and she knows white women can make her a lot of money.

If you read the masthead for Oprah’s O Magazine, the majority of the editors are not African Americans. O Magazine has a paid subscription of over 2.7 million readers. O Magazine has expanded the brand to South Africa and has a readership of 300,000. However, O Magazine is certainly not a black woman’s magazine because Oprah is catering to a white female audience. The majority of the articles in O Magazine do not concern “race” or issues that reflect the black female audience.

Essence Magazine was created in the year 1970  out of necessity because black women have been discriminated against by the mainstream fashion industry.

In the year 2005, Time Warner bought Essence Magazine the remaining 51% of Essence Communications Inc for $170 million dollars.

However, Essence Magazine is a lifestyle Magazine specifically for black women for the past forty years.

The mainstream fashion and lifestyle magazines such as Vogue, Marie Claire, Glamour, ignore black women.

There are a paucity of work opportunities for black women in the fashion industry due to racism and sexism. The fashion industry is very powerful, because in this world the fashion industry dictated to women what “beauty” means.

Beauty in North America means being young, white, thin, and blonde. The fashion magazines promote white female celebrities that conform to this mypoic vision of female beauty.

The Feminist writer Naomi Wolf blasted the fashion industry in her groundbreaking 1991 best seller “The Beauty Myth”. In the “Beauty Myth,” Wolf criticized the fashion media for promoting unrealistic and dangerous body images and beauty ideals to women.

Now imagine being a black woman and being told by the fashion industry you are unworthy because you certainly aren’t white, thin, or blonde. How would that make you feel?

Next, many people talk about Tyra Banks or Naomi Campbell succeeding in the fashion industry. However, Banks and Campell also had to conform by wearing long ridiculous wigs and weaves to enhance their “appearance” or wear lighter makeup and contact lenses.

Oscar winning actress Halle Berry has been on the cover of Vogue but she’s half white, has light skin, and conforms to the beauty standards of the racist North American fashion industry.

The pop star Beyonce Knowles may get on the cover of a mainstream magazine but she also conforms to “whiteness”. Hasn’t anyone noticed that Beyonce wears a blonde weave?

Essence Magazine has made a huge mistake by hiring Elliana Palcas when black women are still marginalized by a racist and sexist American fashion industry.

The quandary is,  Essence Magazine also has not improved the brand.  Essence Magazine has a circulation of over 1 million readers in the United States. Why hasn’t Essence Magazine expanded the brand to the Caribbean or to Africa? For example, Vogue Magazine has eighteen international versions of the magazine available in countries such as India, Australia, United Kingdom, Latin America, Russia. Some readers of Essence Magazine have complained that the topics are stale and recycled.

Essence Magazine failed to impress me and I’m not even a black woman, I am a black man. The articles in Essence Magazine are boring, derivative and lacking in details.  Essence Magazine has the same African American celebrities on the cover such as Beyonce, Halle Berry, Janet Jackson, Queen Latifah, Mary J Blige, Alicia Keys, Zoe Saldana, Kerry Washington, and they recycles women over and over. Essence Magazine also ignores the black lesbian and bisexual female market. Why hasn’t Tracy Chapman or Alice Walker or any prominent black lesbian been on the cover of Essence?

Essence Magazine needs to change with the times. Why doesn’t Essence conduct research and find out what their readers want to read about in the magazine? It is sad that Essence Magazine is also “conforming” just for profit yet ignoring their mandate which is to reach and empower black women.