The Essence Controversy Is More Than Skin-Deep

(New York Magazine) — Last week, the staff of Essence magazine found itself embroiled in a racially charged fracasover its recent appointment of Ellianna Placas, the black publication’s first white fashion director. Essence editor-in-chief Angela Burt-Murray went on the record to defend the decision, noting Placas’s myriad qualifications and wondering incredulously why readers were so outraged over this, and not, say, a story the mag ran about “sex trafficking of young black girls in urban communities.”

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