Mirror, Mirror: New Essence fashion director is white, and that's all right

When I learned last week that Essence editor Angela Burt-Murray had hired Ellianna Placas as fashion director, I winced. Essence is a lifestyle magazine for black women. So how was this white woman going to speak to me?

Then I thought about it. Didn't I stop my subscription to Essence several years ago because I found the articles depressing? (I already know I'm prone to high blood pressure and that black men with jobs can be hard to find.) And the fashion spreads were a little too avant-garde for me.

Around the same time, I started a subscription to O, a magazine with a message that empowers all women, evident in every one of its articles, from the spiritual to the sartorial. Each month, I am compelled to read the Oprah Magazine - ironically, where Placas previously worked as fashion editor - from cover to cover. The fashion spreads rock because they feature real women.

Therein lies the crux of the latest fashion brouhaha, which garnered more online chatter over the weekend than Chelsea Clinton's Vera Wang bridal gown.

Here you have a white woman hired as a black magazine's arbiter of beauty. As fashion director, she will decide what's in and what's out. When it comes to style, her point of view will define the magazine's aesthetic. And Placas, with her olive skin and straight hair, will be the face of the magazine whose sole mission for the last 40 years has been to serve black women.

But does it really matter what her skin color is? After all, Essence, with its black senior staff, doesn't even relate to all black women. (Case in point: The magazine put Reggie Bush on the cover of its February black-relationship issue - when the NFL running back was dating Kim Kardashian.)

"The issue is, we have an industry that has precious few people of color in it," said Charles Whitaker, a professor and research chair in magazine journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

The American Society of Magazine Editors does not keep statistics on diversity. Whitaker, who is black, said he believes it's because the numbers are so dismal.

"So the one place where people of color can get their management experience is in black magazines. And since there are all of these barriers to entry in all other places and you take the slot away, I can understand the uproar."

Even at some other magazines targeted to black people, there are nonblack directors of fashion. For instance, Niki Schwan, Vibe's current fashion director, is white.