Black Vogue Employees Call Anna Wintour’s Diversity Push Hypocritical, Calculated
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Black staff said that Vogue editor-in-chief and Condé Nast artistic director Anna Wintour’s racism reckoning this year has been too little and too late, according to hypocritical internal emails and insider accounts published by The New York Times. Eighteen current and former staffers said Vogue discriminated against employees who weren’t white, skinny, from a wealthy family, and educated at elite schools. Eleven of them called for Wintour to resign. Wintour has previously been criticized for enforcing racist stereotypes, whitewashing, supporting John Galliano after he made anti-Semitic claims, supporting cultural appropriation, and overseeing racist company practices. “She is entitled and I do not think she will ever let anything get in the way of her white privilege,” André Leon Talley, former Vogue editor-at-large and ex-friend to Wintour, said.
In 2017, when she was pondering whether to publish images of Black models wearing head scarves, she asked an employee whether it conjured images of “pica ninny,” an offensive and dated term. In wake of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, Wintour emailed the company to apologize for sidelining Black creatives and running hurtful stories.