I know how some of you good folks think that ESSENCE Magazine is the paradigm for progressive thinking on behalf of colored women, but I am here to tell you that is far from the truth.
A year ago I sat in the corporate offices of ESSENCE and listened to several editors AND the mag’s president tell me that none of their readers were familiar with the Black Codes, therefore the advertisement for the new Armani fragrance wasn’t offensive. I asked these women if they knew what the Black Codes were, and if they did how could they ever let this ad run opposite the editor-in-chief’s splash page? In the end of our meeting the ladies at ESSENCE agreed to disagree with me, but I had dissected their June issue like so much the frog in high school biology. What used to be one of the magazines best issues featuring tributes to fathers and summertime grooming tips had become a rag of shenanigans.
ESSENCE hates your Blackness and they teach you to hate it too. Notice how many ads are placed for products that help you remove the markers of you disease. I am so tired of Black women with blonde hair, but ESSENCE isn’t. They also will teach you how to shop away the disease of Blackness. ESSENCE and their publishers love your money and they will try to separate you from it on almost every page.
At the ESENCE Music Festival in Houston last week, the beautiful and courageous JILL SCOTT told a symposium that the time had come to discontinue consuming pop culture entertainment that was degrading to the Black community.
“It is dirty, inappropriate, inadequate, unhealthy and polluted,” SCOTT said. “We can demand more.”
It’s a good thing that she didn’t name names, because ESSENCE mag could have been at the top of her list.
Do black women hate themselves ? Do black women hate black skin ?