Another consolidated post of an older story - "Jewels on Jupiter" - for Cosmopolitan Luthania from May 2019. Some thoughts ahead . . . This story will always provoke mixed feelings in me. It was my first major publication and I can still remember the excitement I felt when I found out I would finally be published. It was such a big deal. HOWEVER, this was also the first time I experienced overt racism in the industry. If you Google my name + "rejects model", you'll find a story about how a @condenast editor outright told me that she would not publish this story because they only publish white models (this was done in writing, no less). This was also after I got ghosted by the first magazine I was slated to be published in (I can only suspect it was for a similar reason). I finally ended up getting this story accepted by a lovely editor, Violeta, who headed up Cosmo Lithuania at that time. While we (POC) may talk about issues of discrimination in the industry, this is a *direct* example of an opportunity denied to a Black model based on race. Had it not been for me literally pounding pavement to get this placed (I sent out over 1,000 emaiis; most were ignored or rejected), it would have been another casualty of the legacy of racism in the industry and in general. Sadly this wouldn't be my, nor my Black friends and colleagues, last brush with racism, both overt and the more insidious form (e.g., microaggressions), and this is why I use my platform and my voice to shine a light on this constant and pervasive issue that so many of us deal with behind closed doors. We aren't making this stuff up and it affects us in every aspect of our lives from our mental health to denied upward mobility and forward trajectory (and not being able to put food on our tables). Moral of the story to editors and others in positions of power is #listentoblackvoices and #hireblackcreatives. Period. Team: Brenda Nasr - Photographer Paradis Winslet - Model Angelina Scantlebury - Stylist Ambreen Khwaja - Makeup Felicia Nelson-Bhandari - Hair