How finding your voice creates change.
when i walked into this room
some of you saw me as a model some of
you saw me as an entrepreneur
maybe someone that you follow on social
media and some of you have no clue who i
am and that’s cool too because you’re
going to find out
but to me when i walk into a room
i’m all of those things but i’m first
and foremost
a black woman now i had to start today
like this because
i felt like i could speak to you about
creativity within crisis
social media the modeling industry or
anything really about my experiences
being shaped to an extent
by the colour of my skin
now i was thrust into this crazy
industry when i was 14 years old
when i was scattered coming home from
school i was an academic school girl
whose main concerns were
getting good grades and being on the
netball team
and i guess you could say that i was
super naive
although i was aware of race i wasn’t
truly exposed
to the ignorance of racism until i
entered into the modelling industry
at this age i was very into fashion i
actually wanted to be a fashion
journalist
but i guess you could say i never
noticed the lack of representation
within the fashion industry because
it was never questioned before it was
normal for me to walk into a store
and look at all the campaign imagery and
see nobody who looked like me
or go to a makeup counter and not see
any brown faces of beauty
but i guess that kind of made sense
because back then there wasn’t even any
foundations in my shades so
and also remember i was only 14
so the only magazine that i was
collecting was the argos catalogue to
circle my christmas presents
so you can imagine that when i entered
into this industry i thought it was
going to be some sort of like
america’s next top model diverse fantasy
land like
i didn’t think that my race was going to
play such a big part of my experiences
within the industry
but one thing that i do remember though
was the first time
that i saw our lenno’s lancome campaign
it was very poignant to me because i’d
just been signed maybe a few months or
so
and i was coming home from some of my
first castings and i looked up on the
side of a building in old street and i
saw her face
it was huge a huge billboard
the first time that i’d ever seen a
black model’s face alone
so big in london before it was a warm
feeling
i felt seen and represented and i could
achieve big things in this crazy
industry that i just stumbled into
but as i became more acquainted with my
surroundings
it became very weird to me for an
industry that felt almost purposely void
of black people that it was white people
who made me feel so hyper aware that i
wasn’t
like them that my experiences were going
to differ greatly to that of a white
models
and i learned at a very young age that i
was going to be put in scenarios where
i’d be treated differently
simply because i was black now let me
just
paint a little picture for you i was
given the amazing advice
by an agent to never go into a casting
after another black girl
just in case the casting director got us
confused and it made it even harder to
get that one spot out of 50 that was
reserved for a black model
but this same casting director didn’t
seem to have a problem differentiating
between the
10 to 15 blond-haired blue-eyed white
girls who are gonna walk the same show
but it’s me and my bald-headed friend
grace bowl who couldn’t be seen next to
each other
all right that’s me and my friends going
into the castle by the way like what
wait what
i was basically told to lower my
expectations
of what i could achieve within the
industry simply because i was black
and that anybody who was even close to
my complexion
should be considered my competition but
i knew that white models didn’t have to
feel that way
maybe because they had the same hair
color as another girl or eye color or
maybe because they actually
looked like somebody else but never
because of their race
but these were some of the things that
every single black model experienced
in one way shape or form when entering
into the industry
and we accepted it because we didn’t
know any better
we were young we were impressionable and
we were actually made to feel that we
should even be
grateful to be part of such an amazing
industry
it was normalized and we often felt like
we didn’t have
a voice or a safe space to communicate
because whenever you as a black model
did decide to speak up you were given
the fierce diva or the
angry black girl tag there was even a
time when i was verbally attacked by a
male hairdresser for simply stating that
putting a water-based product in my hair
would make it frizz and the look was
meant to be straight and shiny
and when i tried to voice these concerns
to my agents
of course they were appalled but the
general consensus was
sorry babe you know that’s just like the
way of the world like i’m sorry that’s
happening to you but can you just like
be professional and uh take it on the
chin
is my name floyd mayweather to be taking
verbal abuse from a white man on the
chin
is this a boxing ring or is this
backstage at a fashion show
let me know
i was genuinely at a loss as to where i
stood because
remember i’m a teenage girl so i already
had the usual
teenage issues of insecurities
bullying you know not knowing yourself
and then all of a sudden i was a model
and everybody was telling me that you
know you have pretty privilege right
and that i’m technically at an advantage
in the world
but then facts are in being black and
all of a sudden it was like
you’re pretty for a black girl and also
don’t be seen in the same room as
another black girl because you kind of
look the same
and your hair really difficult to work
with and your skin
won’t even make products for that and
generally speaking you’re going to be
paid less work less and treated less
than
simply because you were black it was a
confusing and exhausting time to be a
black girl within the industry
and these experiences extended online
too
as a young girl i would go online and i
would see endless
banter at the expense of black women
there would be jokes about being able to
physically abuse us with more ease due
to our skin tone
some of your now favorite celebrities
back in the day
jumped on the black girl as banter
bandwagon as well because it was simply
an easy way to get the whole timeline
laughing
with minimal retaliation and whenever
you as a black girl did try and defend
yourself online
everyone would say that it was just a
joke or that it was just a phase that
that person was going through
these were just some of the experiences
of black girls and
these existed online and offline for us
before this happened actually
i did feel kind of alone and i did feel
like
the only thing that i could do was put
my head down
and push through and hope that one day i
would be successful enough to not be
treated this way
and it’s crazy to think that at such a
young age i equated being successful
with the only way that i could be
treated with basic human respect
but but
there was only so much that these
situations and people could do
to try and crush my spirit and
determination after i finished school
i began working more and traveling and
meeting more and more black girls and we
back we began speaking and
sharing our stories and perspectives and
i realized that
i wasn’t as alone as i thought i met
people like
zuri tibby adesawa
grace bowl and jordan dunn and i began
to feel
hopeful i began to feel less alone and
that change was afoot
but i just didn’t know how to become a
part of it other than merely just
existing within the industry
and i guess we all kind of felt that
same way because we were still so young
and we were still in the process of
learning how truly powerful we as black
women were
but after years of upsetting situations
i realized that
my silence hadn’t gotten me a damn thing
those same hairdressers still had their
jobs those same racist fashion brands
were showing
every fashion week i was still going to
the toilets crying
every season and i was still meeting new
black girls who were echoing the exact
same experiences that i had had
and feeling like they had no voice and
that’s when i realized that my silence
made me complicit
in the mistreatment of the next
generation of black models
and that alone made me want to speak up
i stopped trying to toe the line because
i realized that my silence hadn’t gotten
me and my friends
anything social media played a huge part
in giving black women a platform to
share their stories and perspectives
and i guess i was subconsciously
inspired and thought why not me
one day i was backstage at a show during
new york fashion week
they asked who was available to do my
makeup and a hair a makeup artist put up
their hand
i sat in her chair and i realized that
she didn’t have any foundations that
were
in my skin tone at all she had 30
foundations for
white models and there was one brown
foundation which she was trying to make
work for me
instead of getting angry at that
situation though i use it as an
opportunity to kind of educate her and i
always carried my own makeup kit with me
this was an experience that i documented
online and i just kept it real about the
experiences of black models within the
industry
and it went viral i was so surprised and
shocked
not just because people were sharing
what i was saying but because they were
listening
and supporting me i was able to write
articles
and do interviews speaking about
diversity the lack of representation
within the fashion industry
and the experiences of black models
it was just such a crazy time for me i
realized that
finally after years within the industry
i had finally found my voice
and this was a feeling that i wanted to
extend to others
not just women within my industry a few
years later
i founded lap the brand which stands for
leo me anderson
the project the purpose the brand which
is both
an online clothing brand and
a platform and with the online platform
women can write about anything
be it sex mental health relationships
politics race whatever as long as you’re
a self-identifying woman
i guess you could say that if i hadn’t
gone on on that journey within the
modeling industry
and gone through those hardships and
found my voice
i wouldn’t have been even half as
inspired to start my own platform
because
i wouldn’t have seen the true power of
sharing your stories and having a voice
first
hand and this is something that i want
to encourage
everybody in this room to do today i
want all of you guys to think about ways
that you can help those
who go unseen or unheard be seen by
everybody
you don’t have to be a model with a big
social media following
or years of hardship anybody who’s in a
position of privilege
can help those who go unseen and looking
around this room
i’m seeing hell of privilege because
i wish that more people had stopped
acting legally blind to the experiences
of black models within the industry
and spoken up when they saw what was
happening to me and others like me
i wish that somebody had spoken up and
seen what i was going through
and gave me the confidence to speak up
on it as well
everybody’s story has the ability to
ignite
change but it can never be heard if it
is never told
what will you decide to do today and
thank you for coming to my ted talk
thank you
thank you
you