Remember This: Haute Magazine's Fall 2020 Issue

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CHRISCHAN SHIM + KOBE MURALS

LETTER FROM THE

EDITOR IN CHIEF Dear Reader, First of all, I hope you are well. No, I hope you are more than well – I hope you are safe, healthy, at peace and surrounded by love.

I want to tell you a little bit about myself. My mother was born and raised in Lima, Peru, my father in Havana, Cuba. The two of them met while on scholarship at a polytechnic university in what was formerly known as the U.S.S.R.. Upon graduating, they got married, moved to Peru, started their careers and, seven years later, had me.

I immigrated with my family to St. Petersburg, Florida when I was three years old. I am a Peruvian citizen. I am also an American citizen. My father is a Peruvian, American and Cuban citizen.

The other day, a friend of mine sent me a website that stated that because I have Peruvian and Cuban origins, I am eligible to apply for Spanish citizenship. This led me to look up the concept of citizenship as we define it. What does a nationality symbolize? What does it mean to “originate” somewhere? What does it mean to be patriotic? What does it mean to be an American?

In a completely objective manner, I see the opportunities that the U.S. has brought me and I am grateful for my upbringing here. But I did not choose to grow up here, just as the poor families in Villa El Salvador, one of Lima’s poorest districts, did not choose for their lives to start there. They were born into generational poverty, ignored by their government, denied opportunities, spared of resources, all by chance. Yet, they still love their country of Peru. They still take undying pride in their identity, despite having to I am proud to be an American citizen, just as I am proud to be a Peruvian citizen, just as I am proud to be a citizen of the world. But right now, I am not proud of the history that my home country carries, a history tainted with oppression and violence. I denounce this past because I love the life I have been provided here. I reject a similar future because I love the potential of an alternative one.

In America, we have been taught that capital is king and that progress toward the American dream is marked by capital.

But I think listening is enough. Learning is enough. Loving is enough. I fight because even after all of this, in the midst of everything we are going through, I still have love to give, and that is enough.

I will end with the words of the great Dr. John Lewis: “Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.”

With love and resistance,

Diana Fonte 3

NOTE FROM THE

CREATIVE DIRECTOR The release of our second issue, “Future Shock”, was monumental for Haute Magazine. It was our longest issue to date, featured some of our biggest names in the creative sphere and challenged our visual aesthetic in unprecedented ways.

The response it received from the USC community and around the world was something I could have never imagined, and is still something that is difficult to express its sentiments in words. “Future Shock” grew our global readership to over 250,000 people and truly solidified our position in the student-run publishing industry; I could not be more thankful for each and every one of you who choose to peruse our pages.

So, when we had to turn the page onto a new chapter of Haute, it almost seemed impossible to create something that could stand alongside what we had created. Nonetheless, we saw it as an exhilarating challenge and embarked on creating our Fall 2020 issue. To give you a bit of insight into our process, we choose the theme for each issue approximately eight to nine months before its release. Therefore, we selected our Fall 2020 theme in January of this year, or so we thought. It was the end of May when the world stopped. People had taken to the streets, voicing their outrage towards the maltreatment of Black bodies in this country at the hands of law enforcement officers. It was not a new narrative, but one that refused to be stifled any longer. The fight against anti-Blackness reshaped the social landscape of our country and propelled Haute Magazine into reforming our own workings.

At the beginning of June, we made the decision to change this issue’s theme and, thus, lost five months out of our typical production schedule. We connected with all of our contributors and told them that they essentially had to start from scratch. Shifting their focus to addressing some of the world’s most pressing issues, each of them accepted the challenge with an open mind. Working to produce a 300+ page issue in four months, all while remaining in quarantine, was something that we could have never foreseen, but it in no way held us back.

With the goal of serving as a time capsule for the events that have unfolded in 2020, it has been an honor to unyieldingly work on this issue, as I realize the significance it holds for many. I can confidently say that this issue includes some of the most profound content we have published to date, which could not have been done without the understanding, willingness and adaptability of our remarkable team. When describing this issue to others, I have been referring back to the unbelievable heart it has. Each writing and photography piece came together to tell a tale much larger than any of us here at Haute. These pieces serve as a commitment that Haute Magazine will remain a publication that amplifies BIPOC voices and specifically celebrates the brilliance and beauty of the Black community.

This year inundated us with events and occurrences that, at times, seemed almost too big to comprehend and address. This being said, we hope that our Fall 2020 issue can provide some grounds for the significant time we are all living through right now. I invite you to indulge into this body of work that I, and the rest of the Haute family, have put endless hours of love and light into. It is with a humble heart that I present to you the most important part of the Haute story yet, “Remember This.”

Jason Cerin 4

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

LISTEN

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Intro Chloe x Halle No Taxation Without Representation Malcolm X Dreamer Kabwasa, Ayoni BASQUIAT Jamila Woods, Saba rektless mwami Days Like This GoldLink, Khalid Wash Us In The Blood Kanye West, Travis Scott Lightyear Kyle Lux Folie Imposée Yves tumor Complexion (A Zulu Love) Kendrick Lamar, Rapsody Racism & Injustice Martin Luther King, Jr. Best American Flatbush Zombies 4:44 JAY-Z Fu-Gee-La Fugees Maybe Spencer.

Godspeed Frank Ocean Protection. Kiana Ledé On Becoming An Activist Angela Davis Love Affair UMI Do It Chloe x Halle Blessa (Instrumental) Toro y Moi Unmoved (A Black Woman Truth) Ayoni Black Movement Kabwasa Weary Solange Still I Rise Dr. Maya Angelou

Editor in Chief Diana Fonte Creative Director Jason Cerin Director of Writing Awo Jama Director of Copy Alice Han Director of Photography Alyssa Kyle Director of Multimedia Eden Tokatly Director of Visual Design Sydney Loew Director of Content Shreya Gopala Director of Marketing Aiden Le Director of Events and Outreach Christina Kim Director of Finance Christine Du

CREDITS Writing Staff Angelique Ayoade Frankie Baratta Emeka Emetuche Hala Khalifeh Amina Niasse Dylan Palacios Christy Ying So

Photography Staff Christine Suh Savannah Thomas Rene Van Steenbergen Allison Walsh Mellow Wei Ashara Wilson Shanaya Khubchandani

Visual Design Staff Jasmine Bahremand Sarah Chan Sabrina Chen Taylor Crawford Quinn Fitzgerald Julian Gomez Kimberly Grabiec Lauralee Harper Sara Heymann Jasmine (Jaz) Ho

Elande Abate Andrew Brilliant Kian Broder Wang Jessica Chea Jaron Fabular Francesca Gutierrez Anita Holman Zoe Huang Izzy Lux Ariana Kalamaros

Madison Kloeber Alex Kuo Josh Lin Andre Mershad Briana Morris Nathan Phillips Saul Singleton Eric Stein SĂ´ng-An Sho Stewart Tim Vo

Marketing Staff Eujue Lee Claire Malit Anna Sara Mehouelley Skyler Melnick Lily Muscarella Crisanto Nevarez Sophia Stone Sophie Tan Layla Yun Ewa Zheng

Layla Ali Peri Caron Connie Deng Katie Diez Jessica Fan Sandy Fang Colleen Feng Jackie Hollander Dorian Hudson Joanna Huynh

Sharon Kim Karla Leung Carly Lieder Vivian Lin Anushri Mittal Ariella Rabbani Emanuel Rodriguez Arianna Sanders Wyl Tavares Brennon Wade

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TATENDA CHIDORA

TABLE OF CONTENTS REALITY 11 19 29 39 47 59 69 77 81 91

On Protests: A Conversation With Malik Shakur Shanaya Khubchandani + Laith Nsour Collected Work Nico Kartel COVID-19 and the Anti-Mask Movement: Defying Science and the Law Christine Suh + Ling Luo Rebel From the ‘70s Dee Williams The Water Revolution Dennis Yang + Josh Lin Black Girl Magic Muhammad Moe The First Modern Pandemic’s Impact on Small Business Alice Han + Didi Von Boch Sediment Ariann Barker + Anu Aketi Holding Fashion Brands Accountable Frankie Barratta + Jennifer Hoffner COUNTERPARTS III A Day Living REACTION

103 117 127 137 143 151 161 167 173 181

Notes on Appropriation: Camp Fashion’s Origins in Black Queer Spaces Allison Walsh + Anja Matthes Risen Sông-An Sho Stewart I Matter: The Black Man’s Truth in 2020 Ashara Wilson Open Your Purse Saul Singleton The New Black Wall Street Nathan Phillips Facetime Portraits Tim Dunk Dhexda Xidho (To Tie Around the Waist): On Strength and the Burden it Places on Black Women Awo Jama + Laura Alston Cedric Jaron Fabular I Can’t Breathe Djosy Charles + Ézé Amos The AfroArt Series Creative Soul Photography REVOLUTION

197 217 227 237 255 267 277 287 297 307 317

Black at USC Diana Fonte + Jason Cerin + Lee Gumbs Los Angeles Peace Protests Saúl López A Letter to Vogue’s Editor: Runways Don’t Set Trends, We Do Hala Khalifeh + Brian Siambi Black is King Coby Mack All About MATO Angelique Ayoade Kiera Kanya Iwana The Influence of Black Fashion Lizzie Schneider + Laré A. Kingston Wade Rhoden More than Just Hair Savannah Thomas + Fanta Isatou Gai MLK Now 2020 Reginald Cunningham Black Resource List Haute Magazine

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REALITY

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THE PRESERVATION OF

PROTESTS

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Interview by Shanaya Khubchandani Photography by Laith Nsour

A CONVERSATION WITH MALIK SHAKUR My introduction to activism started with the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012. He looked like me, and the absolute lack of empathy directed towards him terrified me, and gave me a glimpse into my own future. There’s also a sense that activism has been a family trade for at least four generations in my lineage. There hasn’t been a life cycle in my family history untouched by police violence, White Fascism, and state negligence.

After my first arrest during the Los Angeles protest for Freddie Gray, my grandmother, Afeni, answered the phone from the precinct with a piece of timeless advice for me and my cohorts awaiting bail: “Where you are right now, what you feel today is fuel, and it will push you further. Please, though, remember how my generation failed, and do things differently. Martyrdom isn’t enough.”

I think of these words often.

You matter. Your life matters, thank you for putting yourselves on the line, challenging yourselves and those around you. I came to learn that my disillusionment with the concept of patriotism was wrapped in a false storybook version of what America was.

But America is exactly what we see it as, this patchwork of folks who seemingly have nothing to do with each other – Muslims protesting for gays, rich cis white people protesting for Black trans women – and the fight to ensure each of us matter is the definition of American patriotism.

Malik Shakur

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I had the opportunity to virtually interview Malik Shakur, who is a scintillating social rights activist focused on championing unheard voices. Growing up in vastly different neighbourhoods rendered him to quickly grasp the severity of inequality and become painstakingly aware of the intricacies of the world he was born into. He believes that no one is devoid of the ability to be an independent thinker and that everyone can collectively lead. Shakur expressed this by founding the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation in honour of his late uncle and culture-shifting rapper, Tupac Shakur. The great rapper’s nephew affirmed that the interlude of outrage in response to the murder of George Floyd “put a battery in his back,” and inspired him to create a new wing of the Foundation to respond to such situations with urgency and efficiency. Shakur’s ability to wear his exquisite influence lightly is a result of the activism he inherited from his family.

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SHANAYA KHUBCHANDANI + LAITH NSOUR

Can you share some of your background in the social justice space?

What propelled your vehement activism?

I come from a family of activists. My great grandfather, Salaheddine Shakur, was a close associate of Malcolm X and his branch of Afro-Centric Islam. My grandmother and grandfather would meet under his mentorship during the early days of the Black Panther Party.

Social activism is certainly a family trade of sorts for us.

What inspired the creation of The Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation?

The murder of Tupac Amaru Shakur, I suppose. In the months following his death, my grandmother was put in a position to get affairs in order, grieve, take account of financial things, but also to continue the essence of his work, which was empowerment to those who lack power and bear the brutal, everyday hits of being powerless.

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Upon the death of George Floyd, the immediate response from authorities was inadequate at best. Are you hopeful for the cessation of the police force as we know it? How so?

I’ve grown up in about 5 different American cities in my youth. Some rough neighborhoods, some more comfortable and wealthy than most humans will ever experience in a lifetime or on vacation. I know there is a gradient to where Americans expect police to be and who they expect police to interact with. I think Black Americans want to have a neighborhood where they can walk around without fear, like I did when I lived in Marin County, California. Contrast to Fulton-Dekalb Counties in Atlanta, Georgia, where Rayshard Brooks was murdered. I know how it feels to live in those neighborhoods, where a police officer can question you, take you into custody for their own reasons and your recourse is as good as your ability to talk your way out of any given situation that could result in your gruesome death if gone wrong. This experience does not exist in the suburbs of America, and Black American’s deserve to be as safe as their white suburban countrymen.

The video of George Floyd’s monstrosusly unjust murder rendered him the cynosure of global news and created much rancour and resentment towards police authorities around the world. On the hunt for a glimmer of humanity from the police, what has surprised you the most?

The brutality is always surprising. The old man in Buffalo who suffered a skull fracture. Donovan Labella in Portland who is still in a comatose state due to a tear canister to her forehead. Miracle Boyd in Chicago who lost many of her front teeth for daring to film a CPD officer at a protest. It’s all incredibly devastating to see.

Was there one moment of the protests you found to be particularly fraught with significance?

The burning of the Third Precinct in Minneapolis. It signified a lot to a population who has almost universally grown up in a militarized police state. The aggrieved citizens of Minneapolis paid for that building, and when it is rebuilt, it’ll be their dollars that reconstruct it. It was their property to burn or not burn. It’s their police force to work for them.

Americans in Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Washington D.C. almost simultaneously realized the orifice subjecting them to inordinate violence and intimidation is theirs to begin with. It was a moment I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

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THE PRESERVATION OF PROTESTS

Shanaya Khubchandani is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing degrees in Communication and Economics.

Laith Nsour is a Bay Area-based photographer and a passionate creative. He captured these protests independently to support and spread awareness of what’s going on in our country.

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What do you make of the actions and gestures that have been done indirectly in support of Black Lives Matter, such as painting murals, renaming streets, etc.? Is it a distraction or a genuine display of support?

I think we’d all prefer policy change to shows of empathy.

But I’ll venture out and say that in a perfect world, they’d come hand and hand. Although, if we lived in that America, we wouldn’t be in this situation and George Floyd would still be alive.

What do you think is the best way to truly support the movement? Is there a right and a wrong way to go about it?

In essence, no. As long as you don’t harm others, there’s too many ways to support for there to be a “wrong” way.

Although, there is a way where you can eclipse a great, empathetic, communal thing with your ego or need to be seen. As an actor, I get it but, you know, read the room.

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SHANAYA KHUBCHANDANI + LAITH NSOUR

Is there another activist whose efforts you find particularly inspiring?

I can’t say there is one person in any city leading anything. That’s the beauty of the post-’60s protest movement; the decentralized nature of the way information is dispersed mirroring the way we gather and express our disdain at the way things are being run. There couldn’t be one person encapsulating all of that, no matter how loud the microphone or how tightly balled the fist. The movement today is strong because I find every single one of those folks on the street today incredibly inspiring.

What do you hope for the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation to have achieved in 5 years?

Our own treatment center. I don’t want to jinx anything, but it’d be my dream to have a facility where we could invite the finest African doctors from across the diaspora to come to our center, where we would have study and treatment wings for mental health, Black maternity wards, the entire health experience free of prejudice, ignorance or racism. If we can heal in peace, there is no limit to the things we can achieve when healthy.

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NICO KARTEL

Featuring Rihanna Cardi B Lil’ Yachty Fanny Bourdette-Donon Young Thug Samirah Raheem A$AP Rocky A$AP Ferg The Weeknd

Nico Kartel is a Harlem-based photographer who specializes in portrait, editorial and urban photography. The South Florida-native moved to New York City at the age of 19 with the dream of solidifying himself as a professional photographer. The now 22 year old has since achieved that, photographing the likes of Rihanna, Cardi B and The Weeknd. Beyond his star-studded portfolio, Kartel seeks to tell even deeper stories with his camera. Growing up being young, queer and West Indian, Kartel often found beauty in things most people did not.

Thus, he aims to share that point of view through his work. With series such as “Rose In Harlem” and “Hood Glory,” Kartel gives inner cities and urban culture a new perspective. By showcasing communities and subjects that are rarely ever depicted, he is rewriting long-standing narratives to now say “Black is beautiful.”

Overall, Kartel hopes to serve as an inspiration for fellow Black creators. Through his lens, celebrating Black people in all forms and at all times.

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NICO KARTEL

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COLLECTED WORK

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NICO KARTEL

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COLLECTED WORK

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Writing by Christine Suh Photography by Ling Luo

COVID-19

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AND THE ANTI-MASK MOVEMENT DEFYING SCIENCE AND THE LAW

Late February, 2020: According to Jorden et al., 2020, the first and second non travel-related COVID-19 cases in the U.S. were confirmed in California and Washington, respectively. This confirmed the possibility of community spread, triggering growing fear of the respiratory virus that forced 11 million residents (BBC, 2020) to stay in lockdown in Wuhan, China.

Early to mid-March, 2020: Following the University of Washington and Harvard’s decisions to move out students from their dorms, over 1,000 U.S. colleges and universities, including USC, closed down as of March 26 (Hess, 2020) due to COVID-19. With abrupt goodbyes and last-minute travel plans, students were forced to either return home or live in quarantine for the remainder of the semester; little did they expect, things would stay that way for the duration of summer break and possibly the fall semester.

Despite stay-at-home orders and “shelter in place” restrictions ordered throughout March and April, many states began to ease social distancing guidelines in May. To worldwide dismay, cases in the U.S. began to skyrocket in the summer months of June and July, with both increased testing and resistance to social distancing, as the number of infected individuals surpassed 4 million (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2020). In California, after a temporary reopening of businesses on June 12, Governor Gavin Newsom reinstituted statewide restrictions such as indoor dining bans in July (USA Today, 2020) in order to contain the spread of the virus.

Moving from quarantine to social distancing and vice versa across many months has undoubtedly tired out most, if not all, Americans. To make matters worse, unclear advice from the U.S. CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) transformed the practice of wearing masks from COVID-19 prevention into a political issue, rather than a widely adopted public health measure.

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CHRISTINE SUH + LING LUO

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COVID-19 AND THE ANTI-MASK MOVEMENT

April 3, 2020: The U.S. CDC recommended that face coverings be worn in public settings. A few days later, the WHO claimed that healthy individuals do not have to wear face masks (Bendix, 2020).

June 5, 2020: The WHO recommended face coverings for all individuals (Bendix, 2020).

From a scientific viewpoint, wearing masks is a simple, effective way to potentially save thousands of lives. Evidence from multiple studies corroborate this, including a model from the University of Washington predicting that universal mask-wearing could prevent about 33,000 coronavirus deaths by October (Bendix, 2020) and an April study by Leung et. al (2020) in the scientific journal Nature. Yet, many local officials and governors have avoided imposing cloth face coverings on their state populations, most likely in fear of inciting protests and/or personal threats. On May 1, a security guard in Flint, Michigan was shot to death for asking a customer to wear a face mask inside a Family Dollar store (Snyder et al., 2020). Many other viral incidents of stubborn customers’ refusals to wear a mask for entry into public stores have led Foot Locker and grocery store chain Winn-Dixie to feel pressured into not enforcing mask mandates or policies (Peterson, 2020). For example, one Starbucks customer named Amber Lynn Gilles claimed she was “discriminated against” in San Diego County for being refused service while not wearing a mask. Yet, her “Karen”-like behavior soon backfired on her, as barista Lenin Gutierrez received a hefty donation total of $87,000 on a GoFundMe page from over 6,500 donors to help realize his dream of teaching dance to children (Morales, 2020).

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Late July, 2020: 29 chains including Walmart and McDonald’s began to require customers to wear masks in stores (Jiang & Cain, 2020).

Against seemingly all common sense, the emerging anti-mask movement took issue with in-store mask mandates, such that Lenka Koloma founded a Freedom to Breathe Agency (FTBA) issuing mask exemption cards (Morales, 2020). Obviously fake, these mask exemption cards, as printed with a copy of the Justice Department’s eagle logo and an incorrect citation of the “Americans with Disability [sic] Act” on them, have been sold and advertised on Facebook, Shopify, and a Wix page in bulk. As a result, Facebook has worked to block anti-mask Facebook groups promoting misinformation about COVID-19 and the FTBA Wix website was taken down.

Leaders of the anti-mask movement have partially consisted of mom influencers on Instagram posting graphics of anti-mask propaganda.

Such influencers as Jodie Meschuk have prompted Instagram to block hashtags that could potentially spread coronavirus misinformation as an extension of the anti-vaccination movement. Similar arguments of feeling pity or undue concern for children’s well-being, such as “[e] very time I see a child in a mask my heart breaks a little more,” (Dickson 2020) can be seen in the comments on Meschuk’s posts. What’s concerning is that many Instagram accounts posting anti-mask graphics may not come across as extremist in their views, but rather proponents of organic health and wellness advice. This bears disturbing resemblance to the anti-GMO movement led by Moms Across America in 2013–15, when concerned moms protested against food brands such as Monsanto for their use of supposedly harmful GMOs (despite having no substantive evidence to prove this).

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CHRISTINE SUH + LING LUO

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Christine Suh is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Communication.

Ling Luo is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a master’s degree in Building Science.

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COVID-19 AND THE ANTI-MASK MOVEMENT

Another response from anti-maskers is the mistaken belief that wearing masks violates their constitutional rights. For those fighting against mask mandates out of a sense of entitlement to individual freedom, the U.S. Supreme Court has a legal precedent for enforcing measures such as wearing face masks in public for community safety. In Jacobson v.

Massachusetts (1905), local authorities were allowed “to exercise the power to protect the public health” (Price & Diaz, 2020) by mandating fines for those who refused to be vaccinated against smallpox. According to the American Constitution Society (ACS), two key traits for public health measures that can be legally enforced by the state are “neutral” and “generally applicable.” Given that wearing masks is less invasive than vaccinations and can be widely adopted, anti-maskers invoking constitutional rights lack validity in their controversial statements. The only legitimate defense against wearing masks is having breathing problems like asthma, and people who are physically unable to wear a mask are already covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

With no access to a cure or vaccine for COVID-19 yet, and evidence from the CDC (2020) stating that “up to 35% of people infected” are asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic, it is more than reasonable for leaders to exercise their duty “to guard and protect” the people under the Jacobson mandate. And frankly, if wearing masks is what it takes to mitigate the risks and ramifications of COVID-19, public health should overrule individual freedom, at least for the time being. The reality is that COVID-19 takes lives. The number of deaths in the U.S. that have been attributed to the virus have remained in the tens of thousands ever since March 24 (Ritchie et al., 2020). On a humanitarian level, these statistics should be alarming to us. In order to protect our loved ones and ourselves, we should be willing to take the highest level of precaution in our everyday lives, by wearing face masks and preventing any further damage from the COVID-19 epidemic.

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DEE WILLIAMS

REBEL FROM THE '70S

Teenage angst and rebellion in the heat of Bedstuy. Step into a timezone where 2017 turns into streets of ‘70s Brooklyn.

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DEE WILLIAMS

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REBEL FROM THE 70s

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DEE WILLIAMS

Model Amber Wardrobe Styling Monet Maxwell Assistant Javier Joseph Gabita Dee Williams is a New York City-based photographer who specializes in fashion photography. As a Jamaican-American, she uses art and storytelling to highlight people and stories from the African diaspora. She is working to change the way Black men and women see themselves in fashion and within day to day life through unique imagery.

THE WATER Writing by Dennis Yang Photography by Josh Lin

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Mass of protestors gather next to the rear of Kowloon West Station, Hong Kong Island is pictured in the background.

REVOLUTION

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“Year in a word: Be water.” The Financial Times ran this headline in reference to Bruce Lee’s philosophy on adapting to changing circumstances. Back in his hometown of Hong Kong, the youth have seared the words of Hong Kong’s most famous son into the collective memory of the city by embracing his philosophy. The ongoing protests in Hong Kong have dominated and affected the lives of all Hong Kongers since 2019, as residents uneasily assess the future of their homeland and their relationship with the elephant in the room, Mainland China.

For a year, Hong Kong has been battered with protests against the increasingly restricted liberties that Hong Kongers have held dearly for generations. Some chose to hark to their past by raising the Union Jack in public alongside the black Bauhinia flag, which symbolized the decay of Hong Kong’s democracy and protection of human rights. Others chose to connect

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DENNIS YANG + JOSH LIN

with past common struggles against authoritarian repression by posting on a Lennon Wall, first conceived in the Prague Spring. “There are no rioters, only tyranny” the banner immediately above the wall read.

Now, this has all changed dramatically with the new National Security law.

Anyone can be arrested anywhere for any reason – as long as Beijing deems this reason to be a threat to its national security. Arrest warrants have already been issued for Hong Kong nationals currently living outside of Hong Kong, and many within the city have been arrested due to this law already.

The year-long protests in the Special Administrative Region (SAR) have been reignited despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Protests have always been an integral part of Hong Kong’s

Barriers erected by police to prevent access to the station from protestors while protestors use umbrellas to deflect potential projectiles.

history, but fundamentally different about the ongoing protests is the intensity, magnitude, and themes of culture clash involved. To understand the multifaceted nature of the protests, we must first delve into some Hong Kong history.

Hong Kong’s distinct identity from Mainland China is a result of European imperialism, industrialization and globalization. Hong Kong’s modern history begins in the Opium Wars of the 19th century. Britain subsequently acquired Hong Kong Island through the first of the “unequal treaties,” the Treaty of Nanking, with further expansions via more unequal treaties.

In the next century, Hong Kong grew to become a cosmopolitan global entrepot and the premier center of finance and international trade in Asia. The city was a perfect example of “East meets West,” a British city that was the “Pearl of the Orient.” Through a combination

of “positive non-interventionist” market policies introduced by the British authorities, strategic geographic location and political stability, especially compared to contemporary China, the “Fragrant Harbor” reaped the rewards of capitalism and globalization.

However, the fruits of Hong Kong’s success would not stay exclusive forever, as China sought to reclaim the city beginning in the 1980s. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping began to negotiate on the future handover of Hong Kong back to Chinese rule. In 1997, after negotiating the return of Hong Kong and the concept of “One Country, Two Systems,” Hong Kong was handed over to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). A Special Administrative Region (SAR) was established to recognize Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy for 50 years after the handover compared to the rest of China.

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Beijing also promised not to alter the political status for these 50 years. Governing the future relationship between Hong Kong and China was the Basic Law, a product of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. It enshrined many of the freedoms enjoyed by Hongkongers under British administration, such as freedom of speech and the promise of universal suffrage to elect Hong Kong’s leaders, which are still nonexistent on the Mainland to this day.

The recent history of protests starts against this historical backdrop.

Over the years, China has increasingly tightened its restrictions around Hong Kong’s autonomy.

The tensions between Hong Kong residents, who increasingly felt threatened by Beijing’s actions against their rights, and the SAR authorities, who often bow to political pressure from Beijing due to its unrepresentative nature, came to a head in 2014 during the Umbrella Revolution.

The occupy movement, also more widely known as the Umbrella Revolution, was started in response to reforms in the Hong Kong Legislature’s electoral procedure. The reforms essentially created mechanisms for the SAR authorities and Beijing to disqualify candidates arbitrarily. The government’s rhetoric on the reform included themes on how candidates must “love the country and love Hong Kong.” This proposed reform resulted in protests and demonstrations in the central business district of Hong Kong that impeded traffic and the movement of peoples for months. The protesters clashed with police who employed heavy-handed tactics to disperse the demonstrations. In the end, the protests did not change the outcome of the proposed legislative reform, and the movement dissipated. However, it sowed the seeds of a broader movement towards democracy that would resurface five years later.

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DENNIS YANG + JOSH LIN

In March 2019, a proposed extradition bill was brought to the Legislative Council to allow Hong Kong residents to be tried in Chinese court in Mainland China. The official explanation that Chinese authorities gave was that the lack of an existing mechanism for extradition between the SAR and the Mainland was a “loophole” in the legal system and should be fixed. However, under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, China’s judicial systems and Hong Kong were to remain separate. This was due to British doubts about the transparency of justice in China, its weak rule of law and its unacceptable record on human rights and freedom of expression. This immediately drew social ire from many sectors of Hong Kong society, particularly from democracy activists who felt that this was an attempt

by China to further erode “One Country, Two Systems” by neutralizing the independence of the judicial system in Hong Kong.

The protests started as sit-ins by a few individuals and other small scale protests in March, April, and May. But the protest ballooned in size in June and grew due to the firm stance that the SAR government had taken under Chief Executive Carrie Lam to press ahead with the proposed bill and her refusal to engage with protestors. On June 9th, following the heels of the 30th anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square Massacre, 500,000 protesters marched in the city’s largest protest to that date.

Decentralized, relentless, and practical, the protesters continued marching their fury, but were also unfortunately matched by the Hong Kong police in their ferocity. On June 12th, the police intervened in the protest for the first time in what was to become a systematic campaign of police brutality against protestors. The police used beanbag rounds, water cannons, and tear gas in a harsh attempt to thwart the protests, but the protests still managed to get Lam to delay the bill’s passage. However, she did not preclude the possibility of the bill being

THE WATER REVOLUTION

A sea of protestors, stretching on for miles, throng the freeway near Jordan Road next to Kowloon West Station.

Student activists lead the chant calling for the resignation of Chief Executive Carrie Lam as tens of thousands of protestors march up to Kowloon West Station. Taken on the evening of July 7th 2019.

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entirely off the table. This indecisiveness further fueled public anger, and gradually the sentiment for political change morphed into the Five demands, namely: complete withdrawal of the bill, independent police inquiry, the resignation of Carrie Lam, release of political prisoners from the protest and universal suffrage for Hong Kong residents for electing the chief executive.

July 1, 2019, marks the anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China from the UK, but it was also a date that will live in Hong Kong’s history. Demonstrators managed to force their way into the Legislative Council Complex, the building that houses Hong Kong’s legislature.

They then proceeded to spray paint and vandalize symbols that they believed represented state oppression against their freedoms, including “People’s Republic of China” and the red bauhinia, both on the emblem of Hong Kong.

Protestors also raised the colonial British Hong Kong flag, hearkening back to a time when freedom of expression was fact rather than opinion.

The Hong Kong police became increasingly dis-

trusted by the people of Hong Kong, especially when they did not intervene to stop protestors from vandalizing the building. The general sentiment was that the police were politically motivated not to intervene. They would be able to claim the supposed moral high ground after the storming of the Legislative Council.

These pictures were taken on July 7, two days before the bill was declared “dead” by Carrie Lam, but once again, she stopped short of outright withdrawing the bill.

“My friends and I used to go to watch movies and play laser tag, but now, of course, we don’t have time to play any more: we face real bullets every weekend.” said Joshua Wong, one of the faces of the Hong Kong protests and broader democracy movement, in an interview with the Financial Times in 2019.

The protests continued with intensity until November. In the meantime, the protests have shifted from the original goal of achieving the

Sticky notes with messages of solidarity being written to be posted on walls, barricades and other public premises.

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DENNIS YANG + JOSH LIN

five demands to a wider democracy movement for Hong Kong. The democracy demanded by the protestors became one that directly attacked the relationship of the CCP to the city; protestors wanted full autonomy and the resignation of Lam, even after the bill was withdrawn entirely on Oct. 23. One of the most infamous confrontations occurred at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where the police besieged student activists and protestors inside the university for two weeks. When the siege was finally over, the police made over 1000 arrests, and protestors were subsequently charged with rioting and subversion. .

The COVID-19 pandemic caused protests to cease, which was welcomed by the Hong Kong authorities. But the pandemic had also caused the financial hub to fall into three consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, creating a recession since the start of the protests.

However, Beijing regarded the pandemic as the perfect storm for them to force through a new national security law on May 21st, 2020.

The national security law was all-encompassing, draconian, and coercive. Under the new law, anyone is forbidden to criticize China or its regime and can be tried with treason or incitement of violence if they do so. For many Hongkongers, the law’s scale and scope would be the final straw that broke the back of “One Country, Two Systems.” Violence in the city resumed three days later with riot police once again using water cannons and spraying pepper spray in the faces of protestors.

Notwithstanding the massive domestic opposition in Hong Kong against the proposed law, the bill passed after a vote in the National People’s Congress on May 28th. There was no participation from anyone in the SAR government, nor were any actors within the SAR consulted about the bill beforehand. Carrie Lam herself did not even know about the full text of the bill before it was passed. Almost immediately, a chilling effect spread across the city. Foreign businesses, mostly Western, were immediately seeking ways to withdraw from the city due to

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fears that the national security law would remove the guarantees of a free market in Hong Kong. Even Demosisto, a political party started

by Joshua Wong dedicated to pro-democracy activism, had to disband in the face of the national security bill.

Once again, Hong Kong stands in the center between East and West, as the former colony approaches an identity crisis. At the heart of the unrest was the difference in values between the Communist Party of China (CCP) and the prevailing sentiment among the people of Hong Kong. The CCP viewed the protests as a threat to their authoritarian regime on the Mainland.

They floated accusations of foreign influence and incitement as the causes of the unrest, while Hong Kong residents were divided into a minority who did not support the protest, and a majority who did. The minority of Hong Kong residents who do not support the protests have a variety of rationales, ranging their connection to the Mainland as newer immigrants to Hong Kong, their jobs that may depend on CCP patronage, or their condemnation of the use of violence by protestors.

One of the most contentious issues during the protests was regarding the use of violence by the protestors. Protestors themselves were further divided into “moderates” and “radicals” depending on whether or not they believed in using violence to achieve their ends, or whether they engaged in it. However, the movement stayed together despite this difference, as they were keen not to repeat the mistakes of 2014, where internal divisions ultimately thwarted the momentum of change. “Moderates” and “radicals” would support each other as a matter of principle even if they did not agree with their means; unity was paramount.

The use of violence by some of the “radicals” polarized viewpoints in the city. Some individuals stopped supporting the protests

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when the protesters engaged in violent actions against the police, such as an incident where a protester bit off the finger of a policeman, or when an allegedly undercover police officer at Hong Kong airport was identified and verbally abused, even after he lost consciousness. Older residents of Hong Kong were also more likely to support the government and the police’s position. In comparison, younger residents tended to be more sympathetic to the protests.

Among the majority of Hongkongers who supported the protest, the protests are seen as a last stand against Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy, which were perceived to be under existential threat from Xi Jingping’s regime.

This group of Hongkongers is also more likely to identify as Hongkongers first or Hongkonger only, as opposed to Chinese. Whether the residents are Hongkongers or Chinese will be a question that will chart the course of the city for the next decade.

However, Hongkongers have long been a mobile and international group of people. Many are already eyeing investment opportunities overseas to protect their portfolios from the predicted economic fallout from Chinese hegemony in the region. Others are already thinking of uprooting their lives in search of liberties overseas, especially after the UK government’s offer to grant 3 million British Overseas national passport holders a pathway to citizenship.

Western governments have also been vocal about their opposition against the new law and consider the new measures as steps taken by Xi Jinping to fully bring Hong Kong into the iron fist of the Chinese Communist Party while disregarding the rule of law and human rights.

The United States in particular, has been proactively aggressive in its approach to the Hong Kong crisis, owing to its ongoing trade disputes with China and diplomatic standoff about China’s culpability in the spread of COVID-19.

THE WATER REVOLUTION

Lennon Wall with a banner that reads “There are no rioters, only tyranny.”

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Activists watch as the Union Jack is waved and the Black Bauhinia flag is raised in place of the usual Hong Kong SAR flag.

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DENNIS YANG + JOSH LIN

It has recently passed several policies that target Hong Kong authorities, including the removal of Hong Kong’s special trade status which has exempted it from the tariffs targeting China, the suspension of the US-Hong Kong extradition treaty, and the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which sanctions SAR and CCP officials who actively suppress human rights and civil liberties in Hong Kong.

Even for those that cannot leave Hong Kong, new methods of civil disobedience have emerged. The Yellow Economy Circle, a classification of like-minded businesses who support the Hong Kong protests, has helped individuals live their lives according to their political loyalties while providing massive business opportunities for the shopkeepers. Individuals who shop at “yellow shops” will boycott “blue shops,” shops that support the Hong Kong Police Force, and vice versa.

“Be water” has not just been a philosophy that protesters have adopted in the face of government overreach; it has become a modus vivendi for many Hongkongers. The city’s residents chose to brave police brutality, unsympathetic authorities, and COVID-19 to fight against an Orwellian regime that consistently ranks near the world’s bottom for civil liberties. “Liberate Hong Kong, liberation of our times,” the nowbanned expression in Hong Kong, isn’t merely about the plight of the city’s 7.4 million inhabitants; it is a testament to their tenacity and the global community’s solidarity with their struggles. The “Pearl of the Orient” has not lost its luster, but rather it continues to shine brightly in the face of adversity.

Dennis Yang is a student at University College London currently pursuing a degree in History and Politics of the Americas.

Josh Lin is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Business Administration.

BLACK GIRL MAGIC

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MUHAMMAD MOE

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MUHAMMAD MOE

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MUHAMMAD MOE

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BLACK GIRL MAGIC

Muhammad Moe is a Nigeria-based portrait photographer who specializes in capturing images of African women.

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THE FIRST MODERN PANDEMIC’S IMPACT ON

SMALL BUSINESS

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A FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT FROM A LOCAL BUSINESS MANAGER Writing by Alice Han Photography by Didi Von Boch

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ALICE HAN + DIDI VON BOCH

In the span of days, I went from being a full-time student at USC to working a 60-hour week in Dallas on top of a full load of classes, which had gone online.

I, like most students, returned home for spring break this March thinking I would be back on campus the following week, innocuously making plans with friends along the lines of “when we get back—”. However, universities such as Harvard and MIT were quick to announce the closure of their campuses and the movement to online classes for the remainder of the semester. USC followed suit shortly after, as on March 16th, the institution announced classroom instruction would remain remote. There was disappointment, of course, born out of frustration that my “once-in-a-lifetime” freshman year experience had been cut short, a sentiment shared by most of my peers.

The larger (and more imminent) problem at hand was that I came home to a completely different pace of life. I was not waking up begrudgingly to attend my 9 AM classes, but rather waking up in the dead of night, driving to get to work by 3 AM. Instead of starting my day by grabbing a cup of coffee at EVK before rushing to class, I was starting my day by kneading dough and icing donuts. I was not coming back to my dorm to take a quick nap after my afternoon class, but was sweating, running around serving 150 to 200 customers a day. It was a different hamster wheel that I had been reluctantly pushed into –– a situation that I did not foresee.

My family and I own a small doughnut business in Dallas Fort-Worth.

Although dearly and consistently loved by a large number of locals, we suffered a huge dip in revenue during the onset of the pandemic, causing massive panic within the household. Would I have to take a leave of absence if I couldn’t support the tuition anymore? Move to a smaller residence than I already was in? The possibilities were endless. I began working to minimize extenuating costs, pushing a heavy burden of responsibility onto myself as I was also struggling to finish my classes.

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It is not an unknown fact that the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a major economic shock, with results particularly devastating in local businesses due to their economic fragility. They lack easy access to loans and cannot easily move their businesses online — most lack the capacity, scale, and technical assistance needed to survive a pandemic.

A survey conducted by PNAS showed that COVID-19 had already caused significant dislocation among small businesses a couple weeks after the pandemic’s onset and prior to the availability of government aid through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. In their sample, 43 percent of businesses had temporarily closed, with nearly all of these closures due to COVID-19 running rampant in the States. Reductions in demand and employee health concerns seemed to be the main reason for such closures, rather than disruptions

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IMPACT ON A SMALL BUSINESS

in the supply chain. Additionally, only 47 percent of small businesses expected to be open by December, compared to the 72 percent if the pandemic were to be more short-term.

This is further supported by government data organized by Robert Fairlie of the University of California, Santa Cruz: the number of active small business owners plummeted by 3.3 million (22 percent) over the crucial two month window from February to April 2020. The drop in business owners was the largest on record, and losses were felt across nearly all industries and even for incorporated businesses.

It was also found that small businesses owned by minority groups were hit hard. Immigrant business owners experienced substantial losses of 36 percent. Black businesses reported a 41 percent drop, Latinx in 32 percent, and Asian 26 percent, while only 17 percent of white small business owners said the same.

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Despite the tragic economic downturn, our family business seemed to be an anomaly in the statistics. After the initial dip, revenue suddenly spiked for the months of May through July, months which are known to be slower in the doughnut business. Compared to previous years’ data, the revenues for the summer months were nearly double this year than the last.

We tried to make sense of this unprecedented activity. For one, we had taken a large-scale personal liability to stay open during the pandemic.

Although proper health measures and social distancing guidelines were taken, it would not be an exaggeration to say that we had and continue to risk our lives to continue as interactions with others are essential.

While other similar local doughnut stores closed briefly, we had temporarily increased our consumer base by taking this gamble of contracting COVID-19. Second, as more and more people are being coerced into staying home instead of taking their usual summer vacation due to the rapidly growing number of cases, they made use of our curbside pickup, Grubhub, and other convenient facilities.

However, it goes without saying that we struck while the iron was hot.

Revenue is slowly climbing back off.

As a 19-year-old sophomore in college, it’s hard to wrap your head around the fact that your future is held in the hands of the pandemic’s effect on local businesses. If it had impacted us negatively, a leave of absence would be no question –– for how long, I would not know.

Needless to say, as a small business manager, it is one thing to live in uncertainty. The economic fragility of small businesses — something I became too aware of during this pandemic — is quite daunting. As we hold onto a thin string of survival directly dependent on local consumerism and leave the rest up to fateful chance, we hope for better days.

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ALICE HAN + DIDI VON BOCH

Alice Han is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Business Administration.

She also serves as the Director of Copy for Haute Magazine.

Didi Von Boch is a San Francisco-based fine art photographer who specializes in maternity, newborn and family photography. Through her work, Didi aims to build a connection with her subjects and capture the essence of their personality, lives and relationship in a picture.

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SEDIMENT Writing by Ariann Barker Photography by Anu Aketi

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light years tall in fashioned heels touches stars for morphine yields. soles on soil and self in trees, then i’ll know what river sees brook breaks east without farewell babbles heaven, bubbles hell plant my toes in silt to spell molten soul and porcelain shell cracked out china, bull then comes beckoned in by streams undone chimney snort and horned head hung cataclysmic damaged fun sullied feet now pricked with glass shards of ego loose and fast pick them up and miles i cast present selves into my past

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Growing into myself, attempting to curate the concept of ‘me’ is a perpetual cathartic experience that wields the dual-edged rapier of fun and chaos. One of the first beasts to slay in the conquest of the self is reflection, and at nineteen the image that materializes in every surface is one that teases me through schoolyard chants and billowing tongues. Looking in the mirror and scrutinizing every crease in my countenance, every shade of my skin, every phase of my process, is not conducive to my metamorphosis— it is obstructive, and it impedes me from indulging in the often neglected joys of becoming.

This poem delves into the volatility of my self-esteem as sourced from my reflection, how the waters of change invite the id of my perception into the harmony between my fluid core and its ostensibly steel exoskeleton. Everything renders itself as permanent to me at this age, and I have to make a conscious effort to shatter the illusion of inertia to propel myself into brighter prospects of maturity and appreciation of all that I am and all that I will be.

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ARIANN BARKER + ANU AKETI

Model Akua Barbara Creative Direction Ndidi Osian Crystal-chan Makeup Kim Nebedum Model Management Blessing M Ariann Barker is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Screenwriting.

Anu Aketi is a New Jersey-based photographer who specializes in wedding photography. Anu’s wedding photography team is acclaimed for developing a unique style of wedding photography that is deeply rooted in wedding photojournalism while influenced by fine-art and fashion photography.

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HOLDING FASHION BRANDS

ACCOUNTABLE

“Fashion is the armor to survive everyday life.�

– Bill Cunningham

Depending on who you ask, fashion is a superficial and fluffy aspect of society. Many, including myself, would disagree. Fashion has always served as a cultural staple around the globe, and because it is so naturally woven into our identities, the gatekeepers of the trends we adopt and the stores we buy from should have a cohesive understanding of culture and the other goings-on of the world. While none of us know what kind of impact 2020 will have on the future, there seems to be a general understanding that nothing will ever be the same after this year.

We are already seeing the beginnings of these changes in various corners of our lives. External influences that once seemed intangible, such as social norms, ideas of beauty, reasonings for acceptance and exclusiveness, are slowly being shaped into more understandable and ethical directions. Specifically, consumers are holding fashion brands accountable for their impact on the world. Sustainability, fair treatment of employees and factory workers and customer engagement are all being factored into whether someone wants to associate with a brand or not.

Writing by Frankie Baratta Photography by Jennifer Hoffner

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In the wake of COVID-19’s disproportional effect on people of color, the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests across America, consumers have been looking to their favorite brands to see how they’ve been responding. It seems that more people expect accountability and words encouraging social progress from many of these multi-million dollar industries. Following celebrities and popular brand owners used to be fun and lighthearted; now we question if they truly understand the consequences of the “real world” while streaming from their hedonistic homes and hashtagging activist movements. We find that many powerful corporations are either silent or complicit during times of need, or are often the culprits of the very institutions we fight against.

When studying the reasoning behind this, it’s important to think about who the people behind these corporations are.

When a brand is plagued by white feminism and racial capitalism, they often have nothing to offer when their consumers and supporters need them most. How can a brand run by people of privilege ever truly connect with their consumers, especially the ones who may be facing the wrath of an unpredictable and changing world?

Essentially, white feminism, which plays directly into racial capitalism, fails to include women of different races, genders, sexualities, religions, and other identity-defining factors. It can be traced back to the roots of the Women’s Suffrage movement in America, when Black women were excluded from a movement which held racist and white-supremacist beliefs. Offenders of white feminism often fail to recognize or give validity to their white privilege, focusing on issues that affect only themselves.

This type of feminism typically cradles white, straight, cisgender women and ignores the nuances and struggles of intersectional identities; it assumes the misogynistic experience that white women face is a monolithic experience,

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valuing the voices of only white women. This type of problematic oblivion has layered itself both subconsciously and purposefully throughout major American industries, including the fashion and marketing industries.

Many fashion brands are guilty of tokenism and exclusivity, not only through their choice of models, but also through the business side of their brand. Shelby Hyde, a journalist with The Zoe Report, gives a great definition of tokenism in an article where she shines the light on her experience in the fashion industry. Hyde says: “As a Black woman who attended predominantly white institutions in the Midwest my entire life, I’d always been familiar with the idea of tokenism — that you’re filling a minority quota, or only being used as a symbol of diversity, rather than for the expansive point of view or unique thoughts you have to offer... I learned that no matter how much designer clothing I wore or how hard I worked, my standing among my white counterparts was absolutely conditional.

The catch being: I can be in the room, but only if I don’t voice my opinions or concerns.”

Diversity in the workplace brings different opinions, backgrounds and experiences, and with these come different perspectives and ideas that have the potential to elevate a brand. When there is no diversity in, say, a marketing team, we see slip-ups in the form of tone deaf campaigns with racist undertones. We see a lack of representation in models and aesthetics, we see appropriation and wrongdoings committed because a group of similar people lack a larger perspective. Tokenism is problematic through this matter because, as Janella Okwodu writes in Vogue, “No individual can encapsulate the richness of the Black experience – or that of any minority group.”

With the recent conversations revolving around Black Lives Matter, many are beginning to hold

FRANKIE BARATTA + JENNIFER HOFFNER

brands accountable, whether this be through former employees or public discourse. Reformation, a self-claimed sustainable business, is one such corporate entity that exudes white feminism not only through its decisions of who to represent on their social media, but also from inside its own corporation. A former employee of the popular brand recently spoke about the discrimination and out-of-touch nature of the company. Elle Santiago, a Black woman who used to work as an “assistant manager to no manager” at Reformation, described on Instagram her “traumatizing experience” with the brand and being overlooked in terms of hiring, despite positive reviews of her performance with the team. In her post regarding her hardships with Reformation, she says that the CEO and founder of the brand was not inclusive.

She also mentions that because the exclusivity

started at the top, it trickled down through all aspects of the company: “[Yael’s] mentality is why the leadership table at Ref has always looked like it has and has always treated Black and non-Black POC the way it has… not just POC were treated with disgust, but women not so trendy or not so skinny.

The first years of Ref there were no Black models, no plus size models, and barely models who even required a bra.”

Santiago mentions several other offenses in her post, like the poor working conditions in several stores. She said that Black and non-Black POC were made to suffer through the lack of air conditioning in the back stock while white associates got air conditioning at the front of the store. A few days after Santiago posted her experience

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on Instagram, Yael Alfalo apologized and eventually resigned from her position at Reformation.

Santiago’s story shows the importance of holding brands accountable for their problematic and harmful habits. These trendy institutions have the power to manipulate an entire culture, but personal responsibility is often unbeknownst to them until forced into their own hands. Reformation is not the only company that has faced backlash, and it seems the thread that holds fashion industry together is slowly being unwoven by a generation that is more passionate about seeing social justice in their everyday lives than the posh and exclusive ways of the industry that we have always known.

When inclusivity is not valued by a fashion company, it is often made obvious through their casting decisions. Perhaps one of the best examples of these old fashion values is the Victoria’s Secret fashion show. It was once one of the largest catwalks of the year. To walk for the famous lingerie brand was arguably a symbol of success; models were thrilled to be a part of the brand and the production. To be a VS model was to be thin and tall, and very few models of color were considered by the brand.

The qualifications for beauty were decided according to Eurocentric beauty standards, and evaluated beauty as if it were bound to some kind of terms and conditions.

Despite their amazing following and sheer amount of customers, the brand and show eventually began to dwindle in size. According to Vox, Victoria’s Secret was valued at 13.1 billion dollars in 2019, a 31.7 percent drop since 2013. But, how could America’s leading lingerie brand lose this kind of support? As society and

its ideas of beauty and womanhood progressed, audiences began to grow tired of how VS only represented a demographic of women that made up a small population of the real world.

Public discourse started to revolve around embracing your natural body, normalizing “imperfections” and pointing out the harmful consequences of a one-dimensional definition of beauty. Consumers grew to appreciate brands that did not photoshop and instead included stretch marks, scars, blemishes, etc. Advertising for women’s brands began to focus more on being relatable to customers instead of pleasing to a male audience. Furthermore, the ethics and morals of who was walking and who was hiring began to matter. Videos of the VS models getting ready to music and singing along to the N word leaked, causing many members of the public to not want to give them an audience.

In 2018, marketing chief of Victoria’s Secret, Ed Rezak, said in an interview that trans models had no place in their fashion show and that TV runways had no place for plus size models. In 2019, the show was canceled. L Brands, the company owning Victoria’s Secret, said the show was canceled in an act to “evolve the marketing of the brand”, and the show did not increase the sales of products. However, Variety magazine nods to other possible reasons, one being that the decline in viewership dropped from 9.7 million in 2013 to 3.3 million in 2016.

When VS canceled their show, Rihanna pioneered hers. The owner of Savage x Fenty, a lingerie line started by the musical and cultural sensation, single-handedly embarrassed Victoria’s Secret with her first ever fashion show.

Rihanna featured plus size models, trans models, and models with disabilities. Her show was

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not just inclusive and diverse, but celebrated how different and beautiful humanity, and womanhood, is. Rihanna’s fashion show featured famous models such as the Hadid sisters (Bella Hadid, who used to walk with Victoria’s Secret, said in an interview with Business Insider that she never felt powerful modeling in her underwear until she worked with Savage x Fenty) as well as artists like Normani, A$AP Rocky, Migos, and more.

As American ideals have progressed within the past decade, it’s interesting to study how brands have responded. Conversations around accepting more bodies have without a doubt affected the fashion industry in the ways they choose their models- essentially, who represents the brand and therefore, how the brand represents itself. However, brands can often

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delude themselves into thinking they are a part of the diversity, equity, and inclusion conversation by hiring more models of color, while powerful positions are kept white. This is known as racial capitalism. As Aja Barber writes in an Instagram post: “Racial capitalism is the way brands have realized that non whiteness has a monetary value. It implicates diversity but what’s behind it is simply money and appearance. It’s a performative allyship because it’s all about the appearance and less about the substance and action. Hello brands and black squares. It looks to diverse identities as a commodity which can be bought or sold.⁣⁣” Barber, who cites Nancy Leong’s studies of racial capitalism, explains that this can cause

FRANKIE BARATTA + JENNIFER HOFFNER

virtue signaling and defensiveness against racism. These brands feel they can defend themselves because they hashtagged Black Lives Matter, despite the fact that they expressed their support years after the movement began. Barber says these actions can be seen as brands exempting themselves from racism; because they have one Black model, Black people will buy from them. This is hardly groundbreaking; it’s disappointing and predictable. In “The Remix: Hip Hop x Fashion,” a documentary on Netflix that delves into the history of how Black culture influences much of our fashion trends today, Bevy Smith and Vanessa Kingori both touch on this. Smith, the Fashion and Beauty advertising director for VIBE magazine, said “There’s so much more of a rainbow of Black models now. But, I don’t know that we’re profiting off of the consumption- and I don’t know that we’re profiting off the creation, and that’s something that disturbs me.”

The use of Black and non-Black POC in fashion shows or advertisements is just another way of tokenizing and using Black people and their culture for profit. Kingori, the publishing director of British Vogue said, “Diversity is not about showing more Black people, it’s about diversity of perspective. The next frontier in representation is about who is making the decision.” Probably the most recent example of racial capitalism is the Jacquemus Spring 2021 show that happened in July. While the designer presented beautiful clothes in a beautiful field with beautiful Black and non-Black models of color, their behind the scenes team remained entirely white.

When diversity is not valued, is not a staple of company culture- its absence eventually becomes obvious. While protests broke throughout America over the murder of George Floyd, Americans seemed to categorize themselves amongst two different groups: those who mourn and mourned the genocide of Black Americans

by police, and people who mourned the property damage by outraged members of society.

Owner of DollsKill Shoddy Lynn faced major backlash after her insensitive words towards the Black Lives Matter movement.

Historically, DollsKill has been problematic and racist through their clothing and means of business. In the past, this brand has sold clothes with prints reading “goth is white” and “dead girls can’t say no”. They have also been caught frequently stealing designs from smaller businesses, and have been called out for being racist, transphobic, and fatphobic. During protests, Lynn posted a picture of a police force lined shoulder to shoulder and armed in front of a DollsKill store and hashtagged BLM with a caption reading “direct action in its glory”.

Elijah Daniel, an internet personality, posted this screenshot to his 780,000 twitter followers urging people to stop shopping at the store.

After Lynn’s post, brands sold on the DollsKill website such as Broken Promises terminated their partnership with the company. DollsKill was transparent with what they valued, and they also showed how disproportionately less their wealthy brand owner was affected by social outcry compared to the larger majority of Americans. Twitter users started sharing different brands that offered a similar style to DollsKill in an attempt to direct consumers away from the brand. With the response that the brand received to a tone deaf post, we see a trend of consumers who hold brands accountable for their harmful actions. There is no room for second chances when lives are taken in vain and major cultural contributors (such as the fashion industry) choose to ignore such issues.

It’s assumable that people want to buy from brands that agree with their own set of ethics and morals. In 2020, it seems that much of the public is reevaluating what matters to them, and what they think should matter to the rest of the country. In Vogue’s most recent

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August issue, writer Janelle Okwodu discusses how fashion can support the Black community. Okwodu writes, “When a protester scratches out the name ‘Marc Jacobs’ and replaces it with ‘Sandra Bland’ or ‘George Floyd’ it’s commentary about what we’ve chosen to value.” Brands may post black squares on Instagram, but things like this are “empty gestures” when a brand’s team does not reflect the beliefs they post on social media. Okwodu says, “After public outcry, several labels were quick to post messages in support of Black Lives Matter, yet failed to initiate change within their companies.” This might look like a brand posting a black square but having an overwhelming majority of white team members and little to no representation. Brands have major platforms, so they have the power to spread information, donations, and petitions. If a brand is performative on social media but does the bare minimum in terms of trying to make any kind of social progression, it calls to question whether they value or even understand the experiences they are claiming to support. “Any company that values the $1.3 trillion force that is annual Black buying power needs to also value the safety of Black citizens,” writes Okwodu.

It seems that moving forward, big brands, and especially brands that are a part of the fashion industry, must value all people, all perspectives, and be accepting and calculating of how the nuance of culture and human experience impacts their business. Fashion and its meaning is seen in every culture; it’s part of our identity. Shouldn’t it then reflect the times we are going through? Shouldn’t there be acknowledgements from fashion brands about major cultural shifts and social issues? Perhaps this is the future of what the fashion industry will mean to us, as we leave behind an era that represents glamour and privilege and move towards an era that reflects authenticity and compassion.

Frankie Baratta is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Journalism.

Jennifer Hoffner is the founder of Pucker and Pout, a health and beauty brand based in Los Angeles.

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COUNTERPARTS III Photography by A DAY LIVING

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Models Azza Moore Kayla Moore Production Tyrell Gittens Makeup Melissa Drouillard Hair Styling Helena Koudou Photography, Creative Direction and Wardrobe Styling Aday A DAY LIVING is a New York-based creative company that focuses on producing visuals with a high level of cultural depth and value.

Strategizing creative solutions for brands, utilizing a content-driven approach backed by research, experiments and experience.

COUNTERPARTS III

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CAMP FASHION’S ORIGINS IN BLACK QUEER SPACES

NOTES ON APPROPRIATION

CAMP

Legendary Afrika Juicy Milan at the Old Navy Ball.

Writing by Allison Walsh Photography by Anja Matthes 104

Camp fashion- more than just a passing fad or a party theme. Camp defines the identity of the marginalized, the individuals sent to the fringes of society. Camp is over-the-top for the sake of being over-the-top, loud, and as attention-grabbing as possible. The purpose of camp is to give a voice to the voiceless. To push back against oppressors who try to put them in a box and to say, “No – this is who I am.” Camp is identity, a form of expression which dates back decades, and which has become pertinent once again in the American zeitgeist.

The most popular, and recent, iteration of camp in pop culture is clearly the Met Gala theme of 2019. The Met Gala has been a staple in the fashion community since its inception in 1948, and year after year has been an outlet for high society and the celebrity elite to flaunt their styles. However, while the fashion on display during the 2019 Met Gala fulfilled some of the requirements of camp, it missed a key few.

Not only did it ignore the quintessentially Black and queer soul of the movement, it failed to capture the heart of the style. Dressing “camp” is about mocking pop culture, not engaging in it. It is satire to the point of style. Camp embodies the idea of mixing high art with the mundane.

When celebrities attempted to recreate and reproduce the camp style, it became once again an exclusionary act against the very people for whom camp was meant to be a refuge. Those people in question are artists and pioneers of camp- roots going back decades.

Camp is a way of seeing the world theatrically and through an aesthetic lens. This definition comes primarily from Susan Sontag’s 58 points, outlined in her writing “Notes on ‘Camp’” in 1964. It was her essay which inspired the very theme of the 2019 Met Gala, hence the name of the theme becoming “Camp: Notes on Fashion.” However, her writing, while becoming a baseline establishment of the boundaries of camp, ignores the Black and queer history of camp which defines its very existence. Although she herself was bisexual, her definition of camp was limited in its relation to queer identities. It is through the writings of Moe Meyer that its queerness is rediscovered and better outlined; however, the Black origins of camp, as well as its significance as a political tool, is omitted from this popular writing as well. Camp seeks to rage against the establishment of beauty standards set to favor white facial and body features, and to exaggerate and subvert gender stereotypes.

Camp pulls back the curtain of gender and of class, seeking to disrupt

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A contestant dons an intricate, handmade gown designed by Legendary Lilman Oldnavy Lanvin.

Icon Twiggy Pucci Garçons wearing Tiffany The Artist at the Legendary House of Miyake Mugler Ball.

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the very establishments it mocks through ostentatious displays of fashion or art. As Sontag states, it is theatrical; however, it is essential to recognize its usage of absurdity as a metaphor for the absurdity of society’s norms. Given the establishment of camp fashion having roots in Black and queer culture and communities, the implications and applications of it as a broader fashion style are complicated.

The true development of camp as a fashion movement comes from Black drag queens, and the movement of drag in general, particularly as performed by Black trans women. By breaking gender norms, especially in a widely public forum, icons such as Pepper LaBeija, Benny Ninja and Sir Lady Java have furthered the camp movement, showing what it is truly about: dismantling the system which seeks to destroy anyone considered “other” – meaning anyone who isn’t a wealthy, white, heterosexual and cisgender man. But even before drag races became popularized on television and in pop culture, they began as a piece of a greater cultural movement which redefined Black culture and brought a new wave of creativity and expression: The Harlem Renaissance.

NOTES ON APPROPRIATION

According to SuperSelected, a magazine written by and for Black women to help increase their representation in fashion, it was at these Harlem Renaissance drag balls where Gladys Bentley, a Black queer woman, would outwardly flirt with women in the audience. She also headlined clubs in Harlem in the 1920s, backed by a chorus of drag queens. Her artistry and popularity paved the way for the drag balls of the ‘60s, all the way to the drag races of today. She faced difficulties expressing her sexuality even within her own community in Harlem, yet she continued to cultivate spaces and performances that she knew would speak to other queer individuals. Many other Black queer women helped to create the basis of camp, and paved the way for countless artists for years to come. Without her and her contemporaries pushing the boundaries of what is possible and what is “acceptable” in society, camp, and the world itself, would not look the same today.

The Harlem Renaissance marked a significant turning point in the celebration of Black artists, and began the tradition of drag balls. Ballroom culture is incredibly significant in Black queer history. In a New York Times

Ballroom performers at “Year of the Legend,” the 25th anniversary of the Latex Ball.

article written by Jewels Dodson, ballroom culture is cited as beginning in New York City, as a form of protest against balls thrown by the white elite, as well as against laws prohibiting citizens from wearing clothes designed for the opposite sex. These balls became a staple in the Black, Latinx, and LGBT+ communities, and were most prominent from the 1960s to the 1990s, with a legacy lasting even until today. During this time, “houses” were created which allowed members of marginalized communities to come together and create a home outside of the one that they were raised in, one in which they could be unconditionally supported. It was in one of these houses that the iconic Pepper LaBeija rose to fame as a drag queen. According to Douglas Martin’s New York Times article, she was the mother of her house for 20 years, and won many drag contests. Her style was nothing short of iconic, and her role in the 1990 documentary “Paris is Burning” shed light on the issues facing the queer community at the time. Her efforts to help the community, as well as her contributions to fashion overall, do not deserve to be erased in favor of a white-washed theme for celebrities nearly three decades later.

Drag shows and the creativity of the queer community are not, however, limited to New York City. Sir Lady Java is a Black trans woman and activist whose performances in Los Angeles in the 1960s through the 1970s has permanently secured her position in queer history as a trailblazer. Often times, transgender women are left out of the conversation surrounding drag, with much of the history centering on cisgender men.

It is pivotal that the trans community is included in a discussion about the most influential advocates in the queer community, as Black trans women are the unsung heroes of drag. Sir Lady Java performed for years in clubs around LA, and advocated for her ability, and the ability of her peers, to perform. Her fight to, according to the ACLU’s records, overturn Rule No. 9 in Los Angeles, a rule prohibiting the impersonation of the opposite sex, led to the eventual discarding of the ban. While her particular case did not bring about an end to the rule, it was part of a grander movement of cases seeking to overturn it, and her willingness to take a stand against rules such as this puts her at the forefront of activism both for the trans community, and for the drag scene. The entire point of drag is to prove that, as transgender drag queen Monica Beverly Hillz puts it, “Our bodies do not equate our identities”. Camp’s development through the years would not be possible without the artistry and activism of Black transgender women in the drag community.

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Legendary Mother Eyricka Lanvin at the Latex Ball.

Icon Trish Bangy Kunt Juicy performs at the PlayHouse Ball.

Legendary Jorge Old Navy, wearing his own design, is joined by the Icoinic founder Neko Old Navy at the Old Navy Ball.

Jorge Old Navy Milan and Neko Old Navy at the Old Navy Ball.

NOTES ON APPROPRIATION

The drag balls of the 20th century have helped to cement drag itself as an art form. In the 21st century, the drag race has become a staple of modern television. Through programs like RuPaul’s Drag Race, drag has been going mainstream- and with it, its message of individuality. In today’s world, drag, as well as camp, has become a medium for the voiceless. Arwa Haider’s BBC article quotes Adrian Turrell-Watts, the producer for Liverpool’s Fittings Multimedia Arts Collective, who hosts The Unlimited House of Krip, as saying that “Disabled culture definitely forms a marginalised part of society; ballroom culture was where you could be what you weren’t allowed to be”. As Turrell-Watts puts it, drag and ball culture has become a way for many different marginalized communities to express themselves. Camp is a tool for advocacy and progress, and should be respected as such.

Apart from mainstream media, the ballroom scene is continuing to flourish, with new communities cropping up to foster the next generation of queer kids of color. According to an article in The Atlantic by Anja Matthes and Sony Salzman, the current ballroom scene, known as the kiki community, is ushering in a new era for ballroom culture. This community, following a similar house structure to its predecessors, provides a much-needed refuge for young Black and Latinx queer individuals, many of whom were not raised under supportive circumstances due to their sexuality, gender identity, or both. The kiki scene allows not only a safe place for its many members to grow in a supportive environment, but also for them to be free to express themselves. In the kiki community, creativity flourishes at modern-day balls, creativity similar to- and a direct descendant of the origins of- camp itself. For the creators of the Met Gala to blatantly ignore a community set in the very same city in favor of a watered-down party theme was most certainly an error.

Camp is a response to the frustration that comes with one’s identity being so closely policed- both literally and figuratively. No conversation surrounding Black queer accomplishments of the 20th century is complete without discussing, no matter how tangentially related, the Stonewall Riots of 1969. The Stonewall Inn was a popular gay bar in the late 1960s. After years of over-policing and experiencing violence at the hands of the police, the patrons of Stonewall fought back against a violent raid initiated by the NYPD. The riots that make Stonewall so famous, riots that would go on to kick off a wave of demonstrations that

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Twiggy Pucci Garcon and Jahlove at the Rainbow Fashion Show.

would propel the gay liberation movement forward for years to come, began due to police brutality. They stemmed from a history of gay bars being shut down, due to laws curtailing and prohibiting the gathering of any and all queer patrons. The heavy history of police brutality, and its relationship with Black and queer communities, is just one example of the strife that Black and queer citizens have had to fight and defend their communities from for centuries. And all through that struggle, the artistry of the communities has continued to flourish. New styles were created and pioneered, which is where camp comes from. Camp is born out of struggle and fear, and exists as a means of protest, as a means to express that it should not be audacious simply for Black queer creators, innovators, and citizens to exist. The importance of bringing up these events, this history of hatred, is to make it clear that camp may be fun, and it may be ostentatious, but for its history to be erased and appropriated is the highest insult of the Met Gala. It was absolutely impossible for the majority of the attendees to comprehend camp, let alone achieve it in any significant way.

Returning to the idea of the theme of “Camp: Notes on Fashion” for the Met Gala, it is clear that this appropriation of Black queer culture can be viewed as a case study on how Black movements, particularly in fashion, are often appropriated and white-washed, especially through the usage of white celebrities profiting off of stolen styles from Black culture. The attendees of the Met Gala were unable to pay tribute to any of the fore-fathers of camp, with very limited exceptions. Lena Waithe, for example, paid homage to the creators of camp, styled with a blazer with the words “Black Drag Queens Inventend Camp” emblazoned on the back. However, on the other hand, the majority of the attendees were offenders, who took the theme as a pass to wear something simple and glitzy. The greatest offender of this would be Kim Kardashian.

Her skin-tight look accentuated her figure, but rather than take any kind of risk, it simply played into the same looks that she typically wears, showing a clear lack of respect for not only the history of the theme, but the entirety of camp itself. The overarching issue of the Met Gala using camp as a theme is that the kind of people who attend the Met Gala are the kind of people that camp is meant to rail against. Tickets to the Met Gala cost roughly $35,000, according to Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times. Outfits are almost always styled by top designers, with price tags from $5,000 to $35,000. While it is technically a charity event

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Legendary Ade at the Latex Ball.

Legendary founding Mother Barbara Mattel at the PlayHouse Ball.

Icon Jonovia Chase performs at the Legends Ball at the B.B. King Club in New York City.

Icon MeMe Milaga (designer), Smerk, Aliquan and Legendary ChiChi Mizrahi at the Star Wars Ball.

NOTES ON APPROPRIATION

for the museum, the Met Gala’s exclusivity (it had a guest list of only 550 celebrities last year, with even Khloe Kardashian being excluded), as well as its elitism, leads to the simple fact that camp is not meant for many of the attendees. Camp is, of course, meant to be appreciated, and has earned praise many times over, but that praise has come in all the wrong forms. When discussing appreciation versus appropriation, the Met Gala theme clearly belonged to the latter.

Camp is a way to push back against boundaries set by society, and to express one’s identity loudly and proudly. Camp is part of a greater movement, a movement which demands to be seen and to be recognized, and most of all, a movement which neither seeks nor needs permission to exist. Camp is something understood by those who know what it is like to be discriminated against, who have to fight to survive not just in their lives, but whose forebears have left a legacy of that fight.

If that struggle is not recognized, if consumers and white audiences just want the style without the history and without the true creators, then they do not deserve either. Camp is more than just fashion.

Allison Walsh is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Business Administration.

Anja Matthes is a New York-based documentary photographer and videographer. Over the past eight years, her personal work has focused on LGBTQ+ youth of color. Anja’s collaborations with the KIKI scene has been featured among others in the Atlantic, W Magazine and the New Yorker, and has won her the Pride Photo Award 2019 as well as the HMI Appreciation Award for her work with the KIKI youth. With the support of IWMF and Open Source Gallery, she produced the KIKI Yearbook, which is included in Schonburg Center for Research in the Black Culture archive.

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Photography by Sông-An Sho Stewart

ARTIST NAME

RISEN

TITLE OF ARTICLE

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Models Evital Kohan Valerie Taranto Marissa Chisolm

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“I am incredibly grateful to be surrounded by so many beautiful, inspiring women with such diverse backgrounds and perspectives, nonetheless to be able to live with them. I really believe that this shoot speaks for itself: three powerful women with strong beliefs and the empathy and kindness enough to be constantly understanding and learning from one another’s differing experiences. Evital, Val and Marissa--they are the statement, encompassed by their pain from labels that have been placed upon them as well as their strengths and growth that came with breaking free in order to define themselves for themselves. I simply attempted to capture how I see them every day.�

Sho Stewart

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SĂ´ng-An (Sho) Stewart is an Oakland-born, LA-based photographer who specializes in street photography and art-portraiture. She enjoys capturing people at their most natural and raw moments of living, or creating a scene so abstract that you uncover something unexpected. Sho studies Linguistics and Music Industry at the University of Southern California.

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RALEN GOFORTH I Matter: The Black Man’s Truth in 2020

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ASHARA WILSON

What does it mean to be a Black man? What does it mean to be a Black man in the middle of a civil rights movement in 2020?

These two questions played in my mind as I watched the aftermath of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder, a Black man who was shot down while going for a run. Millions of retweets, shares and comments flooded social media in an attempt to invoke change. Something was different about this white on Black killing. I could feel the energy from behind my phone screen; people were actively fighting for justice. Arbery’s name was more than a hashtag. I thought that this would be the defining moment for Black rights in the US. I was wrong. A few weeks later, George Floyd was murdered on the side of the road at the hands of a white police officer.

Despite the rise of the infectious coronavirus, millions poured into the streets from New York City to Tokyo to protest and make their outrage known. A deadly pandemic could not stop the fight against racial inequality. It was clear to me that George Floyd was the defining moment for Black rights.

As a Black woman, I am no stranger to adversity on the basis of my skin color. But today my focus centers around Black men, as I recognize that their manhood causes them to receive a different kind of hatred than me.

The burden of the typical Black man in America is heavy. Disadvantaged since birth, they fight against systemic racism in every life avenue. Met with everything from housing discrimination to workplace microagressions and

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environmental racism, their path to achieve the American dream is not an easy one. Often depicted as dangerous thugs in film, television, and the news media, Black men are more likely to be seen as aggressive and unintelligent than non-Blacks. The amount of stories I have heard from my brother and Black friends about white women clutching their purses with fear and crossing to the other side of the road when they spot them only further emphasizes my point.

All of this leaves me wondering how it feels to be a part of the most undervalued and misrepresented group today. To gain some more perspective on modern Black manhood, I spoke with Ralen Goforth, a linebacker on the University of Southern California’s varsity football team.

Entering our zoom call promptly at six p.m, Goforth greets me with a nonchalant ‘What’s up.’ He knows what we are here to talk about, and I can see that he has prepared himself to share his truth. We begin by talking about his childhood.

“I grew up on the eastside of Long Beach, California. Just like any neighborhood, it was a lot of poverty, a lot of gangs. Police brutality is pretty much a normal thing.” In a predominantly Black and brown neighborhood, he explains that he was exposed to police and community violence at an early age.

Despite revealing this, Goforth is hesitant to delve into his history with racism. After some contemplation he shares that when he was

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thirteen, he and his friends were profiled and harassed by two white police officers. “They basically searched us for no damn reason and we were just three kids with skateboards. They just left but at the same time you could really see in their eyes they were really hoping to find something on us.”

a student at the same football-focused university, I was eager to know what it felt like to be a star on campus. The football team receives free food, has access to an exclusive dining hall, gets free spirit wear before the rest of the school, rides in a private jet to far away games, and has a housing stipend.

Searched in front of the entire park, they were subjected to public embarrassment. Though Goforth and his friends were only kids at the time, they learned what most Black men are all too aware of, that it only takes having dark skin to be perceived as a threat.

Goforth repeats that he is grateful for this opportunity for what I am sure is the millionth time; it is clear he gets asked about the perks of being a football player at ‘SC often. For all of the added benefits being a football player on campus brings, Goforth explains that he has endured countless negative experiences due to his race.

To shield him and his older brothers from situations exactly like this, three out of the four Goforth children were put into football to keep them busy after school. When asked about what the sport has done for him, Goforth is quick to give it praise. “It’s pretty much helped me psychologically take my mind off things, everything that was going around in my environment growing up. I would say it’s impacted my life by teaching me the values and characteristics I’m going to need in life: hard work, diligence, ‘being early is being on time, being on time is running late,’ stuff like that. And really just if you want something, go and get it by any means necessary and put your all into it. If you put one foot in the water it’s not going to work out. You have to go all the way in.”

The passion in his eyes speaks for the impact that football has had on Goforth’s life. His hard work and dedication to the sport eventually landed him a football scholarship at USC. As

When I ask him to be transparent about the racism he has suffered both in and out of the classroom, he shifts uncomfortably in his seat and begins by explaining how he, and other Black athletes, are perceived by classmates.

“We’re all seen as, you know, dumb. We’re all seen as remedial in the classroom. Lazy when it comes to wanting to do something with our life outside of our sport...We’re not seen as a student athlete...We got into this school just like everybody else did. We had to take the test just like everybody else did. I do admit it is harder for non-athletic students to get into the school.

But at the same time, the way that we’re perceived to be dumb jocks, I don’t agree with that at all.” Though he puts on a brave face, I can tell it hurts him.

“So how do you beat these stereotypes?” I ask.

Goforth takes his time answering this question.

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“I don’t try and be the opposite of the stereotype and I don’t try to be the stereotype. I would say I’m defying the stereotypes by just being myself and educating myself and getting a degree and doing the things that they say I don’t want to do or I’m too lazy to do or I’m not capable of doing.”

Just for a second, I let my mind question if these prejudices are also true for white male student athletes. Are they assumed to be unintelligent too, and to what extent? What is the difference between the Black male experience and the white male experience?

Goforth responds to this by saying that “We’re both men but at the same time our paths are two very different paths. I can tell that if we were both going about our lives or both in the same car doing the same speed limit or doing the smallest thing, the Black man is more likely to get in trouble as opposed to the white man who gets to go on and live his life normally. And I just feel like as a Black person we’re already 400-plus years behind in society. And just to catch up we have to do so much more than the average white man. Not even just the average, even below average white man, we have to do so much more just to even catch up or be close in society.”

Goforth goes on to use an analogy to further explain his point that the perceptions of white men playing football compared to Black men playing football are inherently different. “If you think of a white football player you think of like the ‘wonder boy’ but if you think of a Black football player you think of a hood street dude.

A dude who came from the streets and is trying to get out, that narrative.”

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We take this idea further, acknowledging another disparity between the two groups. Oftentimes the athletic achievements of Black men are invalidated, as they are assumed to be naturally more talented than their white counterparts. The Black man’s physical prowess is chalked up to biology, while his white peer’s success is attributed to hard work. This type of oppression is seeded in racist pseudoscience and perpetuates the belief that Black men simply do not work as hard. This complete disregard of the sacrifice and perseverance of Black men only adds to their struggle of being seen as equal to their white counterparts.

“It’s just really funny how the narrative of a Black man and a white man can be totally different. So you can’t really say that we’re given the same amount of opportunities, you can’t really say that we’re all caught up now because we’re not, we’re behind.” It is clear that Goforth believes that there is still much work to be done to even the playing field.

After clarifying the differences between Black and white manhood, I am eager to know the qualifiers for being a Black man. Goforth immediately relates what he believes Black masculinity to be by using his father as an example.

“I think of my pops, taking care of your business. Handling your responsibilities and taking care of what you need to take care of. What your priorities are in life need to align correctly.

There’s a set code you have to live by. You just can’t violate that code.”

“And what is the code,” I inquire?

“The basics...treat people how you want to be

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treated. Keep your morals and values first.

And just spread love and positivity.” He says this without having to think about it, with an ingrained rhythm that tells me these are his core beliefs.

“How do you spread love and positivity?” I press.

“By always making time,” Goforth says. The greatest gift you can really give someone is your time. And I’m a true believer in that saying.”

The earnestness in his tone suddenly makes me more appreciative of this interview.

There is no easy way to introduce the topic of George Floyd and the protests that have ensued. But I try to gently raise the matter, knowing that it may stir feelings of torment and heartache. Goforth heaves a large sigh, knowing that we would have to discuss it. We both wonder when the racist murder streak of the police will stop, and when Black people will be able to live free of the fear that those who are supposed to protect them will undoubtedly kill them.

To see yet another Black man murdered, someone that looks like the reflection Goforth sees in the mirror, weighs heavily on his mind. Could he or one of his brothers be next? If he has a child, will it be their turn to become a martyr like Floyd? Goforth says he undoubtedly wants kids, so I ask how he would explain what it means to be Black to his future Black children.

He responds, “You’re going to get stereotyped.

You’re going to get harassed at some point in your life. I would inform them on the obstacles that they’re going to have to go against. And let

them know that really the system isn’t designed for them to succeed, which is why they’re going to have to work at least twice as hard than the next person to them.”

“How exhausting,” I whisper to myself. Though my mother has given me a similar speech, it is disheartening to know that we cannot put an end to this tradition just yet.

We wrap up our conversation with shared dreams of a tomorrow free of racism. It is ambitious, and though we know we will not see it in our lifetime, it remains a possibility. I thank Goforth for his time and insight, and he responds with a head nod and an “Anytime.” I click the red leave-call button at the bottom of my screen, and conclude our interview.

Processing our hour long exchange, I mull over everything that was said. It was both inspiring and discouraging to explore the realities of the Black male experience. I have learned from Goforth that being a Black man means being someone who is relentlessly upstanding. In the face of every kind of adversity, a Black man remains true to his core values. Despite widely held beliefs, a Black man works hard for everything he has, and is capable of intelligence beyond comparison. He refuses to let the world label him as a monolith, and instead defines himself as the resilient man he is.

Ashara Wilson is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Arts, Technology, and the Business of Innovation in the Iovine and Young Academy.

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Photography by Saul Singleton

OPEN YOUR PURSE

“I was back home in D.C. all summer, seeing all the current events unfold surrounding Black Lives Matter. We’ve continued to see violence against trans women continue to rise this year, further spiking during the summer.

They are one of the most integral parts of the LGBTQ+ community, and we do not do enough to defend them. When I got asked to create something for Haute, I knew that I wanted to create a photo series that centered Black trans women. I posted an open casting call on Twitter, and Mýles responded to it. Mýles, a DC-based singer, just released a new single on July 27th.

Creating this photo series came quickly to me, revolving the themes around the literal positioning of the purse in the photo, and the metaphorical phrase ‘Open Your Purse’ about paying respect, centering, and featuring trans women.”

Saul Singleton

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“The reason I write and sing is not because I want to look cute or be famous, it is how I express myself. I want to be the artist that I wish I had seen when I was a child. I want to represent people like me and humanize our experience. It’s bigger than me, it’s bigger than fame. It is about representation. I know one day the world will be amazed at what we have to offer.

As a Black, non-binary, trans artist, it is very hard to find support financially and just in general. But I won’t give up, I was created for such a time as this. We are seeing so many changes in the world, both good and bad, and I think now is the time to fight for what I believe in. Don’t let the opinions from people with internalized homophobia and transphobia affect your mental state and always know that there is nothing wrong with you.

I am currently working on re-releasing my EP as an album. It will be called “HBDYWI:THA ALBUM.” I plan to release it by the end of this year. Also, I am working on a single for Christmas and just overall building my following, my brand and collaborating with other artists and creatives during this quarantine. I am in the beginning stages of developing my merch line called “THA DOLL COLLECTION” as well.

I am inspired by the greats who were able to be authentically themselves and make their mark in the industry. I know music can change people’s hearts and minds just as it has changed my life, and even saved it.

You can follow me on all platforms @mylesthadoll and you can find my music on mylesthadoll.com. My main goal with my career and music is to represent the queer Black community the best way I possibly can, to break barriers and be a legend in the music industry.”

Mýles Mckinney

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Model Mýles Mckinney Assistants Hank Harris Annika Santhanam Saul Singleton is a Los Angeles-based video artist and photographer who specializes in documenting and capturing the LGBTQ+ community through abstract conceptual art.

Saul is a junior at the University of Southern California and has done projects for big brands such as Tinder, Vans, and Getty Images.

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WALL STREET Black Wall Street was a collection of thriving Black communities that were located in the Greenwood area of Tulsa, Oklahoma. This booming town was brutally stripped from their grasp and decimated until there was nothing left by Whites in the surrounding area. While the Black Wall Street of the early 1900’s may be physically gone, the memory still resides, a memory of success. The process through which a new Black Wall Street is achieved is through the support of Black Businesses. I interviewed three Black Business owners from the University of Southern California who in their hearts, minds, and actions have been committed to making an impact through their brands and what they stand for.

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Nathan Phillips is a Maryland-born and Los Angeles-based photographer.

His goal is to create content that goes beyond the surface and stems from many themes that revolve around the young adult experience and empowerment. Nathan is a student at the University of Southern California, where he studies Human Biology, Cinema, and Health Professions.

Have you ever attended an athletic event and felt a rush of adrenaline coursing through your veins?

Have you ever participated in a match where you were overtaken by the thrill of the game?

This is an enormous piece of the “Game Day” mentality Kristian Emel brings to the table with his brand It’s Gameday. It started before a USC football game, when Emel would create funny videos singing elongated “it’s game day” chants that quickly gained traction.

“I’m becoming known for this, maybe I can make some shirts and sell them for a profit,” considered Emel.

This idea that continually evolved into his business, It’s GameDay, grew from being a way to make a profit to a source of motivation.

“It’s GameDay went from just having shirts to creating a brand and a mentality that somebody could mentally invest in,” declared Emel.

According to Emel, one should wear their It’s GameDay item on their game day, a final exam, a championship, a first date – whatever day they need to be on the top of their game is their game day.

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The premise of It’s GameDay is rooted in psychology.

“Just like putting on a lucky shirt, just like putting on a thinking cap, [It’s GameDay sells] physical items that will influence your psychological pathways.”

“If you believe enough [in] game day gear or game day wear, if you invest in it as the wear you only use on your game days, then when you actually put it on it will carry that weight and significance,” says Emel.

It’s GameDay’s team is made up of three individuals: Kristian Emel, founder; Erdavria Rose Simpson, co-founder; and Sayahn Mudd, brand ambassador and creative writer. The origin story of how they came to be is captivating. Emel had just recovered from an ACL injury when he decided to join the USC spirit team, where he met Simpson at a mixer she organized for the team.

From then on, they started making the first steps towards turning It’s GameDay into a reality.

As It’s GameDay progressed, Emel’s good friend Sayahn Mudd reached out to join the team.

“We just gave him a few tasks and brought him in, got [him] hooked up with some gear and he really serves more like a third member,” says Emel.

In the beginning Emel was expecting things to move quickly. Contrary to his hope, they didn’t; in fact, they were losing money.

This rough year did not deter Emel in the slightest, as he adapted his approach and spent countless hours on reforming his brand. Even during the pandemic, he has been developing.

It’s GameDay is not confined to the sole exchange of clothing, as its founder also takes pride in public speaking. A recent engagement Emel and his co-founder had was to speak at an intro to entrepreneurship course at the Marshall School of Business. There they spoke about how It’s GameDay came to be.

Emel didn’t get to this point alone. One of his mentors from his old church told him and his boys at around age 16 that they should start a business. Emel remembers this fondly.

beginning of how to start. He heard me out for everything and really picked me up and encouraged me,” remembers Emel.

It’s GameDay is expanding every day. Emel recently had the opportunity to interview many athletes during the past few months, which he thanks God for. These connections will help build the foundation for the “GameDay community” Emel hopes to establish. When it is safe to do so, networking events, community events and even parties will be a part of It’s GameDay. Not only does It’s GameDay plan on more interaction, they are writing a book.

When asked what success looks like to him, Emel had this to say: “I just see success as fulfilling God’s purpose in my life, that’s ultimately what it comes down to. I consider myself to already be successful and every day that I am walking in his purpose and his goal I am successful. I’ve been so blessed, so so blessed.”

“I gave him a call one day, told him what I want to do. We talked everyday for months in the

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Rahzizi Ishakarah is an artist at his core. He is the owner of Blex Co., a company that promotes identity through clothing and stands for “Black excellence.” Blex Co.’s symbol represents black power and solidarity.

ing out of the box, themes from skateboard and surf culture are very much a part of Blex.

“In terms of what [art] means to me, it’s a way to express myself,” states Ishakarah.

Ishakarah mentions a poem written by Paul Laurence Dunbar called “We Wear the Mask,” which is an allusion to how one is forced to conform to and conceal their suffering in a white-dominated society.

Ishakarah is the youngest of ten children from Jackson, Mississippi. He got his start in the arts by attending his father’s art camp as a child and enrolling in art school in the fourth grade. It wasn’t until junior year of high school, however, that Ishakarah claimed his name. As he gained more recognition by winning local and national awards, such as the National Freedom Center art competition and the National Silver Key, he felt a spark.

“[Blexco] focuses on defying expectations of what it means to be a person of color.”

“I want people to take off their mask metaphorically and just be in touch with themselves,” emphasizes Ishakarah.

The first design that Ishakarah released was of Colin Kaepernick, to show his respect for the trailblazer.

Ishakarah started from scratch by saving up, selling in campus shops, and using his scholarships to get his brand going.

“I still tap into the idea of civil disobedience and an appreciation for that, against social [injustice] and the discourse behind that” he says.

Many negative images circulate of those with darker skin. Blex fights against this. What makes Blex so unique is its deviation from the mainstream Black culture that has been presented.

Aligned with the idea of Blex’s model of break-

For Ishakarah, it was not all simple. He faced challenges creating his website, which took over 3 months to finalize and he was itching to promote; at the same time, Colin Kaepernick’s protest in the NFL erupted in mainstream

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media. Nevertheless, the line was successfully released on MLK’s Birthday. Now, Ishakarah is taking Blex in new directions.

“I want to create a series, like a magazine but for Black culture, for [Black people] to have a platform to discuss their stories and talk about how they don’t fit into certain boxes,” declared Ishakarah.

Blex is also releasing a new Malcolm X line, which features Ishakarah’s own contour drawing, as all the designs come from him. A skate-inspired line is also in the works.

“I’ve always been a perfectionist, so even if something isn’t necessarily perfect to somebody else, I’ve always tried to make it near perfect for my standards,” expresses Ishakarah.

His desire for perfection stems from the influence of his dad, who always said “no matter what you do, if it’s cleaning the house, sweeping, washing dishes, you always do it 100%.”

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Aerospace engineer, creative designer and business owner are all titles that describe Mikell Antonio Myers. The owner of Etoile the Label grew up in the heart of Baltimore, Maryland, where he lived until moving out to Los Angeles to attend USC. Etoile the Label means “star” in French. While Myers himself is not French, this name holds a special and multi-dimensional meaning. “[Stars are] this one central body that we project our own questions, mysteries [and] fates onto,” Myers believes.

Like the time of one’s birth, we do not control the stars, and like the stars, one’s individuality cannot and should not be controlled. Etoile the Label represents this individuality.

“Forget the labels that are defining me, allow me to define myself in every way I feel the need.

For me personally, what that looks like is actually Etoile the Label,” he says.

The initial funding for Etoile the Label came from Myers’ father, who he has a strong relationship with. The two are in constant conversation regarding the brand.

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“My dad’s that big help, he is that central piece,” Myers says admirably.

When he first started selling his clothes, Myers’ biggest worry was his own pride, which he felt would be on the line. Many times, when the opportunity presented itself, he was worried about walking around with a box selling nothing. A month later, his mentality began to shift. Myers exclaims that it took “just breaking that boundary and saying I’m cool with telling people that this is my baby, this is my brand, feel free to buy it.” Once Myers broke free from himself, the business began to excel.

“Until you go out there and make yourself matter for any given reason, whether its clothing, artistic abilities, music, whatever, it won’t matter until you make it matter,” expresses Myers.

As the business began to increase, Myers felt that it was imperative to hone into the themes that Etoile the Label stood for. This led to the creation of what would become one of Etoile the Label’s best selling shirts. Printed on the shirt is the phrase: “to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you someone else is the biggest accomplishment”.

This coming fall Myers is releasing a line titled “ Journey to Progress,” the inspiration for which came from the passing of his grandmother.

During his final moments with her, she mentioned how he was progressing. This statement resonated with Myers as he made his way back to California.

One featured T-shirt in the “Journey to Progress” line is the “Heavy Heart” tee. Myers lives with a rare heart condition that he and his family discovered when he was 18; it was very emotional, especially for his mother. He believes that the “Heavy Heart” tee is tethered directly to his beating heart.

“I just think about wow, I am actually progressing in ways that I could probably never fathom,” remarks Myers.

“I wanted it to be this serious concept of a heart.

It is actually done on a chalkboard, which in my mind is something that is so easily wiped away,” says Myers.

So, what is “Journey to Progress” you might ask? Myers would call it “a never-ending journey.” While success is at the finish line, that isn’t what Myers is presenting. “‘Journey to Progress’ is actually more about the bumps than it is about the end.”

Myers relates these themes to what happens when one attempts to pick a rose; they get pricked until they reach the safety of the petals.

On the design of the shirt is a small but powerful phrase that imparts the words “not for the weak of heart.” The journey to progress is not easy and one has to be committed to its completion. This new collection, as Myers puts it, “is supposed to be an emotional roller-coaster so people can take that journey with me.”

“‘The Journey to Progress’ is about a journey of pain, a journey of all the moods and emotions that come from the wave of trying to be successful, trying to be a better person, trying to progress,” explains Myers.

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Photography by Tim Dunk

FACETIME PORTRAITS

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Tim Dunk is a Leeds-based photographer who specializes in wedding and portrait photography, but has recently shifted his focus to remotely capturing his subjects. Tim has shot over 150 people from around the world using only a MacBook Pro and iPhone, thus establishing himself as a pioneer of this new-wave form of photography.

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The lockdown means that we have found new ways of hanging out with friends, such as the various apps that have kept us in some level of connection. Using them made me think about the possible creative applications; how could I do what I love, within the current restrictions, AND get to see some people? Basically I was bored, a bit lonely and really missed doing my job.

I put a call out to some friends to see if anyone was up for trying to use the fairly basic imaging capabilities of FaceTime to help me get back to work, initially just as a fun experiment and a way of collaborating with my creative mates around the world.

These self-isolation spaces were searched for pockets of light and colour, mood and humour. I shot in lounges and wardrobes and poly tunnels, allotments and staircases. Props were pulled from shelves and cupboards, or cat beds and cribs. I shot people living within shouting distance, and stayed up way past my bedtime shooting people on the other side of the world. The shoots were fast & fun, locked into a short time frame and a similar visual language. They involved couples, individuals, children & pets.

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At any time this would have been fun – a creative exercise and way of finding a new way of making portraits – but in this bizarre time we find ourselves, outside of our normal experience or comprehension, it made total sense that we should make pictures in a new way too.

The fact that this project sparked such enthusiasm in people, resonated with them at a time when we are distanced from each other, from the world, is just bloody lovely to experience as a human being.

The lockdown is tough for everyone. I like being busy and it’s given me a structure to my days, a way of meeting new people and hanging out with old friends. It’s allowed me to flex my creative muscles and developed how I take portraits, even when my kit is reduced to something really basic. The absolute best part is knowing I am doing something useful for myself, gratifying for the people I am photographing and raising money for The Trussell Trust at a time when people are really struggling. All of us in the same situation. All of us shut away.

Tim Dunk

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DHEXDA XIDHO (TO TIE AROUND THE WAIST)

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ON STRENGTH and the Burden it Places on Black Women

Writing by Awo Jama Photography by Laura Alston

Are we born tough, or are we molded to be? For Somali women such as myself, the latter seems the more obvious answer, thanks to a peculiar phrase that has been around since our ancestor’s ancestors. A saying, or maybe a command, made of two words, “dhexda xidho” (pronounced “deh-da-hid-oh”) roughly translates to “to tie around the waist,” and when said to another Somali woman, it is meant to offer a simple solution to a common annoyance; the inconvenience of having your dirac (pronounced “dee-ri”) or dress be so long as to get in your way while cleaning. To alleviate this, “dhexda xidho” suggests that one deep in elbow grease wrap a scarf tightly around their waist and tuck the excess fabric from their dirac underneath the scarf. Easy enough to understand, right?

Considering that Somalia is known throughout the region it inhabits to be a land of poets, however, this phrase carries a twofold meaning. Uttered by a disgruntled mother or encouraging sister, “dhexda xidho” essentially functions as the Somali equivalent of “roll up your sleeves and get to work.” The recipient of this expression is meant to take those two little words to heart and persevere through whatever inhibitions they are facing, through tiredness, idleness, and anything in between. As my mother once put it, when you are told “dhexda xidho,” you just “do what you have to do.” Sometimes, I find this to be moving. Other times, I wonder how tightly I must tie my own scarf for that magic resilience to kick in, a resilience that so many generations of Somali women, nomads and city-dwellers alike, seemed to so seamlessly demonstrate.

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If the Somali women I admired growing up had their scarves tied as tightly as 17th century corsets, mine held me together as poorly as haphazardly, loosely sewn in elastic. An emotionally sensitive kid virtually since birth, I was no stranger to stress-induced crying spells, bouts of frustration at difficult tasks, and overall inexplicable melancholy. These moods I got into were often met with a confusing mix of understanding and scolding, as it would be reiterated to me that my temporary issues were not “the end of the world” and I needed to “be strong.” Over time, responses such as these, mostly dealt by my mother, seemed to have the opposite effect on me; rather than making me tough as nails, they caused me to remain in a hyper-sensitive state where I felt I was too fragile to simply “buck up” when upset and too guilt- ridden over having this disposition to fully express my emotions. While navigating this balancing act, I began to develop a slew of mental health issues that initially brought more heeds to toughen up from my Somali parents than genuine concern. Anxiety causing me to become more overwhelmed than normal over a school assignment? “Dhexda xidho, Awo, you’ll get it done.” Depression making me dread going to school more than normal? “Stay strong, you can do it.” Eventually, after several trials with different antidepressants left me with even stronger feelings of weakness and guilt, I decided to buy into this “dhexda xidho” mentality, and tied my scarf tighter than it had ever been tied before, nevermind if it was suffocating me.

When you’re in a hole, a dark place with no exit in sight, it becomes easy to believe that you are the only person suffering in the way that you are. In my eyes, my struggles would be anomalies in the lives of those from my same black, Muslim, first-generation immigrant background, as I did not see anyone that looked like me displaying my same timid, anxious behaviors. Little to my knowledge, the rationale behind “dhexda xidho,” despite the phrase’s obvious origin, was not exclusive to Somali culture, and was just as pervasive in the communities of my other intersecting identities.

Regarding black women specifically, there is even a researched, scientific model that describes the societal pressure that leaves our demographic feeling the constant need to display strength. The “superwoman schema” breaks down the strong black women trope into five key components: feeling an obligation to present an image of strength, feeling an obligation to suppress emotions, resistance

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Models Zainab Naomi

to being vulnerable, a drive to succeed despite limited resources and feeling an obligation to help others. Having been the focus of a recent UC Berkeley study on the negative impacts that racial discrimination has on black women’s health, the schema is mean to identify which of its aspects actually aid black women in healthily coping with discrimination, and which ultimately are detrimental to their health when persistently displayed. For us black women however, it doesn’t take a meticulously crafted schematic to identify which of its aspects actually aid black women in healthily coping with discrimination, and which ultimately are detrimental

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to their health when persistently displayed. For us black women however, it doesn’t take a meticulously crafted schematic to identify the expectations placed upon us which require us to constantly keep our heads held high. On top of duties which position us as the pillars of our families, we are constantly held up as defenders of injustices affecting all marginalized groups, and are constantly being looked towards to mobilize support for these impacted parties. While some may consider it a privilege to be trusted to helm entire social movements, and while it certainly would be a great honor for anyone thrust into that spotlight, when non-Blacks are constantly turning to you to do the work of fixing systemic racial issues, passion can quickly turn into exhaustion.

While black women may have received generations of practice in concealing their trauma, the mixed bag of misogynoir, hypersexualization, increased susceptibility to violence, and academic and workplace discrimination we are dealt calls into question just how severely these stressors are impacting the health of our demographic. Despite racial biases from medical institutions that assert that Black individuals are less susceptible to pain, a recent study from the CDC’s National Vital Statistics Reports reveals that Black women actually have the highest maternal mortality rates amongst all other races of women, dying 2.5 times more than white women in 2018. Mental illnesses amongst black women often go undiagnosed due to a lack of access to treatment and a stigmatization of mental health in their communities. Ghanaian-American author Meri Nana-Ama Danquah puts it best in her memoir “Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression” when she says that in comparison to more privileged races and genders, black women suffering from mental disorders are “labeled as weak. And weakness in Black women is intolerable.” The emotional wellbeing of black women is all too often disregarded, as we are made to be

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“superwomen” who were built to brave even the most torrential of storms. After all, if we could overcome centuries of brutal oppression, what can a little work stress do to us?

There is pride in strength. Being able to continuously rise above bigotry, ostracization, and hate is beyond laudable. However, there is also strength in softness, and it is time for us black women to give ourselves space in our lives to be soft. We can no longer tolerate being handed the responsibility of constantly showing up for others.

Non-blacks need to take it upon themselves to do the necessary research on institutional racism, microaggressions, and a host of other social justice issues that black women are expected to inform others on. Above all, black women need to be heard. When we tell you that we disproportionately face difficulties receiving adequate health care, listen to us. When we tell you that microaggressions on how “articulate” or “pretty for a black girl” we are are actually insulting and harmful, listen to us. When we tell you that we don’t have it all under control, listen to us.

It’s been years since I first learned what “dhexda xidho” meant, and despite my tendency to want to fervently hold onto every aspect of my culture, I am beginning to recognize the problematic nature of this particular artifact. The alternate truth I am now trying to adopt is that while there is pain in all of our lives, it is simply not fair for a select group of historically marginalized people to be expected to disregard their pain to live up to a false idea of their identity, all to make the majority feel comfortable. With this in mind, I am ready to loosen my knot, just a tiny bit to start off.

Awo Jama is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Journalism. She also serves as the Director of Writing for Haute Magazine.

Laura Alston is a Caribbean American multidisciplinary artist who specializes in using traditional and emerging mediums to highlight unsung narratives within the global black community. Focused primarily in photography and film, her work centers race and identity, and engages within themes of autonomy and empathy.

Laura’s dedication to such visual storytelling has earned her honors at the Puffin Foundation, and exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Tate Britain, and Columbia University.

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CEDRIC

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Model Cedric Pham Jaron Fabular is an LA-based photographer studying business and design at the University of Southern California. He primarily shoots in film and particularly appreciates portraits of people.

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“With the coronavirus, I’m stressed every time I go out and my family members go out. It makes me think of every little thing I’ve done and my family members have done. Did they clean a surface? Did they sanitize after touching something? Have they been hanging out with the right people? There’s this sense of fear that hangs over my head.

I’ve read somewhere that Asian Americans are more worried about anti-Asian violence due to the Coronavirus than actually contracting the virus itself. Things like calling the Coronavirus the ‘Chinese Virus’ does not help. The yellow peril and scapegoating of Asian Americans is not new. It’s irritating that Coronavirus is in pretty much every single country and that all kinds of people are involved, yet blame is being shifted. Blaming other people doesn’t solve an issue that is just as much our fault.”

Cedric Pham

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Writing by Djosy Charles Photography by Ézé Amos

I CAN'T BREATHE

As thousands across the nation gather to protest the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the many unarmed lives taken as a result of police brutality and institutional racial injustice, America is bracing itself for a potential second wave of coronavirus (COVID-19).

Ironically, both of the aforementioned public health crises disproportionately affect people of color, especially Black Americans. While thousands are protesting incidents of police violence and fighting for Black lives on the streets of America, America’s broken systems are further inducing disproportionate suffering at the hands of COVID-19 for Black Americans and other minorities.

Systemic racism has always and continues to plague the health system, causing vast gaps within the health care system and untimely health care delivery. The inequities in the social determinants of health such as lack of healthcare access, blatant discrimination, and socioeconomic disparities contribute to the higher mortality rates for COVID-19 among those who identify as racial and ethnic minorities.

Black Americans, more specifically, are almost three times more likely of dying from the virus than their white counterparts. This harsh reality underscores how damaged the American medical system truly is and how Black Americans and other minorities are continuously bearing the brunt of the effects of a health care system plagued by racism as well as both implicit and explicit bias.

As of April 2020, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released data that displayed the fact that Black Americans make up roughly 13% of the American population but 30% of the COVID-19 cases nationwide. Similarly, Latinos, who make up roughly 18% of the American population, made up

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17% of the COVID-19 cases. It has been said that people of color are at an increased risk for contracting the virus and developing serious complications due to underlying and preexisting health conditions plaguing their communities, such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and asthma. In saying this, it is easy to remain ignorant of the fact that there is a much deeper truth regarding the increased risk for communities of color to contract COVID-19 as well as other emerging infectious and non-communicable diseases. The deeper truth is that the healthcare system is inundated by extensive racial and ethnic disparities that have historically kept people of color from accessing quality healthcare and equal opportunities of attaining optimal emotional, physical, and mental health.

Within the healthcare system, structural racism, lack of cultural competency, and bias are some of the many barriers that are resulting in the high hospitalization and mortality rates of minorities throughout COVID-19 pandemic. Testing sites and resources for addressing the symptoms of COVID-19 are more likely to be located in wealthier, whiter communities than in communities of color, which prevents low-income and rural minorities from getting tested for the virus COVID-19. In addition, Black Americans, due to a long history of exploitation and discrimination from the American healthcare system, have maintained a deep distrust of the American healthcare system which obstructs public health officials from doing the necessary work of contact tracing and research to keep communities of color safe and reduce the overall transmission of COVID-19. These barriers, fueled by long standing institutional racism and discrimination, further worsen

health disparities and maintain the suffering of racial and ethnic minorities.

COVID-19, coupled with longstanding injustice within the healthcare system, is expected to significantly exacerbate many social determinants of health such as economic stability, physical environment, education, food, social support, and access to healthcare leading to poor health outcomes for vulnerable communities. Combined, the worsening of these social determinants are resulting in the increased mortality, morbidity, and overall poorer quality of life for minority populations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the deep fissures of economic inequality America has yet to comprehensively address. The pandemic has pushed state lawmakers to shut down schools and businesses, thereby limiting public mobility which has resulted in an economic recession. It is no surprise that minorities are bearing the brunt of this economic downturn as racial and ethnic populations have historically and acutely endured economic exploitation and employment discrimination. There are extensive policies and practices firmly set in place that limit minorities’ economic mobility, making it difficult and sometimes nearly impossible for minority families to build wealth and weather the economic impacts of a pandemic such as COVID-19. As millions of people suffer from unemployment because of the pandemic, people of color, who are overrepresented in domestic and service-based industries, have to either face unemployment as businesses temporarily shut down or face an

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increased risk of contracting the virus in order to provide for their families and keep up with the price of living. In addition to being paid lower wages than their white counterparts, people of color have decreased access to paid sick leave accommodations and less benefits resulting in the overall decreased access to adequate and timely healthcare.

COVID-19 has significantly impacted the physical environment of minority communities as well. Public transit systems across the country have been temporarily shut down or operating with limited capacity. For many minorities who rely heavily on public transportation for commuting, riding in these close spaces puts them at an increased risk for contracting the virus. Regarding housing, although some states have adopted temporary eviction moratoriums, many individuals of color from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have to face the realities of what comes after the temporary hold on evictions comes to an end, especially those who are suffering from unemployment or reduced pay as a result of the pandemic. Mass evictions could give rise to a potential public health crisis as more people will experience homelessness, putting them at greater risk of contracting the virus. Not to mention the fact that eviction has long term, multigenerational consequences that could ruin an individual’s credit and make it difficult to find another home. This would ultimately create or exacerbate a cycle of poverty which, in itself, is a critical risk factor of severe illness from COVID-19.

Racism, in all forms, is detrimental to the health of people of color. It’s insidious effects are displayed in acts of police violence and murders of innocent Black Americans, but also in our healthcare system. As America needs to grapple with enacting the necessary changes necessary to ensure human rights and justice for all people, the healthcare system also needs to make a shift to not just diagnose and treat conditions, but to address how people’s socioeconomic and physical environments affect their overall health. All of us have a role to play in addressing systemic racism and advocating for equity, whether it is on the streets or within clinic walls. We are only as healthy as the sickest members of our community. The first step is ongoing education. Let us take initiative to educate ourselves about the public health crisis of racism within the medical community. When possible, let us empower our politicians to enact policy changes that take into account every and all factors that inform the health of individuals in our society. It is up to us to dismantle this current system to improve it for all individuals, especially those it has historically exploited and disregarded.

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Djosy Charles is an alumna of the University of Southern California who received her B.S. in Global Health and M.S. in Global Medicine. Ézé Amos is a Charlottesville-based documentary photographer and photojournalist. Ézé serves as a contributor for the New York Times and his images have been published by the Washington Post, CNN, AP, Getty Images and Reuters.

THE AFROART SERIES Creative Soul Photography Regis and Kahran Bethencourt

As artists, CreativeSoul Photography is constantly responding to the world around them, both visually and politically. We didn’t want to just question traditional standards of beauty – we wanted to shatter them. We wanted to create images that flew in the face of the established spectrum of acceptable standards of black beauty. Within each image, we wanted to tell a story of a people who for centuries were artists and artisans, strategists and intellectuals, warlords and warriors, kings and queens.

That is how the AfroArt series was born. At its heart, it is a recognition and celebration of the versatility of black hair and its innate beauty. The purpose of this series is to illustrate the story of our royal past, celebrate the glory of the here and now, and even dare to forecast the future.

CreativeSoul Photography is currently working on their upcoming AfroArt book, which will debut in the Winter of 2020. The book will be a beautiful coffee table book filled with inspirational kids from all over the world. The book will highlight stories of black culture, the African diaspora, and more with various themes from the past, present and future. The book will be published by St. Martin’s press in bookstores worldwide.

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Regis and Kahran Bethencourt are a husband and wife duo based out of Atlanta, GA. Together they form the imaginative forces behind CreativeSoul Photography. With over 10 years of working with hundreds of children, families and brands, they specialize in lifestyle photography and authentic, visual storytelling. Their holistic approach to capturing one-of-a-kind moments has led their work to be featured in Teen Vogue, CNN, Glamour magazine, Vogue Italia, Black Enterprise, BET.com, on The Real daytime talk show, BBC News, the OWN network and more.

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BLACK Writing by Diana Fonte + Jason Cerin Photography by Lee Gumbs

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And the whole world fell silent. They sat in their homes quarantined, without all of the external noise, finally able to listen to those whose voices were too quiet to recognize for years. There was a worse pandemic than COVID-19, one that had been infecting us for years. Some took to the streets in outrage, while others stayed at home to grieve in solitude. Whether that frustration was funneled into art or action, America was experiencing a racial reckoning, fueled by a collective call for change. This reverberated in ways unforeseen to most of the world, right to our backyard at the University of Southern California.

On heels of the George Floyd protests, USC senior Ayoni Thompson expressed her frustrations through the release of her single, “Unmoved: A Black Woman Truth.” The Bajan-Brit singer, who is currently pursuing a degree in popular music, explained how the song was originally written one year prior as a social commentary on being a Black female musician. She observed how she often found herself being treated differently in rehearsals by her non-Black peers and how other non-Black bystanders were often complacent in these actions. Thompson saw the ways in which Black women are reflecting on how they have been cast aside in their own communities. “In the process of creating the song, I wanted to be as authentic as I could to my personal experience without overgeneralizing. But at the time of creating it, I knew that a lot of Black women would probably resonate with my truth.” Thompson expressed how the song, which was recorded on a USB mic in her bedroom during quarantine, did better than she ever anticipated. The song received glowing reviews from music outlets and currently has almost one million combined streams across platforms. “I just wanted to be honest and provocative in my truth… being so raw and vulnerable that it would physically shake anyone who heard it.”

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Thompson was not the only artist who found solace in turning their heartfelt emotions into melodies for the movement. On June 7, USC alum Etienne Kabwasa-Green launched his single “Black Movement,” which directly acknowledged a handful of the numerous Black people killed by the police across the nation within the past decade. Kabwasa-Green explained how it was one of the most spontaneous songs he’s put out to date, ditching his professional mixing and mastering process for GarageBand instead, just like he used to do it in his hometown of Watsonville, California. “I was feeling so much frustration and the only way I know to release those emotions is through writing. So, I wrote it out, found a beat, sent it to my manager to create a lyric video for it, and we put it out within two days.” said Green. He went on to explain how the song did extremely well on social media, as people were able to relate to its frustrated energy. “It made people realize that this time we’re not alone, this time we’re together in this,” referring to the monumental support from the non-Black community alongside the Black community that housed these frustrations. However, Kabwasa-Green’s activism is not an isolated incident, grounding much of his musical process in advocating for his community.

Only a day after the release of “Black Movement,” Kabwasa-Green was inspired by the protests he had seen occurring in Watsonville. Motivated by the collective action, Green decided to create a Facebook event for what would become known as the USC Black Lives Matter March.

“I was like alright, if you guys want to march, meet here and then a bunch of student-run organizations [such as USC’s Black Student Assembly] reached out wanting to make it bigger,” said Kabwasa-Green.

On June 6th, more than one thousand students from the University marched peacefully in demand of justice for Black lives. “It turned into this 1000-people event that I didn’t see coming, but it was beautiful to see that many people in support and being able to be heard.” At the march, numerous students voiced their outrage, not only towards the injustices occurring across the country, but also to the silence that many students faced from USC administrators pertaining to the topic.

Kabwasa-Green detailed how he felt as though he shouldn’t have had to put that event together, as USC should’ve organized something for our community, but failed to do so.

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“We have come out here today to let this campus know, to let this city know – to let this country, and this world, and the gods above us know – that Black lives matter. Even on the campus of an institution that fits right into the folds of the white supremacist hegemony of this nation, Black lives matter.”

Jeptha Prempeh

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These words were spoken at the USC Black Lives Matter March by Jephtha Prempeh, a senior majoring in NGOs and social change who has voiced their frustration and anger regarding the University’s reaction. Two days prior to the march, Prempeh created a petition calling for USC and President Carol Folt to acknowledge the fight against anti-Blackness after the absence of a message regarding the demonstrations from the University administration. “As a gentrifying force in South Los Angeles, we must be wary of our position within this beautiful neighborhood,” said Prempeh in the petition’s description. “USC must prove itself to be a university that black students and any others who cherish the American spirit of freedom and democracy can be proud to graduate from.” The petition received over 7,000 signatures and positioned Prempeh as a voice for change within the USC community. Only a few days later, Prempeh was invited to have a meeting with USC President Carol Folt, artist-activist Gbenga Komolafe and recent alum-activist Lara Montilla, and present a list of demands on behalf of USC’s Black community.

However, Prempeh’s buzzing enthusiasm was stifled when it came time for the sit-down. The organizer recalls feeling underwhelmed by the conversation, stating that they felt as though it was being steered towards minimal structural change and USC taking a conservative approach to solving radical issues. “It’s clear that they expect students to do the work… They bank on being able to water down the very radical demands that students have, because we students know what we need for everyday life to change.” These demands were largely reflections of the unyielding statements put forth by the Black Student Assembly and social awareness groups like AffordableSC. Groups of Black students also posted statements with school-specific demands in tandem with the direct demands of BSA; amongst these schools were the Roski School of Art and Design, the School of Architecture, the School of Dramatic Arts, the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Sol Price School of Public Policy.

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That being said, Prempeh attributes their ability to step into themself to their time at USC. They appreciate the academic quality in which they were able to learn about creative topics and subjects that fuel their creativity, such as in classes for their music production minor or with the Popular Music Program, one of the only contemporary music programs in the nation. As director of BSA’s Creative Experience (CreEx), Prempeh facilitates discussions on Black-created art in the USC community. They also oversee events that center Black performers, such as Gearfest, an annual concert dedicated to Black musicians. The 2020 show back in early March featured both Thompson and Kabwasa-Green. Thompson resonates on the subject of a newfound creative community, and that “BSA and CreEx create experiences that are celebrations of being Black.” Thompson perceived her entrance to USC in 2017 as a sort of “Black Renaissance” of artists who were all either in her year or her major and “bursting with inspiration and talent,” from Bran Movay to Kabwasa, Umi, Amir Kelly, and so forth. Kabwasa-Green further stands by this, explaining that his introduction to the Black community at USC was through tagging along with a few friends at a CreEx meeting. “As a Black student – and just as a Black man in general, my most empowering experiences have been at USC with this community of Black people,” he asserts.

Thompson clarifies that although there exist beautiful spaces for Black people to flourish at USC, they are not enough. “It’s been a really great blessing and I’d also say it’s been a little bit of a hindrance in some ways,” Thompson states. She mentions that the Black experience is more challenging in the academic setting given the stark lack of representation – especially Black representation – in the faculty. This, in turn, places the burden on Black professors to act as “ambassadors’’ to their community of students, leaving them outnumbered and overworked.

Prempeh ardently concurs: “I want to see the administration hire more Black teachers. Period.” On July 8, 382 faculty members drafted a letter to the administration demanding a concrete commitment against anti-Blackness. Law professor Ariella Gross states that “They’ll hold listening sessions and survey the community and really spend a year on gathering information, and what struck me is that anyone with an Instagram account can gather those testimonies… We don’t have a shortage of knowledge about the kind of harms people are experiencing.” By this, she refers to the Black at USC (@blackatusc) Instagram page that was created on June 25, 2020 to anonymously share the unspoken truths of the Black community. The channel has posted over 500 accounts of racism or discrimation at USC and has racked up over 13,400 followers, an immense audience to expose these realities to.

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Thompson recoils when asked about the USC administration’s performance in confronting their historical anti-Blackness. “Just the fact that pages like Black at USC exist… If I was an admin, I would be truly disgusted and truly disappointed that their students feel unsafe in my halls.” Thompson adds that in the time of a pandemic, the University lacked appropriate support financially, and this was exacerbated when they did not support their Black members socially. In May, USC confirmed a 3.5% tuition hike, raising the price to $59,260 for the 202021 school year. While the university has historically announced tuition shifts in March of the previous year, they held off until May to announce the news. Three months later, students’ financial aid packages did not reflect substantial compensation for the hike, despite an impending recession and the second-highest unemployment rate in U.S. history. The ways that socioeconomic status play into the marginalization of other identities became magnified, and as a result, many low-income communities felt uncared for when they received meager financial aid packages. Thompson concludes in saying that all she hopes to see from the USC administration is “any sort of compassion and empathy, because they’re failing a lot of us.”

Prempeh states, “So many people are doing what they’ve been doing for so many years. They have tutors behind them, money behind them, they have classes behind them, studio training – all things I never had because I was never afforded the opportunity.” For them, this socioeconomic gap took the “imposter syndrome” experience of being at a top university to a new extent. In the creative space, Prempeh says they initially felt intimidated and irrational to think that they could make it in the industry. Thompson adds that imposter syndrome is built into the structure of the Black experience at USC. “Feeling like this school was definitely not made for our community and people like us… You’re constantly being reminded that what you’re taught is not for you and not by you,” states Thompson, which she says is devastating after all of the emotional and financial support Black students provide for the USC community – and beyond this, the ways that they shape the USC community. Prempeh cites CreEx as being their “saving grace,” offering a space where people could share their insecurities, build with each other, be vulnerable with each other and feel like they are doing more than just “bringing the Black perspective” to creative endeavors.

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However, all three musicians are excited about this moment. Kabwasa-Green feels optimistic about the future of USC, but he is realistic about the way things have played out and will need to be executed in the future. “I’ve been wanting the same reforms since I got here,” he says, pointing specifically to the formerly titled Von KleinSmid Center, which was named after impassioned eugenicist Rufus B. von KlenSmid.

“And it’s a very easy fix,” he adds. “Like, it didn’t take long to do it, it just took them wanting to actually do it and it took us publicly telling them to do it.” Kabwasa-Green further expands on his pleasure at the Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) Deputy Chief overhauling officer training to include the history of policing and its roots in slave patrol, but he finds it disturbing that officers did not have to know this before 2020.

Overpolicing on college campuses, especially in South L.A., is an experience that has endangered Black and Latinx students. “In my time as a faculty member at two private, predominantly white urban universities, including the University of Southern California, I routinely saw campus police and public safety officers stop, question and push out local Black and brown youth from campus for loitering or trespassing.

Many were simply walking through campus on their way home from school in groups or riding the occasional skateboard, often in ways no different from what white college students were doing,” writes Charles H.F. Davis III, a former USC adjunct professor, in his op-ed for the LA Times titled “If Black lives matter to colleges, they’ll divest from campus policing.”

Kabwasa-Green says that the recent reforms are an example of the collective power of the student body: “We spoke and we were heard. It was cool,” he says in response to the march. But there is still work to be done, especially on what he considers an oddly segregated campus; he says this in reference to more than just racial or ethnic identity. Through an intersectional lens, Kabwasa-Green states that even Black students who are in Greek life or students who aren’t cisgender are going through different struggles of their own. “Breaking down those segregation barriers among students is tricky but I think it’s important,” he states. He sees the march as a step in the right direction because it helped a lot to bridge that gap, as many students who didn’t know about the struggle of Black students at USC came to the protest regardless.

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Above all, Prempeh challenges their peers to be self-sufficient in our activism. “I want to see that they pay attention, more than when they’re being asked to look,” they state. They emphasize that their Black friends have been incredibly exhausted in the past three months, feeling the need to educate the public on, and carry the weight of, anti-Blackness.

“It shouldn’t be a ‘cross it off your checklist’ kind of thing… It doesn’t take that much to do better,” Thompson adds, explaining that social awareness should be a lifestyle change rather than a moment in time.

The air of possibility for the University is a reflection of the massive cultural shift in individual responsibility. On the topic, Kabwasa-Green disclaims that he is not the first organizer in the community to demand change, and that the movement has been an ongoing fight for years. ”I was out here saying Black lives matter in my freshman year of high school when Trayvon Martin was killed,” he says. “It’s not new but it’s to the point where more people are on our side than aren’t, and that’s new.” Prempeh feels personally fulfilled by this change as well, as they’ve been working in the activism sector for seven or eight years now and finally feel like causes are being shared and cared about. “It’s not controversial to say Black lives matter, it’s not controversial to expect people to care about international issues,” they affirm. “Now I’m really in my element with the way things are going.”

Prempeh excitedly reveals how they are taking a gap year to study music, develop their sound and curate the cohesive message they want to tell through their work. They expressed how they look forward to having time to explore, experiment and “go back to that kid who loves music.”

“Instead of thinking it’s a waste of time or a distraction from

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what I should actually be doing, now I know it’s where I’m supposed to be,” they state. Both of Prempeh’s coverstar counterparts expressed similar feelings when asked where they see themselves moving forward.

“I feel like my entire reason for my existence on this earth is to make music and to be an artis.t” says Kabwasa-Green. “I just want to be able to do this for my life.” With this in mind, he recently took the first step towards making this a reality. Titled Maiden Flight, Kabwasa-Green released his debut album on Sept. 16. The nine-track record serves as an introspective look into his own maiden flight, or first “flight” of his musical career. Describing the album as a kind of takeoff, he explains how it details the experiences of an artist who is still in the dreaming state, hoping for something bigger for themselves but doesn’t yet have it. “The past 3 years of me trying to be a musician is wrapped up into this album.” The album features collaborations with fellow USC artists Clarence the Kid and Ayoni. As for her future, Thompson describes it in one word: Massive. “I’m really aiming as far as I can go and I really just want to change and dismantle things by being my truest self.” She goes on to explain how despite being independent, her music is still managing to impact others in profound ways. Thompson hinted at her debut studio album being in the works, saying that we can expect a lot more groundedness from the upcoming record, in comparison to her EP, Iridescent.

If there’s anything to be learned from these three, it is the power of collective action. Through their work, they spoke to the world. Whether you are an art student at Watsonville Charter School, a young Black girl living in Indonesia, traveling and learning of the world or a gregarious New Yorker with a homespun love for music, there is room for each one of us to shape a better future.

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Models Ayoni Thompson Etienne Kabwasa-Green Jephtha Prempeh Wardrobe Styling Damaris Flores Makeup Aissa Umaru Diana Fonte is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Public Relations.

She serves as the Editor in Chief of Haute Magazine.

Jason Cerin is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in International Relations (Global Business). He serves as the Creative Director of Haute Magazine.

Lee Gumbs is a Los Angeles-based photographer who principally focuses on capturing the art of movement.

Lee has photographed some of this industry’s most prestigious dancers as well as artists such as BeyoncÊ, Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift and more.

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PEACE

SAÚL LÓPEZ

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PROTESTS

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Saúl López is a Pasadena-based photographer and videographer who specializes in creating content for social media. Ranging from ideation and production to documentaries and music videos, Saúl has a drive and passion for helping others through creative storytelling.

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ARTIST NAME

A LETTER TO VOGUE’S EDITOR

RUNWAYS DON’T SET TRENDS, WE DO Writing by Hala Khalifeh Photography by Brian Siambi One month a teenage girl is plucking away at her naturally bushy brows in an attempt to hide from a look that’s too “cultural” for the current fashion trend of thin eyebrows. The next month, Vogue tells her thick brows are back in. Similarly, while the boy with delicately spotted freckles on his cheeks has been working to conceal them for the past few years, the one with none is eagerly trying to mimic his look with the latest faux freckles trend.

The constant chase to keep up with these seemingly random and sudden changes in fashion makes for an endless race. The industry hides behind glossy magazine covers and curated Instagram feeds that seem to tell page-flippers and feed-scrollers to “express yourself” and to “wear what makes you confident.”

If these statements were genuine, then why are overlined lips, tan skin and box braids suddenly in season when skin-lightening products and Brazilian blowout treatments were shoved in the faces of people of color for decades?

Most would agree that the fashion and makeup industries need to change—the question now just lies in how and who. People with less power have already reimagined a world of inclusivity and diversity, not for the sake of achieving a socially applaudable milestone, but to make it the norm. It is now time to make that a reality—within every magazine, every profession and every day.

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When it takes the senseless deaths of Black individuals for the fashion and beauty industries to detect a lack of inclusivity within their publications, there is a problem. Skincare companies should not suddenly shift from posting predominantly white individuals to Black individuals because it is only now deemed “trendy.” Minorities are not a trend and their livelihoods or culture should not be used as such for the sake of increasing sales or gaining followers. As Conor Begley, co-creator of influencer analysts Tribe Dynamics, says, “If a brand suddenly activates content around a cause it does not have a history of supporting, it will appear superficial and transactional.”

This is not to say that these brands should just continue on with their old ways for fear of appearing performative, rather it is meant to emphasize the importance of making genuine commitments to change—because silence too can be a statement against Black lives.

Some may argue that these times are more troubling than times before for companies like Vogue, since there are a lot of new and unknown territories that have not been dealt with until now. But this cannot be made into a solid argument, as Vogue has had a long history of not keeping up with the times. For example, taking 125 years for a black photographer to shoot a cover, not having a black cover-model from the years 1892 to 1974 and having seven light-skinned models on the 2017 cover that was meant to be a “beauty revolution,” should have been red flags from the start. So the issue of Vogue’s tendency of being avoidant of diversity is unfortunately not a surprise—as they have let minorities down cover after cover for decades.

While the approach to reaching a more inclusive magazine, business model or Instagram feed should not be for the temporary praise of customers during the midst of a movement, it may be a step in the right direction. To the common activist, the sudden posting of the first Black individual on a company’s feed may strike them as insincere, obvious and sudden, but if done with intent it may point towards a genuine approach. For example, if this account were to post the image with a caption outlining their past wrongdoings and their intent to change their ways by ensuring and promoting the work of Black individuals, one may have an easier time accepting the account’s past. However, it would be

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different if the account posted the image in an attempt to simply “check a box” and move on by sweeping their past actions under the rug. It has taken a long time to get to where we are now, so we should both alter the way we view companies that may be trying, and use this as an opportunity to teach and reteach others as we learn and relearn ourselves.

As stylist and editor Mecca James-Williams told Harper’s Bazaar, “If these brands are going to say that Black Lives Matter, they need to ensure that the Black lives within their institutions matter. The future that we’re seeing is liberation within these companies. So if they want to be a part of the future, they need to be encouraging and supporting Black people now.”

As targeted consumers of the fashion and beauty industries, the power is in our hands to decide to buy or not to buy, because in the eyes of the merchandiser, financial success comes in the form of our clicks, carts and purchases. So when we choose to boycott a makeup brand for their silence and refusal to take a stand against injustices, we also take a stand against a clothing brand for their clamor in everything else other than what actually matters. In doing so, we are empowering ourselves, without needing an Instagram influencer to tell us that doing the right thing is trendy this week.

Fashion’s racism and classism seep into the advertisements that companies flood our brains with, but they also overflows into the behindthe-scenes jobs of such companies. This is not only evident in the prevalence of fair-skinned women on magazine covers, but in the individuals taking those very images.

It shouldn’t have taken as long as it did for Vogue to hire Tyler Mitchell as their first Black photographer, and furthermore, it shouldn’t have happened only as a result of Beyoncé, the cover star for that issue, wanting to elevate other African-American artists and therefore requesting him for the job. While Vogue’s unfortunate history of suppressing Black talent may be their way of trying to keep white readers happy, it is done in a way that ignores, copies and steals the beauty and inspiration of the Black community.

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In response to Vogue’s unacceptable delay and its unwillingness to raise up Black creatives, U.S. Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour said that, “Vogue has not found enough ways to elevate and give space to black editors, writers, photographers, designers and other creators.”

The emptiness within her statement, however, is blaring. As editor-in-chief of the magazine for over 30 years, one would think that Wintour would have had enough time to alter the ways in which photographers, subjects and creatives are chosen to participate in her magazine.

But leave it to the rest of the world to challenge Wintour’s statement in the most beautiful, vibrant and eye-opening way—the Vogue Challenge, which was started in May and popularized on Tiktok, Twitter and Instagram through the hashtag #VogueChallenge. The trend was created in response to the Black Lives Matter movement in an effort to reimagine the covers of Vogue magazine through an inclusive lens—one that represents individuals of all backgrounds and cultures, not just the notoriously photographed cisgender white woman that appears cover after cover.

The self-edited, makeshift covers showed some adorned with cultural clothing and jewelry, with others in vibrant and bold makeup looks.

All postings featured individuals of the sexualities, skin tones and hair types that Vogue has long turned a blind eye to. Regardless of the intentions made by people who have participated in the challenge, it should not be confused with an art challenge, and more importantly, is not a form of praise to Vogue itself. Rather, it is a way to show companies like Vogue how they should aspire to be. It is a way to help reimagine the magazine stands at grocery store lines so that little Black boys and girls can see a bit of themselves on each cover.

“It’s fun to imagine more Black trans people on the cover of magazines.

It’s even more fun to think of magazines hiring trans and gender-expansive visual narrators to do the work,” Texas Isaiah said on Twitter alongside his own contribution to the hashtag.

So when Wintour claims Vogue has not found enough ways to elevate and provide uplifting platforms for Black creatives, one must question

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the weight of the rock she must be living under. In other words, the world I live in is one of grand and limitless potential for inspiring creatives of color that wish to fill the places of not just cover models, but of the photographers, editors, designers and changemakers of the world too. Many large fashion magazines like Vogue, on the other hand, appear to live in a world of limited token Black models that are ever so sparingly used as a way to try and say, “look, we are inclusive!” when in reality, their efforts are merely performative measures.

For years, the fashion and beauty industries unsolicitedly infiltrated our perceptions of our reflections as we looked in mirrors and widened our eyes or softly pulled them back for the “foxy” look. They were there when we cut our own bangs, practiced smiling with or without teeth and covered or drew on extra freckles. It was always up to these magazines, advertisements and brands to decide what was considered fashionable and trendy—but those times have passed. When individuals give more power to social movements, equality and justice, we own control. We now get to set the narrative. And if clothing and makeup companies want to stay afloat, then they’ll be the ones to follow our lead—not the other way around.

Models Gouled Dina Nur Satti Gabu Fords Sulterna Achai Katie Kariuki Wardrobe Styling Bryan Emry Hala Khalifeh is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Journalism.

Brian Siambi is a Kenya-based editorial, commercial and travel photographer and graphic designer. His work focuses on capturing fashion and travel in its element, always experimenting with new techniques and challenging himself to always push the limits of creativity.

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Coby Mack is a Lawrenceville-based photographer who specializes in editorial portrait and concept photography. “This was such a fun project to work on over the course of a month and I am so happy and blessed I got to it do with my family!�

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1. ALREADY

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2. SCAR

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3. WATER

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4. BROWN SKIN GIRL

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5. NILE X OTHERSIDE

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6. MOOD 4 EVA

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7. KEYS TO THE KINGDOM

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8. FIND YOUR WAY BACK

Models Nia Overstreet Jasmine Mack Michael Mack Yvette Mack Chaz Mack Khaleesi Cross Yvonne Davis Coby Mack Creative Direction Coby Mack Makeup Jasmine Mack

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ALL ABOUT MATO Wonderboy Mato is not slowing down. “Still a part-time Indian with a full time mission/To making sure we show ‘em out/Gotta make ‘em proud” raps the singer, this sentiment being a sort of mantra for him. Remember the name, trust me – you’ll want to gloat about being an OG fan a couple of years from now. After releasing two full-length albums, the genre-bending Native American rapper and singer songwriter talks to Haute about becoming the G.O.A.T., “decolonizing” being the hot word for the times, and navigating the world as a part-time Indian.

Courtesy of COVID-19, we chopped it up via Zoom. Mato FKA Mato Wayuhi tuning in from his sister’s closet, myself reporting live from a hospital parking lot to escape my chaotic household. Oddly enough, not too strange a scene considering the circumstances. “We live on like, an hour by hour basis right now,” he shakes his head smiling. I think we can all agree with that.

There was never a doubt in Mato’s mind that he’d pursue music, “There was no plan B,” he states matter-of-factly. I remember the first time meeting Mato after a performance of his USC’s radio station, KXSC, him surprising my friend and I as he came out of nowhere, arms wide open for a hug, thanking us for coming to the show. This appreciation for his supporters is a sort of ritual of his, even extending into his performances as he creates a jam circle of hugs and handshakes, thanking each person for coming. Performing has always been second nature for Mato, whose first performance was rapping Empire State of Mind for his sixth grade talent show. He’s come a long way since, evolving from that kid with a flow to a force on stage. His stage presence is magnetic, charismatic, and he exudes a sort of light-hearted swagger, never shying away from a little hip action. Mato makes it his mission to connect with his audience, singing with us, grooving with us, interacting as if we’re old friends.

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Mato claims he’s not cool, like, “really, not even the type of cool that’s like, ‘No, he’s cool. He’s just saying he’s not cool,’ kinda cool,” but his laid-back style and unique lingo rolling off his tongue say otherwise. It’s not too often that a 22 year old asks you if you’re “hip” to an artist so naturally and nonchalantly. One thing is clear though: Mato does not take himself too seriously. He is unapologetically himself, and completely comfortable being so. In terms of expressing himself, Mato is not interested in curating an image to be anything he’s not, even if his hyper-calculated social media era can command it. Pulling out his phone, he shows me that if he could be any emoji, it would be the little nerd with glasses. “That’s really me in my fullest form,” he says, “I’m actually dorky as shit and like weird and hyper and stuff. So I was like, no, I’m not going to ever try to be someone I’m not. And it’s a daily practice. It’s tough. And I think people always say be yourself. But I think we’ve really got to internalize that, now, especially in this era of image control.” Mato gives off an endearing mix of the “I’m the shit” self-assuredness of a star in the making with the humbleness of a kid who grew up rapping the student council announcements over the intercom and was kicked out of his orchestra in fourth grade. Tongue in cheek, he cites this as when he first entered “the game.” He shares the first rap he wrote with his dad, “My name is Mato. I’m in sixth grade. I don’t get paid and I like lemonade, aye.” By 15, he was teaching himself how to make music, as he was writing, illegally downloading or “purchasing,” he quickly corrects himself with a wink, GarageBand. And the rest is history.

While Mato says his family may have not always “gotten it,” they’ve always been supportive, and are a huge driving force for his success and work ethic. He comes from a big family, which he lovingly refers to as “all ballers.”

“It’s hard to find ways they don’t inspire me,” he says. He shares how his mom is “hella inspirational” for him as she’s a creative director, a profession in which that is only around 5% women or female-identifying. He praises her as a badass and gets lost in an elaborate story about how she did not appreciate him “teaching” her how to make spaghetti. His dad is a social worker in the South Dakota state prison, working with Native inmates and incorporating culture to help decrease recidivism rates. His older sister wrote a book when she was 18, highlighting stories of different women of color, sharing that she laid the groundwork for what he thinks he could be. He brags on his younger-older sister “making all these moves” going to law school, and her killer poeticism. He states that survival is in his bloodline. On his father’s side, being full Lakota Native, there’s a history and survival of persecution, while on his mother’s white side, or more specifically Romanian Jew, his grandfather is a survivor of the Holocaust.

“And so they’ve always inspired me to just, be the most, I guess. There’s a great line in Blood Orange’s album, Negro Swan where it’s just like, ‘People always say you’re doing the most/But why would I ever do the least?’ Or something, it’s one of the interludes.

And I was like, that’s so true,” he says with a laugh. “And so just with those two backgrounds, I can’t do anything but succeed. I knew there was such a chance that I’m even

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Album cover of MATO’s debut album Part-Time Indian (2018)

Album cover of MATO’s second album Scatterbrain (2019)

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here right now. And so it’s like, yeah, you gotta show out.”

From the moment you first exchange two words with Mato, it becomes obvious that this is someone with a genuine passion for what he does, possibly because his identity is so entwined with his art. The South Dakota Native has always been extremely vocal about his Native American heritage as well as the history and well-being of the indigenous peoples, a perspective and community more times than not severely overlooked in the media’s discussions and the public’s attention. He’s made appearances at L.A.’s inaugural Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration and the conference for the National Congress of American Indians. “Aspirations wise, I’m trying to be the best of all time, trying to create opportunities for other Native artists and other artists of color and different things like that.”

ALL ABOUT MATO In Lakota culture, there’s what is called the Zuya, a type of journey a youth takes outside of the tribe once they reach a certain age in which one ventures outside of where they grew up and “go and gain.” Mato has internalized his whole musical journey as his Zuya. He visualizes his journey as living for all of the people in his lineage who never got to live a full life or got to embark on music. He shares a line he’s writing for one of his new songs; “‘I got my grandmama’s voice. I always wanted to be a singer, but she didn’t have the choice’ or something like that you know. And so for me, I’ve got to live my fullest life to honor those who didn’t get to. And so that meant getting an education. That means being the fucking best musician of all time. That means helping create these organizations and everything. You know, you gotta spread the wings.”

When asked how he defines the type of music he makes, he asserts that while “the style and culture is definitely hip-hop, as far as genre, now is an exciting time when artists are taking the creative liberties of dipping into these different bags.” He cites hip-hop as the music that raised him in terms of being a man.

Spending much of his time as a child on reservations, hip-hop called to him as a “different type of language” through which he found that marginalized folks can come around and embrace and celebrate, as well as use as an avenue for issues. He divulges, “I realized I loved music before I loved being Native American,” highlighting the level of impact art has on shaping our identities and aiding in their formation. In case it’s not clear yet, Mato’s music is him in its rawest form, we’re talking “sashimi raw” he emphasizes. To draw a line between the two, would be to separate a soul. “I fell in love with music before I fell in love with my culture and my race and identity and everything, and so I think the only real definition I have of myself in its truest form is with music.”

Listening to Mato’s discography, it quickly becomes apparent that he does not hold back. From callbacks to his childhood featuring intimate voice memos from grandparents, being an agent of storytelling for his ancestors discussing generational trauma rearing its head today, to lighter affairs such as relationships or even exclusively how “someone to cuddle would be cool” in his single Cuddlefish, Mato talks about it all. With lines like, “cutting off people like settlers did to our braids,” and “you think Instagram don’t show the holes that history left in your soul, but it do,” Mato refuses to shy away from the uncomfortable truths of Americana. His poetry grooves along funky beats and tongue-twisting clever wordplay, at times accompanied by the jazzy stylings of his band, Treehorse.

“You take your whole life to write your first album.” This was exactly the sentiment that Mato felt he had captured with his debut album Part-Time Indian.

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He went into its creation tackling the question, “What does it mean to be a mixed Native kid?” When asked if anything in particular inspired him to write the song and album, he responded, “Bro, my life. Just joking.” But he meant it. For Mato, The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie was a sort of revelation. For the first time, a third grade Mato saw a character that echoed himself, growing up in a semi-quasi traditional Native household just like him. “My dad once told me something really interesting. He said, in Lakota culture, they talk a lot about mixed people and they say that there’s a fight between them, between like a white settler and like a traditional Native person. And they’re constantly at battle. And I was like, damn, that’s kind of hot. True true.”

Grappling with that internal confusion of having this blood in you but still seeking to have a relationship with your culture is a sentiment mixed kids are all too familiar with. Mato shared his unsteadiness in navigating how much one can express themselves and which spaces allow for comfortability, a feeling he believes any kid that has an affinity to a culture, but still has to operate within a dominant societal structure, has felt.

When asked about whether he feels a pressure to conform to any shade of code-switching, he said, “A couple years ago, I was like, you know what, if you’re yourself in any space, that’s what’s gonna give you the most credibility and the most satisfaction from an internal standpoint. And so, yeah, I stopped.

And that’s also the privilege that I have operating in those spaces, too, as being a light skin kid, I don’t have to put on a front of like, oh, I’m an all knowing Native kid and stuff like that, because Natives will call you out on that right quick if you try to act like anything you’re not. The teasing and the ostracizing is like – they very much keep you in check. So I don’t have any room to even try to be something I’m not in those spaces.”

While music has always been his plan, figuring out how to get there wasn’t a straight road. Feigning dread, Mato describes the woes of being an “undecided” college kid and the remarks of pity elicited. He admits that he wishes he could give an eloquent mission statement for why he chose to be a film major, but he wasn’t sure college was in the cards for him. “I had this line,” he raps, “I skipped some winners so my mom can say her son got a degree, but the only books that were checked

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were when the studios were free,” he chuckles. Still, he expresses his gratitude for film and teases an upcoming project of his, composing a feature length film. “Music is very important, but with film you see the eyes of those people, you know, and you get their emotions. And that’s I think where a lot of the empathy can be gained.” Coyly, he quips that the details are, “Top secret, sorry,” but concludes with excitement that it’s right up his alley, the universe “marrying those two worlds.”

With his sophomore album Scatterbrain, Mato encompassed a central theme of youth, and the experience that a creatively stifled adolescent faces. The concept of Scatterbrain is inspired by himself, capturing feelings of disenfranchisement and being othered. We discuss the struggle that kids of color face navigating education and the arts, and the challenges that come with these spaces being predominantly liberal white atmospheres. “It’s like, are you [these spaces] really dictating the zeitgeist of these different things?” He continues, “But I think now, even especially in the past couple days and in the past years, I think there’s so much more democratizing with what people like and where people get their information from.” We see a glimpse of the “scatterbrain” Mato refers to himself as he excuses himself for going on a tangent, “Sorry, what was the question again?” he laughs and quickly jumps into his school experience. He expresses his difficulty in school and how he never felt there was a space for him to thrive until college. With the music video for the single Come See Me Live, Mato walks us through the trials and tribulations of being a creative kid in class, always doodling, zoning out, getting prosecuted by the teacher, “just raising hell in the back of the class.” He adds, “So that was kind of the sauce with that video.”

The video for Cuddlefish, was the genesis of Mato’s work with Outlast film camp, a summer experience in South Dakota, educating Black and brown kids (or basically all his cousins, in his words) about different art forms and pathways through film. Mato emphasizes the importance of centralizing their work.

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“I think legitimizing the ideas of the youth are really imperative,” he says. “You know how it is, we’re young and we got hella ideas and things like that, and we still have the passion for it.” Seeing them dream up the vision is close to his heart as he expresses that, “those are the kids I am in a way.” He continues, “That’s all them. I didn’t do a damn thing,” he beams proudly. Reflecting back to his aspirations, he exhales fervently “And like seeing that, oh, this is what it’s about. This is what it’s about!” he exclaims, punctuating each syllable.

While Mato is hopeful for the future of Native Americans in the media and believes that spaces for meaningful narratives are opening up more underground environments, he admits the mainstream, global representation has been “pretty atrocious.” “The fact that we still have major league sports teams that have Native mascots, it’s very emphatic how far we still need to go.” He acknowledges the work left to do and the long road ahead, but is confident declaring that change is happening and is very excited for the role that he, as a Native artist, can show. “I’m not what you think a Native person would be. So that’s what my music needs to stand for.”

However, Mato didn’t always have the most positive outlook, and speaks on the feelings of frustration and resentment he once had living with and processing the realities of injustice in his hometown. He speaks of the tension of living in a bit of a boiling pot of relationships between Natives and predominantly white people in a part of South Dakota in which one of the largest massacres within indigenous populations took place. “That’s where the resentment starts to bubble of like, oh, you mistreat all these people or, oh, it’s predominantly these types of people who occupy these spaces and, oh, it’s all a conservative Republican thing. And to a certain extent, that’s true.

But I think I always had the privilege of seeing a lot of the humanity in these different people and the sensitivities. And I don’t know if that’s just my mixed standpoint or just being able to have a lot of these different friends but, I had the knowledge of, like, nah dude these are still people. I don’t agree with them. My views don’t align. But these are still people. And so, the resentment was there when that was clouded. And it was like, ‘No, fuck that.’ I left. ‘I’m better.’ You soon learn that’s not healthy because they help you grow. You learn different things. The resentment subsides when you learn about respect more and you can channel into those emotions that you had when you were younger. But it’s different for a lot of people. I think the resentment that other people hold for those spaces where a lot of racial and social tensions ignited I think it’s better for their own safety that they’re not there anymore. So that’s just my experience.”

Musicians today are almost inescapably fused with an activist role, and oftentimes this can be beneficial and powerful. Political activism and art can come together to make noise, empower and stir up an otherwise silent conversation. However, while Mato has all the attributes of an activist, he hesitates to label himself as such. “As an artist, I just want to be the best artist I can be and make the most innovative moves that I can

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you know, give a lot of these kids freedom. Give these kids comfort and confidence in themselves. And so I think that’s the only thing that I have and I think that the activism, that’s second nature.”

Asking Mato his opinion on what the most pressing or overlooked issues facing the Native population right now, he offered me the first steps he believes we need to take. Mato shares, “I think decolonizing is a hot word.” At its most basic level, at the root, he believes dismantling these symbols and ideas that dehumanize and stereotype are a crucial part of the battle. “There’s a lot of acknowledgement that needs to take place.” He specifies that amplifying issues particularly surrounding land acknowledgement and then beyond that, actually actualizing those efforts, not just in recognition of stolen land but what we can do to highlight these communities and give them the mic, is imperative. In July, we saw Big Sur land finally be returned to the Esselen Tribe of Monterey after 250 years. Returning this land back to its original stewards allows for an environment in which the Esselen Tribe can honor their culture and conduct their ceremonies in privacy.

What is rightfully theirs can now be passed down to their children, grandchildren, and further descendants. While this is only the beginning of addressing years of generational hurt, it is a start. Mato explains that not only white people need to get hip to the idea, but those from marginalized racial backgrounds as well. “I think we need to see within ourselves the similarities and see within how much we need to decolonize our own relations with one another.” He mentions how it’s not going to be a single ad campaign that does it. We see in our society, while it can be a catalyst for some change and discussion, social justice has become trendy, a wave of awareness

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often quickly disposed of. He continues, “Because even in, Native communities, there’s hella antiblackness and a lot of homophobia among other things.” While admitting that, “It’s a daily practice of like what do you and how do you approach that?” He maintains that having pride in your culture while being progressive is entirely possible.

What’s next for Mato? An EP will be here soon. “This is all I’m gonna say it’s about: the beginning and the ending of different relationships in your life, whether that be romantic or aromantic or just friendships and different things like that. So it’s me mulling over that, it’s me questioning that.” So whoever it is out there, he’s letting you know now, he’s talking to you. After asking Mato for a message to send us off with, he delivers, “Everybody stay safe.

Make sure you invest in methods of self care. Get off the internet every once in a while. I know it’s a very alluring place to be right now. Self educate. Talk to your elders and your parents, if you got them, or anyone who you look up to. Let’s mobilize. During this time period, you know, Black lives matter, Native lives matter, trans lives matter, all these different people. This is a very, very historic moment that can happen right now. And I think it’s up to us to keep that momentum going.” He continues, “I’m excited, I’ve been reading a lot of Dr. Cornel West recently, so I’m just like all jazzed about dismantling. He says the empire is imploding. Whoo! That is a bar. So, yeah. Anyway. Much love to everybody. ” Angelique Ayoade is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Journalism.

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Kanya Iwana is a Los Angeles-based photographer and the founder of KI Studio.

Kiera Smith is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation in the Iovine and Young Academy.

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Trends make fashion. Right now, when considering what is trending, fashion may not be the first thing that comes to mind. One might think of the numerous social justice movements happening around the world such as the Black Lives Matter movement as well as the number of pandemic cases reported each day and even the increase in working remotely. While fashion trends are some of the most prevalent trends in society, right now they are flying under the radar to make way for more pressing causes.

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement began in 2013 with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media, and focuses on educating others on Black history, ending systemic racism, celebrating differences while working towards justice, and gaining freedom for Black people. One issue that has come to light and is not a main focus of the movement, but certainly a worthy offshoot, is racism in the fashion industry, namely people of color (POC) not receiving credit for their work. Interestingly enough, there are a large number of fashion-forward pieces that originate in the Black community and garner viral interest, which results in non-Blacks taking those trends and reconfiguring them for their own purposes. To name a few, trends such as hoop earrings, grills, logo mania, bucket hats, snapbacks, oversized tees, box braids and cornrows all originated from the Black community, and have been translated into trends the masses enjoy. A history lesson is in order, and to begin, one must examine cultural appropriation and its roots.

Cultural appropriation has been an issue for many years, yet non-POCs have tended to ignore the criticism they receive when they copy traditionally Black styles and trends. Take the Kardashian-Jenner clan for example. In 2018, Kim wore blonde Fulani braids and later in 2020 she sported box braids, a hairstyle that is extremely popular within the Black

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community, not just because of its fashionable appeal but also because of its history. Braiding techniques were often used by slaves to map out plantations, and provide visual escape routes for the brave souls who fled for their freedom. Going back even further than that, African mothers would braid rice or seeds into their children’s hair before separation between plantations. While the braids of Kardashian, a white woman of Armenian descent, certainly could be considered by some to be “cute” and “edgy,” the reason Kardashian’s act was appropriation is because she refused to honor the history and cultural significance behind the braids. The biggest issue with the braids she wore and posted all over social media was the fact that immediately after, these styles of braids became widely spread across the white community, with no mention of the historical significance or of their place of origin. This is just one example, but cultural appropriation is instigated every day by a myriad of different people. While braids are amongst the most widely appropriated, there are other trends that are widely enjoyed and have grown in popularity that most do not realize come from the Black community.

It is high time they get recognized for their authentic beginnings. The most prevalent: hip hop culture and the rise of snapbacks, oversized tees and logo mania.

Hip Hop began in the late 1970s as a combination of funk and soul music, but did not really take off as a culture until the ‘80s and ‘90s.

The fashion of hip hop at the time was characterized by oversized tees, sportswear, and “logo mania,” all essentially created by a man named Dapper Dan. According to Tom Banham at fashionbeans, Daniel Day, otherwise known as Dapper Dan, would screen-print designer logos onto luxurious materials like leather, in addition to creating oversized bomber jackets, matching designer sweatsuits and fur coats. His pieces

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contained bulletproof fabric and other customizations that could not be found in any true designer shop. Nowadays, oversized bomber jackets have become widespread and a staple piece in most people’s closets these past few winter seasons. Oversized tees are essential to today’s fashion, especially due to the elevated loungewear trend of COVID-19, which has also been championed by Black designers such as Kanye West and his Yeezy brand. Typically styled on women with biker shorts underneath, sneakers, and a shoulder bag, oversized tees have come a long way from the traditional styling with baggy jeans or sweats. Some of these iconic hip hop items are plain or have simple designs, however many are emblazoned with a repeating design of legacy fashion house’s logos to demonstrate affluence and tell those who view them that they have style. This is what logo mania is.

Logo-mania is another piece of Black culture that became prevalent in the hip hop movement. Rooted in the ‘90s street style movement, it became a Black aesthetic because luxury logos reflected the idea of “making it” and represented creative expression, all of which were, and remain to be, very important in the Black community, due to inequalities faced by Black people in every aspect of life. Now, logo mania is back and more popular than ever, especially with the desire for self promotion on social media platforms that this digital era has brought about.

Influencers have taken logomania and run with it in order to add content and inspire viewers with their dreamy, luxurious lives. The monograms that are most often copied are the interlocking Gs from Gucci, the LV from Louis Vuitton, the reflecting Cs from Chanel, the Fendi zucca pattern, and of course the Dior oblique print. Screen printed onto any item of clothing, anyone can have the luxury look, for less.

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One item that can be saturated with logos is the bucket hat. Bucket hats began as fishing hats in the 1900s to provide rain protection for Irish fishermen and farmers. Later adopted in the 1960s as a female accessory, bucket hats were adopted into street style in 1979 by American rapper Big Bank Hank. Since then, numerous Black celebrities have followed Big Bank Hank’s suit, including LL Cool J and Jay-Z. In the modern fashion world, the bucket hat has been reimagined by Fendi and Prada and has made waves on runways around the world. The contemporary teenager or adult may wear a bucket hat to show school spirit, rep a brand, or just to add a quirky touch of style to their existing look. The accessories that have come out of the Black community are many, and often their history is completely unknown.

Hoop earrings are some of the hottest accessories women can get their hands on. A neutral piece of jewelry that can jazz up any outfit, these pieces became popular in streetwear in the 1960s during the Black power movement. Influential women such as Angela Davis, Diana Ross, and Tina Turner expressed their identity through these accessories that were a part of the afrocentric way of dressing championed by African American women in that era. In the following decades, hoop earrings have become a staple neutral piece that can anchor any look with their classic design. In the same vein of accessories, albeit much flashier, grills have their roots in Black culture as well.

Grills are retainer cap-looking pieces of metal and gemstones that fit over one’s teeth; they are essentially accessories for the mouth. While putting precious metal caps over teeth is not originally from Black culture, the practice was revived by Black culture. Ancient Mayan and Etruscan women would wear tooth caps of gold and jade to display their wealth and class. The tooth caps also symbolized the fact that the wealthy had the money and control over planting (jade represented agriculture and sustenance), so the grills served as a visual reminder that all in the society would be taken care of. After the Etruscans and the

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Mayans were conquered, the practice eventually died out, but popped up randomly in Latin American and Caribbean societies until the 2010’s when Jamaican musician Shabba Ranks, well known for his single gold tooth,moved to New York and began mixing in social circles with celebrities like Rihanna and Chris Brown. Today, grills are staples of the wealthy, and the more inconspicuous counterpart of grills, diamonds drilled into a tooth or two, is on the rise.

The Black community is rich with style and culture, creating trends that are widespread and accounting for the inspiration behind streetstyle, common accessories, and more. These trends even have the power to influence those in the highest echelons of the fashion world. Somehow, many fail to realize how integral Black people are to mainstream fashion. Trends make fashion, and fashion is created by everyone. If the current times require us to look back at the roots of our country, we can start by taking a look at the roots of the fashion we admire and love.

Model Nifa M. Model Management Neo Management Wardrobe Styling and Creative Direction Laré A. Lizzie Schneider is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Communication.

Laré A. is a London-based Ghanaian visual artist specializing in photography and creative direction. Laré’s work has a strong emphasis on evoking emotions and sharing stories.

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This photoshoot became a viral sensation when Wade posted the photos for the Vogue Challenge. He is especially proud to be a part of the movement, as he believes the covers are consistent with the standards of Vogue but are inclusive of Black models and Black photographers.

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As a Black person, I have a responsibility to bring awareness to issues affecting my race in any way that I can.

This was my two cents to help the movement. We want to show the fashion industry that we are good enough.

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Model Abihail Myrie Wardrobe Styling Fidge Fletcher Makeup Loni Jones Hair Styling Sammoy Duncan

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Wade Rhoden is a Kingston-based photographer who specializes in fashion photography.

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HAIR Writing by Savannah Thomas Photography by Fanta Isatou Gai

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Charrma Hunter-Thomas

Sisters Charrma Hunter-Thomas and Ain Hunter have spent their lives experimenting with a variety of hairstyles. Braids, perms, twistouts, dye-jobs, natural curls, hard-presses, weaves—you name it.

And although they’ve enjoyed experimenting with their looks and finding new, fresh ways of expressing themselves, it wasn’t always done willingly.

“It’s been a journey,” Hunter admits, fingers steepled and body reclined onto her living room sofa. “I would have boys spitting at my hair and pushing me and making fun of me. By the time I was in middle school, there was a good degree of bullying going on. I went to a predominantly white school, so I really wanted to fit in. I started pressing [my hair] quite frequently, until I finally was able to convince my mom to get a perm. I wanted to be perceived as somebody who was worthy and beautiful, so I did things to my hair that were unnatural.”

Hunter’s sister, Charrma Thomas, has also dealt with a fair share of discrimination: “When I was young—it sounds crazy—I would dream about having long, straight hair that was flowing. When I got my first perm, I think that was the moment I felt I could realize that dream.” She said that as a child, she was constantly surrounded by media of women with straight hair, and lack of representation of Black women and acceptance of Black hairstyles inadvertently took a toll on her self esteem that followed her well into adulthood.

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“I would see white woman on television [with straight hair]. My sisters and I would play [with] Barbie Dolls, and even though we would buy exclusively Black dolls, all of these dolls had straight hair.” These kinds of messages suggested to Thomas that she and her sisters’ kinky hair was both less accepted and much harder to manage. So even though constantly perming and straightening her hair was expensive, time-consuming, and ultimately severely damaged her hair, Thomas still believed it was a better alternative to her natural curls, because she could somewhat emulate “acceptable” hairstyles she was seeing in popular media.

But the Hunter sisters are not alone in their struggles; like many black women, coming to love their natural curls is a journey. In fact, suffering from heat damage is such a common occurrence in the black community that phrases such as “the big chop” and “hair journey” have become synonymous for cutting off damaged hair in an attempt to regrow it.

Although American society as a whole remains rather unattached to their hair styles, the same cannot always be said for black women, especially those with kinkier hair textures. Styles like box braids and cornrows are direct representations and expressions of black culture, and as a result, many black women have historically been discriminated against for wearing them.

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Isis Salon

Styled by Carrie Banks

Not until post-Civil Rights decades have black women been able to more openly show off their natural hair and protective styles at school, the workplace, and other areas of “polite society”. Hair stylist and owner of Isis Salon, Carrie Banks, accredits the Natural Hair Movement as the reason why more and more Black women in modern society are more accepting of afro-textured hair.

According to Banks, since she first established her salon in 1995, more and more clientele are moving from wigs and weaves to natural and protective styles. “Natural hair is on the rise,” she said. “It used to be more like 80/20, with weaves being 80. Now it’s more like 50/50. People [are] looking for protective styles, natural styling, doing the ‘big chop’, doing twist outs, [and] rod sets.”

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“People have come out of doing relaxers, so I’m happy to see people embracing their natural hair.”

And although the Natural Hair Movement feels revolutionary, Banks admits that it could be a lot more inclusive. In her opinion, the women not getting enough representation in the movement are “People [with] 4b and 4c [hair]. [Being represented] is nothing new to people who have softer textures.”

Aspiring actress and junior at Cal State Fullerton Syndé Piatek, is one of these represented individuals. As a woman with 3c hair texture, she is the first to admit that she has seen a plethora of representation for herself and Black women who look like her.

“When the curly hair movement started, I was like ‘Oh my God, finally! I can see people on YouTube and online embracing the same type of hair that I have!’ But it breaks my heart for people like my mom or my friends who have 4c hair, and they’re not represented.”

According to Piatek, this kind of hair texture “preference” is closely linked to colorism—or discrimination based on skin color. Oftentimes darker-skinned Black women have kinkier hair, while lighter-skinned and mixed Black women can have a looser texture. Since this looser texture is seen as more “acceptable”, darker skinned Black women are being left out of the Natural Hair Movement.

“I think I’ve been represented way too long, because that’s all you see. I have to acknowledge as a light-skinned, biracial woman that I do have privilege, and I need to protect and help all black women, especially dark-skinned women. I think dark-skinned girls should have representation as well, and feel that pride and that joy that I feel.”

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Syndé Piatek

Jordan McClure

Piatek also mentioned an important point: although the Natural Hair Movement has made afro-textured hairstyles more acceptable to wear, media and television prefer Black women with straightened hair.

“Every casting director’s like, ‘Straighten your hair! Just straighten your hair’,” she said. “And it’s not just when I audition for film and television, it reverts back to when I was performing in high school.”

Jordan McClure, entrepreneur and senior at the University of Southern California agrees with Piatek. According to her, Black women hardly ever receive praise for the way their hair looks naturally and are still expected to assimilate by wearing their hair straight. But while many black women are being discriminated against for their hair, non-Black celebrities are celebrated for wearing Black hairstyles and looking “urban”.

“There’s still colorism, and there’s still black women that don’t get representation on TV, but we look at images of people that borrow Blackness and they have the most success,” said McClure during a phone interview. “If you look at the overall image of [women like] the Kardashians, Blackness is something that is accessorized.

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[They] borrow aspects of Blackness—the fat ass, the full body, the full lips, the curly weave—and remove it from the Black community to where it just becomes ‘style’ or a ‘look’ and there’s no real connection to the roots.”

Jordan McClure thinks that for Black people, specifically Black women, discrimination based on hairstyle and texture is just one part of a much larger issue. It’s not just a hair style—black hairstyles are just one of the more obvious examples of an entire race of people not being given the recognition nor respect for their culture that they deserve.

“For there to be so much backlash against black women in the media, and so much colorism and hatred and lack of representation of all back women in the media, but [society will] celebrate Kim Kardashian and her family sits backwards to me. It shows society only likes blackness when it’s stripped from Black bodies.”

And it’s not a Kardashian-specific issue: late 90s and early 2000s fashion was rampant with white celebrities sporting a wide array of Black fashion and hairstyles. While Black women were being fired for wearing afros to work, Christina Aguilara was being praised for wearing box braids to an awards show. When little Black girls were sent home from school for having beads in their hair, Fergie wore cornrows to a red carpet.

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The truth of the matter is this: Black hairstyles are so much more than “just hair”. Black women have been discriminated against for the way they look, and the way their hair grows naturally since first setting foot on American soil. Hairstyles like braids and cornrows are ties to a culture that pre-dates slavery, and are a direct reflection of racial pride and heritage. Only very recently have Black women been able to openly love and embrace their natural hair without fear of backlash, and American society is not yet at a point where hairstyles so closely tied to heritage can be used by non-Black people and not feel like appropriation.

“It’s never ‘just hair’,” said McClure. “Just how my skin isn’t ‘just skin’. Because in the [dominant] European community, hair is just a ‘whatever’ topic, I feel like they use their white privilege to also cast that on other cultures, even though one of our biggest values in the Black community is hair. You can’t say ‘it’s just hair’ or ‘it’s not that big of a deal’, who are you to say that?”

Charrma Thomas agrees: “It isn’t just hair,” she said. “Oftentimes the first thing people see when they meet you is your hair. For black women, it’s enormous. If we have coarse hair versus a different grade of hair, you have management issues, you have issues about wanting to look work-appropriate, you have issues with being able to fit in with activities where your hair doesn’t necessarily comply with the activity. There are so many different layers that might sound trivial to other people, but no other group of people have the issue of hair to deal with but us.”

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Model Khadija Diabla Savannah Thomas is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Journalism.

Fanta Isatou Gai is a Maryland-based photographer who specializes in digital content creation. Fanta was born in Gambia, West Africa, and her art focuses on evoking feelings of inspiration and admiration towards blackness through the creation scenes that tell our stories in a visually pleasing way.

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MORE THAN JUST HAIR

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MLK NOW 2020 Reginald Cunningham is a Washington D.C.- based photographer who specializes in urban and portrait photography. Reggie had the opportunity to photograph the fifth annual MLK Now event, honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This event took place at the historic Riverside Church in Harlem, where Dr. King gave his famous speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,� in 1967. Various public figures and change makers came together on MLK Day to inspire audiences to take action in their communities and create an inclusive space for all people to come together deeply rooted in love, compassion, community and justice.

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REGINALD CUNNINGHAM

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an American author and journalist originating from Baltimore, Maryland.

He previously served as a senior editor at The Atlantic in addition to running his own blog, where he touched upon subjects such as race, culture, music and politics. In 2015, Coates published his second book, “Between the World and Me,” which went on to win the National Book Award for Nonfiction that year, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2016. Coates is also a comic book writer, with notable projects including the 2016 revamped “Black Panther” and 2018’s “Captain America.”

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Nikole Hannah-Jones is an American investigative journalist who currently works as a staff writer for the New York Times. In 2019, Hannah-Jones launched the 1619 Project, a New York Times series aimed at “placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of [the United States’] national narrative, according to the Times. Her work on this project earned her a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2020.

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REGINALD CUNNINGHAM

Rashad Robinson currently serves as the president of Color of Change, an organization founded after Hurricane Katrina that aims to strengthen the political and cultural power of Black communities across America. Color of Change has grown to include one million members since its inception, and has partaken in crucial initiatives such as pushing the FCC to protect net neutrality.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez currently serves as the U.S Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district. The youngest woman to ever serve in the U.S Congress, Ocasio-Cortez got her start in politics working as an organizer for Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. In 2018 she began working on her own campaign, which culminated in her defeating 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley by 15 percentage points on election day.

As a representative, Ocasio-Cortez champions such causes as the abolishment of the U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, gun control and the cancellation of student debt.

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MLK NOW 2020

Ryan Coogler is an American director, producer, and screenwriter.

A USC School of Cinematic Arts alum, Coogler first began to receive accolades for his short films such as “Gap,” which won the Jack Nicholson Award for Achievement in Directing. His first feature-length film, “Fruitvale Station,” tells the story of the shooting death of Oscar Grant, who was killed by a police officer at Oakland’s Fruitvale BART station in 2009; the film went on to win the top audience and grand jury awards in the U.S dramatic competition. Coogler’s subsequent feature films “Creed” and “Black Panther” went on to be box-office successes, with “Black Panther” grossing approximately $1.347 billion worldwide.

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Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is an American architect and actor best known for his role as David Kane/Black Manta in the 2018 film “Aquaman.” After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in architecture and working as a city planner in San Francisco, he began to pursue his dreams of becoming an actor, first appearing in the Netflix musical drama series “The Get Down.” Abdul-Mateen has since appeared in blockbuster films such as “Baywatch” (2017), “The Greatest Showman” (2017) and “Us” (2019).

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REGINALD CUNNINGHAM

J.Cole is a multi-hyphenate rapper, singer/songwriter, producer, and record executive originating from Fayetteville, North Carolina. J.Cole boasts eight BET Hip Hop Awards, three Soul Train Music Awards, a BIllboard Music Award for Top Rap Album and a Grammy Award for Best Rap Song. All five of his albums have received number ones on the Billboard 200, and have been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

In 2011 Cole created The Dreamville Foundation, a non-profit organization which aims to increase opportunities for urban youth in his hometown of Fayetteville.

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Sydnee Washington is an American model, actress, and comedian.

She began to gain prominence after appearing in Comedy Central’s “Up Next” showcase in 2018; during that same year she hosted a one-woman show called “Death of a Bottle Girl” that was extremely well received.

Washington currently co-hosts the comedy podcast “Unofficial Expert.”

MLK NOW 2020

Dawn-Lyen Gardner is an American actress who is most well known for her leading role on the Oprah Winfrey Network’s “Queen Sugar.” While studying at her alma mater Julliard, Gardner appeared in such on stage productions as “For Colored Girls” and “The Seagull,” in addition to appearing on television shows such as “ER” and “Viper.” Gardner is also heavily involved in advocacy, having worked on projects relating to racial justice organizing and women’s equity.

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Fashion Brands Maxhosa Africa Tongoro AAKS Ace Kouture Adama Paris Adinkra J Afrikanista Senegal Allure by Aly Anima Iris Art Comes First Blk Mkt Vintage Pyer Moss Edas Romeo Hunte Lemlem Petit Kouraj Martine Rose Wales Bonner Cushnie Victor Glemaud

L.A. Restaurants Boar Dough Tasting Room Agoura Hills The Juice Atwater Village Harun Coffee Baldwin Hills Yordanos Ethiopian Restaurant Baldwin Hills 2nd Healthy Eatery Bellflower Beyond Vegan Boyle Heights ERM 4th Street Boyle Heights Kings Deli Burbank JamaFo Jamaican Food Xpress Canoga Park Thrive Doughnuts Carson Billionaire Burger Boyz Compton Jordan’s Hot Dogs Crenshaw Delvigne Croissant Culver City Bohemian House of Espresso + Chai Downtown Silverback Coffee of Rwanda Echo Park Harold’s Chicken Hollywood Red’s Flavor Table Hyde Park Banadir Somali Restaurant Inglewood Alex’s Fish Market Leimert Park Rahel Little Ethiopia

Beauty Brands Pat McGrath Labs Hyper Skin Coloured Raine Cosmetics Beautystat Cosmetics TPH by Taraji Mented Cosmetics Epara Skincare Bevel B. Simone Beauty Pattern Beauty Dehiya Beauty Luv Scrub Soultanicals Pholk Beauty Ace Beaute Lamik Beauty Essentials by Temi Uoma Beauty Epi.logic The Lip Bar

Podcasts Still Processing 1619 So, What Do You Do Again?

Code Switch The Read Truth be Told Scam Goddess Ear Hustle Thirst Aid Kit Snap Judgement Hidden Brain Nice White Parents

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USC Businesses Perch Credit Down By One Joiful Bee Train Like A Gymnast Jayla Loren Apparel Greater Good LA, LLC

USC Creatives Musicians Kyle Lux Amir Kelly Jordyn Simone RYLO Bran Movay Monet Kute n Kozi Dancers Jakevis Thomason Ten Francis Laila Hassell Sage Moore Filmmakers Luke Harris Sade Famuyiwa Samantha Sadoff Ahmad McCutcheon Visual Artists Keviette Minor Seanna Latiff Tia Kemp Mya Davis Photographers Gbenga Komolafe Kiera Smith Ori Davis Amel Adrian Writers Astrid Kayembe Maya Tribbitt Daniris Ryan Awo Jama Gulet Isse Ariann Barker Ashara Wilson

Films The Wiz Poetic Justice The Photograph Coming to America Fences Girls Trip Friday Dope Touki Bouki Beauty Shop Black Panther Kiki Night Comes On Moonlight Dhalinyaro Marshall She’s Gotta Have It BlacKkKlansman Do the Right Thing Queen & Slim

BLACK RESOURCE LIST

Books The Color Purple Alice Walker Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston Beloved Toni Morrison Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Such a Fun Age Kiley Reid The Autobiography of Malcolm X Malcolm X The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander Homegoing Yaa Gyasi Sister Outsider Audre Lorde It’s Not All Downhill from Here Terry McMillan Invisible Man Ralph Ellison The Blacker the Berry Wallace Thurman Plum Bun Jessie Redmon Fauset Passing Nella Larsen Clap When You Land Elizabeth Acevedo Giovanni’s Room James Baldwin Black Boy Richard Wright More Than Enough Elaine Welteroth Girl, Woman, Other Bernardine Evaristo

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SAN FRANCISCO FIRES

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HAUTE MAGAZINE Based at the University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Follow us on Instagram at @hauteusc Visit us at hauteusc.com