Serena Williams Becomes the First Black Female Athlete on Vogue Cover - Women and Hollywood
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Serena Williams has become the ninth black woman to grace the cover of Vogue since 1989, as well as the first black female athlete ever to do so. The tennis star’s fashion showcase comes eight months after Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o appeared on Vogue’s July 2014 cover.
Williams is a welcome sight on news stands, of course. As the top athlete in her sport, she deserves to be recognized for her achievements, and both her darker skin and athletic build are refreshing deviations from the Vogue norm. Role model-wise, she’s exactly the kind of hyper-accomplished woman we’d love for female-targeted publications to feature more regularly. But we also can’t help being a bit miffed that women of color like Williams or Nyong’o — or previous cover models like Beyonce, Rihanna, Oprah Winfrey, and Michelle Obama — need to be so much more successful than their white counterparts to “deserve” to be on Vogue (ahem, three-time cover model Blake Lively).