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Editor's Letter: Why We Should Talk About Our Relationship With White Validation

Last year, I was featured in Elle magazine’s list of women using technology to change the world. It was a moment. It will always be a moment, because I guess anything that recognises your hard work, should be something you take in, digest and cherish. And more than anything, Elle, like so many of your favourite mainstream magazines rejected many of my job applications with deafening silence or generic rejection emails that didn’t even include my name, so I guess there was an air of sweet victory to being featured.

Yet, as I posted about the Elle coverage, I questioned how much it meant to me. Why was this moment so important? I guess what made me question the moment more and what it meant was the praise and the people, those well-intended folks that wanted to buy copies, but had failed to buy a Black Ballad membership - and there is was. I asked myself - do I, does our community value white validation, white praise, white work more than black validation, black praise and black work?