How one woman joined the debate about race and advertising
NO WHITEWASHING
Her War on Epilepsy
Minneapolis broad-
caster Robyne
Robinson was in a
gift store two years
ago when she dis-
covered a box of
labels for vintage
products aimed at
black women, in-
cluding skin-light-
ening cream. “It
blew my mind,”
recalls Robinson,
48. “The images
instantly evoke
conversation.” She
decided to sell T-
shirts and posters
featuring the de-
signs (created by
Chicago’s Morton
Neumann)
and launched an
online store,
Blackbettyposters
.com. “As slaves,
black people were
considered three-
fifths human,”
she says. “So, post-
slavery, the more
white blood you
had, the more op-
portunity you had.
good at [gossiping].”
Even though
Lauren, 28, has been
seizure-free for
nine years now, Axelrod continues her
fight. “We all know
this disease can
break back through
at any moment,” she
says. “Once, Lauren
was reading to me
and not saying any
S sounds. I was
afraid something
was wrong, but she
said she felt fine.
It was just that
seizure starts with S,
so she didn’t want to
say it.” —A.R.
It was embedded in
the black community that you were
better if you were
lighter. Advertisers tapped into
that.” Robinson,
who sells around
20 pieces a month,
named the business
after her mother,
whose siblings
called her Black
Betty because her
skin was darker
than most of her
family’s. Robinson
hopes to advance
the discussion
about the relationship between skin
color and beauty
that still exists in
the United States.
“We need to talk
about how we got
here as a country,
and where we’re
headed.” —ALESHA
HARDWICK-WHYTE
Way back before U.S.
health care was a
hot topic, Susan
Axelrod was working
to improve it. As her
husband, David, built
his famed political-consulting business,
Susan, pregnant with
her first child, was
pursuing an MBA in
health services. Then
her daughter, Lauren,
was born; soon after,
the beautiful blue-eyed baby began to
suffer as many as
a dozen seizures a
day. In 1998 Axelrod
switched focus and
founded CURE (
Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy).
With her husband
now serving as President Obama’s senior
adviser, Chicago
native Axelrod stays
in Washington, D.C.,
one week a month.
“I try to do some social stuff for David,”
she says. “The other
day I went out with
this important D.C.
person, and she tried
to gossip with me.
‘Surely you know
so-and-so,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Well,
then surely you know
so-and-so?’ ‘No,’
I said. I’m not very
/ beauty /
In October 2002, Karen Dubin and Karen Adams launched Sniffa-palooza, a community for fragrance enthusiasts. Today, with
about 500,000 followers, the duo organizes monthly events,
mostly in and around New York City ($10 to $25 per person).
Attendees preview new launches, meet perfumers and participate in workshops where they learn about scents. “We
celebrate fragrance as an art,” Dubin says. For more information, go to sniffapalooza.com. —GABRIELLE FRANK
Scents a Trend?
FIVE OF SNIFFAPALOOZA’S FAVORITE FRAGRANCES Clive Christian X Bond no. 9 Andy Warhol Silver Factory
Guerlain Mitsouko Timbuktu by L’Artisan Parfumeur Fracas de Robert Piguet
