Serena Williams in Conversation With Naomi Wadler on Power, Activism, and Black Girl Magic
It’s the last month of 2018, but it’s my first cover as the Editor-in-Chief of Teen Vogue. As a former Teen Vogue intern, I couldn’t be more excited to be helming this great brand and taking it into the future.
When I interviewed for this role with Anna Wintour, Condé Nast’s artistic director, she asked me several questions, including what makes me angry — which is a question I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about. My answer was simple: everything. My career as a fashion editor has been filled with questions about why I can’t just stick to pretty things and why I have to make so much noise.
As I wrap my head around what it means to be the youngest black Editor-in-Chief at a major publication, at 28 years old, I can’t help but think how fitting it is that my first cover is a conversation I had with Serena Williams and Naomi Wadler at our recent Teen Vogue Summit. As I stood on that stage with the inimitable, 23-time Grand Slam champion and mother, and with a passionate and relentless 12-year-old-activist, I realized that though we are worlds apart, all three of us as black women have had to reconcile our anger with our identity. I also realized that all of us were working to use our voices to make change.
My mother once told me that to sustain myself in this industry, I would have to be what I needed when I was younger. So here we are — Serena in cornrows for the first time on a cover, in conversation with two young black girls just trying to figure out our magic.
Transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Lindsay Peoples Wagner: There are so many things I want to ask both of you, but one of the immediate things that comes to mind is how you’ve both taken a lot of risks in your personal and professional lives. Why have you been so willing to take risks and speak out, whether about activism or being a woman of color?
Naomi Wadler: Okay, so I want to do all of the events that I do right until I am about to go onstage, because that is when I am like —
NW: It’s just great to be able to have the platform that I have, and that Serena has, and that you have, because not everybody has those platforms, and so part of that is being able to lift up other voices, and so that it’s not just somebody who is famous, or well known, or just a public figure.
Serena Williams: You put that really well. We’re in a position where we have the opportunity to use our status and our social network, and to use different platforms that we are on and that we can talk about it, ‘cause a lot of people see what we post and see the things that we write. And although it’s so fun to have the opportunity to post lots of fun things, I also find it really important to post and talk about real items that affect us on a day-to-day basis.
LPW: Both of you have a lot of participation in different organizations, and, Serena, you have a clothing line now. How do you manage all of those different things? Naomi, you can start.
NW: Okay, so I am managing it pretty horribly, but I mean —
LPW: I’m sure you’re not.
NW: I am. But the key is just to keep going and to recognize that it can only get better from here. Just keeping that mindset of, I’m going to keep going, I’m going to trudge on. It does matter, because it’s important work, but it also is just… what’s the word I’m looking for? OK, there’s not a word for what I’m trying to say, but I want you all to try and imagine.
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