Danielle Prescod is the author of the bestselling book Token Black Girl and cofounder of 2BG Consulting which aims to help fashion and beauty brands and influencers on their anti-racism journeys.

Before she moved out of NYC to New Orleans and published her book, she was a fifteen-year veteran of the beauty and fashion industry, most recently the style director of BET.com and previously held positions at Nylon, Elle, InStyle.

She went to school in Greenwich, Connecticut, and was one of just three Black girls in her graduating class. She writes: "I remember that the reality of Blackness settled onto me like a terminal illness. I desperately wondered how I could get rid of it so I could just be like everyone else. It distressed me that I would never be 'cured' of it and could never escape it." She says it all got worse when she went to work in the fashion and beauty space. Her dieting became an eating disorder and her trendy workplaces re-created the racial traumas of her youth.

So much of Danielle's book is about identity— the one you assume but also the one the world assumes for you. She writes "Your identity and self-awareness evolves slowly over time, both subtly and overtly in how you decide to show up in the world. But it can also be dictated, unfairly at times, by how the world sees you. that's especially true "if you find yourself to be a woman – and even more so if you find yourself to be a woman of color."

Follow @danielleprescod and on TikTok @danielleprescod7

Purchase her book: bit.ly/3BxvshU

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