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Swedish writer and activist Lovette Jallow

22 June 2022 at 23:56 | 1614 views

Lovette Jallow , born July 19, 1984 in Gambia , is a Swedish activist in anti-racism. In August 2019, the Jallow Raoul Wallenberg Prize was awarded. She has written the book Black Vogue: The Nuances of Beauty and founded the organization Action for Humanity which, among other things, provides legal and financial assistance to individuals who have been affected by, for example, racism and oppression.

Biography
Lovette Jallow grew up with her grandmother in Serrekunda in Gambia and came to her mother in Sweden when she was 11 years old. When she was just over 20 years old, she was diagnosed with autism and ADHD and she later stated her diagnoses as part of her success. Jallow then went to London to study real estate law; on her return, she was struck by the difference in supply in the Swedish shops for make-up and beauty products for black people. Then she realized that beauty was defined on the basis of a norm that she did not have the conditions to live up to and that it affected her self-esteem. To help and inspire others, Jallow started the facebook group Black Vogue , which discussed beauty and shared beauty tips for dark-skinned people, and the group drew attention to the difficulty of obtaining skin-colored products in darker shades in Sweden. She continued in the real estate industry but also started businesses where she lectures for the film and theater industry on makeup of darker skin tones and for those who work in wigmaking and with hair extensions.

Jallow spread the business on social media with Instagram and Youtube, where she expanded the posts to include racism and stories about what it is like to grow up as a black woman in Sweden. In 2016, she published the book Black Vogue: The Shades of Beauty , which contains beauty tips for people with darker skin tones, and has drawn attention to the stories of what it is like to grow up in Swedish society where white skin color is the norm. She compares it to how the women around her, her mother and grandmother gathered and made themselves beautiful together and mixed conversations about life with beauty tips.

Lovette Jallow founded the organization Action for Humanity 2017 as a direct result of the then notable slave trade with refugees in Libya. In addition to humanitarian activities in Libya, they work against racism and with young people in general.

Wikipedia

Note from Editor: Click on the link below to listen to Lovette:

https://www.ted.com/talks/lovette_jallow_normalizing_silence_in_swedish_society_jan_2018

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