Bella Grace Magazine’s Lack of Diversity
On the day of 10/12/2025
On my fifteen minute break at the bookstore I work at, I decided to select a few magazines to flip through. I ended up selecting a couple of Bella Grace magazines; I had previously looked through them and considered buying them, but ultimately didn’t end up doing so. I was trying to budget and they didn’t make the cut of things I decided to buy at the time.
Today, I thought that would be different.
As I sat down and allowed myself to slow down amidst the busy workday, I fell deeper and deeper in love with the contents of what I saw: beautiful photos and beautiful imagery created by words, effective romanticization of the mundane, feelings being stirred and inspiration propelling me to indulge in my own creativity, my heart itching to manifest my soul through the contents of my own words combined with my own photography.
Having my own blog and YouTube, nevertheless my own website, has been something I pursued for exactly that purpose of cherishing my own creative as well as intellectual endeavors and to feel like it’s truly mine. Over the past few years, I’ve been on a mission to treat my creativity and non-money making passions as a priority in and of themselves for the simple fact that they bring me joy and give me a sense of purpose in alignment to my values. I would like to make money from my passions, especially if that means I get to invest more time into them. Even though I have the intention of monetizing on my writing and videos, I’m not doing them simply to make money. I would spend time on them regardless— as I am currently doing where I am not making money from my ideas. I moved away from social media as I’ve been focusing on this website and YouTube, decentering them for creating and sharing stuff, so that I could feel a deeper connection to myself and others through making my own platform. I aimed for this even if compared to my Instagram Reels, my creations aren’t getting thousands to millions of views (for now, at least). I wanted to feel that magic of my own self expression, not feeling the pressure of likes and views to validate my work.
I currently have Instagram deactivated, and it’s been really nice. It’s relieving to not feel like I have to pump out content piece after content piece in order to stay relevant and to appease the algorithm— I get to have more flexibility in creating because I want to, not because I have to so that, or else, I will be punished for not posting as fast and as often.
I feel more room to actually savor my creative processes, being able to go deeper into them instead of feeling constricted to condense them into short-form content. This isn’t to say that I will never post on Instagram again— that’s still up in air. But most things I post on Instagram or anywhere else in the form of short-form content will have to be a preview or a piece of something bigger or deeper— I don’t want short form to be the lens I use to create. The only time I may create short form content that is originally in short form rather than a clip from a longer YouTube video or excerpt from a blog post/essay is if it doesn’t threaten the integrity of what I want to share and how I want to share it; in other words, I don’t want it to disrupt the savoring and presence I have with myself and that I want to promote within my audience. It would be something that is originally shorter in length, not because the algorithm and shorter attention spans demand it.
The pictures throughout the Bella Grace magazines provoked associations to nature, mysticism and spirituality, self connection and of course creativity and creative confidence. They have a very cozy and aesthetically pleasing vibe that automatically make you want to slow down and be present with the beauty of life when you look at them. I appreciated prompts that encouraged imagination, such as ones asking readers to detail what kind of store they would open, where their responses were shared and ultimately led me personally as a reader to want to answer that question as well. I definitely see it coming up as a journal prompt or future blog post, if not both.
I was very tempted to buy not just one, but two different Bella Grace magazines. Oftentimes in my creative journey and in my self expressive endeavors in general, including my intellectual ones and how I express myself in relationships with other people, I will feel resistance holding me back from showing up as authentically as I would like to. Reasons for this resistance include feelings of shame and guilt for taking up space, or self doubt in validating myself for knowing what I am talking about and affirming my experiences and narratives. I have definitely come a long way in combatting this shame and imposter syndrome throughout my adulthood, but I still have a long way to go. I recently started going to therapy again after five years of not going, and this is something that I am still working on. These feelings and related limiting beliefs about myself are also tied to societal conditionings as well as familial conditionings I learned where despite desiring to invest seriously in my non-career and non-academic related interests, I was made to feel lie I was wasting my time or not being productive in more “important” things. But especially for taking artistic, creative and humanistic passions seriously in a way where I do want to incorporate them into my career, that was even more looked down upon and scoffed at for not being realistic or possible in the first place. I know that this is not an uncommon narrative, and I know that many people from my South Asian US American background can related to this as well.
But when I see other people’s creative or intellectual works that are deemed unimportant or a waste of time through capitalistic lenses that demand conformity and toning down authenticity and a person’s greater purpose beyond their job title, I start to come home to myself. And I want to share that joy with other people. I feel especially inspired and validated when I see evidence of others prioritizing their passions and dreams through various forms of self expression, especially when these people are vocal in overcoming similar limiting beliefs that I struggle with. I want to have a similar positive effect on others, where I remind them that their voices and dreams matter through being an example.
I want to connect with others through the connection I have with myself, and I ultimately want to inspire others to connect to themselves the way that creators different from me have led me back to myself.
This collective inspiring through witnessing passion among others is so beautiful. It’s a regular occurrence for me, and it can be inspiring and confidence inducing as well as igniting feelings of jealousy that give birth to the realizations of me not tapping into my potential as much as I should be during times when imposter syndrome and self doubt are really getting in the way.
I was excited when Bella Grace triggered those sparks of creative and other self expressive desire inside of me, and I am grateful for how they reinforced my creative energy and valuing of my creativity when it comes to my blog writings and photos. I know that there are tons of resources online, including Pinterest and Substack, that can have a similar effect— but ultimately, it felt different having physical copies that I could hold in my hands and flip through without the requirement of harsh lights from the computer or phone screens. In addition, I was also grateful for the ways in which it reminded me to be present in my life and to notice perceiving beauty through the small things, bringing my attention back to just how beautiful life really is. I have no doubt that Bella Grace gave me fuel I needed to continue my creative journey.
Ironically, it also served as an example of why my voice and elevating it is important because of what it lacked:
Diverse representation.
Even in my positive basking of the positive effects that the magazines were having on me, something seemed missing– and I soon realized that something that felt off was non-white women not being featured.
Throughout both magazine issues I picked out and an additional third Bella Grace issue I managed to find, with a mix of hope and dread, I tried to find photos and writing from women of color. And out of several stories, I managed to find only two. But the photos were even worse– I did not see a single photo of Black or Brown women, despite there being several photos of white women. I found only two photos of East Asian women.
This was incredibly disappointing.
Part of me wants to give the benefit of the doubt– that this disparity in representation is unintentional, and not on purpose.
When I did a Google search about my concerns about the lack of diversity and especially whether or not it is intentional, I found an Instagram post from June 5, 2020 on Bella Grace’s Instagram account. If you don’t remember, this was during the time period where the murder of George Floyd caused national uproar and prompted more awareness and discussions among race-based police brutality as well as systemic racism in general. Bella Grace’s post, having three different photos of Black women from previous issues with each word of “YOUR VOICE MATTERS” written on each picture, has the following caption:
“We realize we have a long way to go in our efforts to represent more BIPOC in our publications. The steps we’ve taken thus far have fallen short, and we know we need to do better. We have been spending time and consideration thinking of what we can do to make a meaningful change to the diversity of women we show in our magazines. While we continue to have these discussions, we can say the following: Our publication is unique in the way that it’s made up of submissions. It can be a challenge to control the focus of the stories and photographs that we receive. This is no excuse, but something we recognize and need to improve on. We pledge to expand the services and photographers we source content from. We pledge to be more vocal about the diverse content we are seeking to publish. We will continue to educate ourselves and listen to how we can better support BlPOC women. We are committed to filling the pages of Bella Grace with diverse stories and photographs that reflect, uplift, and inspire all of our readers.”
This sentiment seems sincere, but the question is— what has Bella Grace done to show their integrity to their intention?
In the comments of this post, many women of color express how they love the magazine, but were disappointed at the lack of diversity in its contents. I saw one commenter say that it was the reason she did not subscribe to the magazine despite loving it. Someone else said that they were looking forward to Bella Grace’s ongoing efforts. Another woman said that she hopes that Bella Grace won’t tokenize the voices of people of color as they try to show themselves being more inclusive— that they will be genuine in the practice rather than making inclusion a performance.
My curiosity led me to browse through the rest of Bella Grace’s Instagram account, with me wondering if women of color were featured on their posts. And thankfully, I did see a handful of women of color; at the same time, the featured photos of people are most often overwhelmingly white women.
I do want to note that when I was looking at this particular Autumn 2025 issue, I did notice that there are a few people of color on the staff, one of whom is featured multiple times in the writings in the issue.
After clocking out of my shift at the bookstore, I continued going through the issues and kept trying to decide whether or not I was going to buy these magazines. I itched to walk to the cash register counter and have one of my coworkers check me out. I would have loved to take them home with me. Again, on one hand, I really, really wanted them and was taken aback by the inspiration they ignited within me. I loved the possibility of me reading them before falling asleep, or having them next to me as encouragement and validation as I made my own blogs. On the other hand, I was conflicted:
Would buying these magazines mean I was betraying my values?
I ended up leaving the magazines behind my counter, wanting to think about it some more before making a decision.
I had already been a somewhat conscious, yet imperfect consumer when it came to exercising an ethical compass when buying things. Still, I definitely had improvement to do. But since the end of 2023, I became even more conscious and more selective about where I give my dollars. I make a conscious effort to stay away from shopping on Amazon, and I refuse to shop at McDonald’s. I will never shop on Shein or Temu, but that doesn’t mean that the places I do shop from are completely free from exploitation of their workers in the ways they create and source their clothes. Again I’m imperfect, but that is no excuse to avoid improvement. It doesn’t hurt that I am left with more money and better quality items even if fewer of them than I would have been had I not been as picky.
I know that it is important to consider where I spend my dollars, even if changes do not happen overnight and even if a notoriously unethical company does not go out of business– at least not for a long time. I know that despite the outcome, especially if selective spending and boycotting are done collectively, the very fabric of society is affected.
As consumers, we have power to influence what companies, especially big corporations, get to get away with and what they don’t. We get to show what is acceptable and allowed to succeed and what doesn’t. We ultimately help ourselves on an individual level too, not letting the convenience of shopping at our fingertips or for ridiculously low prices allure us into overspending from buying many things simply because we can. This allows us to appreciate what we do invest in more, allowing us to actually enjoy them better.
When we refuse to spend money on a company that promotes dehumanization and other unethical practices, we are voting with our dollars. We are voting for what is and is not acceptable– what gets to be normal and what does not. We’re showing companies what we will reject them for, and what we will reward them for. We are showing society at large that there will not be support given to places that are okay with succeeding with the selfish expense of hurting or exploiting others. This sets an example for other companies and other consumers. As a result, investment and therefore resources towards oppressive ideologies and practices lessens, while resources and energy on progressive, more inclusive and humanitarian practices based on ethical values increases. As a society, we learn from each other that the normalcy of exclusion and oppression will no longer be tolerated or allowed without pushback. We learn that we have the power to decide that people over profit is the way to go, and we especially witness that when our individual efforts become collective efforts resulting in more ethically grounded companies succeeding while the businesses of less ethical companies start or continue to fail, or at least, end up decreasing significantly in profit.
Sure, me deciding not to buy the Bella Grace magazines will not make the magazine go out of business– and nor do I want them to. It will not send a message to the company that I am upset with them and lead them to making drastic changes— unless I write them an email or contact them in another way.
On the day of 10/13/2025
The morning after today, I am still trying to decide whether I will purchase the magazines when I go in for my shift. I am pondering the following questions:
Do I have reasonable evidence (or lack thereof) in front of me to determine that the lack of representation is undeniably intentional? Or do I have enough ambiguity to determine that I do not have enough information to make such a conclusion?
Should I act from a self-serving place to buy these magazines, so that I, especially being a woman of color, can continue to be be moved with inspiration through these magazines to connect to myself and value and manifest my own writing and other art– taking the good from this magazine even amidst my qualms and dissatisfaction with it?
Can I perhaps, while being aware of my own qualms with the magazine, use the magazine’s inspiration of romanticization and valuing one’s own art, to ironically find empowerment in authentically expressing myself against norms of white-centric narratives where I make space for myself and other people of color to remind us that indeed– our voices matter, too, whether or not they are chosen in less inclusive spaces?
Also, how many times have we as women doubted the value of our own ideas or work, creative or intellectual, only to see a man succeeding through similar ideas? How many times have we women of color been overlooked for our contributions and ideas, only for a white woman or another white person to be recognized for similar ones– even if they expressed their ideas after we have already advocated for ours?
At the very least, maybe these magazines can show us that it’s not our ideas, and it’s not us when we are doubting ourselves— it’s other people’s limiting perceptions of us that hinder them from acknowledging our worth and what we have to offer. We can see that when we see white women’s ideas and creativity similar to our own being featured, knowing that we are not better or worse than them and therefore our ideas must matter, too, on the virtue of being human. Again, just because other people— certain people— can’t see that— doesn’t take away from that truth.
Yes, there are cases of universal experiences outside of systemic hierarchies where you may doubt yourself about an idea, only to see someone else thriving in it where you realize that you were good enough, after all– you just needed to believe in yourself more.
But you best believe in yourself when you have an environment that believes in you, too. That doesn’t mean that you are void from your individual self-belief before you encounter such an environment.
When you see people with a privilege that you do not have thriving where you are less privileged, that should draw your attention more to your worthiness of having those good things, too, regardless of what you have been taught. In the way that I as a brown, Bangladeshi-American woman am inspired by the contents of Bella Grace, I am led to claiming, creating and sustaining my own spaces where I encourage people from all backgrounds to use their voices and make their own spaces when they are not welcomed in existing ones; or, I want to encourage people to actively put themselves out there so that they can find and attract people from existing spaces in which their foundations are cherishing of diversity.
In conclusion, I am leaning towards buying the magazines, though I am not sure if I am going to buy them again. I am mainly doing so from a self-serving place; I am going to use them as reminders that despite capitalistic conditionings, my art, even if not “productive” in terms of being money producing, matters because my self-expression matters– just as the self expression from the women in the Bella Grace magazines for the sake of being human matters. I crave having physical reminders that my creative and intellectual works matter when I am doubting the value of my own thoughts and ideas and putting them out there for others to see, encouraging me to keep on going with my own process.
But I am going to take it a step further, as I hinted at before– I am going to use the inspiration I get from the magazines themselves to affirm my right to express myself and take up space– or make my own space– in rebellion against the exclusion -- intentional or not– from these magazines.
Although I am still skeptical about Bella Grace’s sincerity in practice of diversity and inclusion, I am still hopeful that the magazine’s intentions are sincere and that their actions in future issues will come to match. I’m not necessarily going to be going out of my way to promote the magazine like I might others that include more diverse voices until I have better evidence of their sincerity.
And my reasons for skepticism are valid. In that same Instagram post, I found multiple comments from women of color stating how they have submitted their works, but were never featured. Recalling Bella Grace’s caption, they said that one of the main reasons for the lack of diversity was due to their submissions not being from a diverse range of authors. However, in light of these comments mentioning submissions, as some commenters stated, in order for Bella Grace to feature more diversity, they must accept and include diverse voices they receive in their submissions in the first place.
The truth is, it has been five years since that 2020 post, and as much as I want to give the benefit of the doubt that the magazine is making conscious efforts of inclusion, I can’t help but feel an “ick” as the lack of diversity is undeniable. This is especially given that I tried to seek out women of color authors as I mentioned earlier, and even then struggled to find more than a couple of them. Despite this, I am not going to rule out the possibilities of unconscious biases rather than conscious ones. With that being said, unconscious biases do not excuse the continued lack of inclusion from the magazine’s part and I sincerely hope that they will do better.
The irony here is that often our sources for inspiration where we take good from are also often sources that we “fight” against using the inspiration we got from them in the first place.
I want more marginalized people to know and feel that their voices, stories, thoughts, ideas and experiences matter. I want to stay connected to the knowing and feeling that what I have to say and share with others matter. Using the inspiration from Bella Grace, as well as several other sources including many fiction and nonfiction books I’ve read and will read, articles and videos I’ve watched/read by authors/creators of various backgrounds, I will continue to advocate for myself and others.
