Why Yara Shahidi Is The Voice of Her Generation, Lensed By Scott Trindle For Vogue UK October 2018

‘Black-ish’ star Yara Shahidi is off to college in ‘Grown-ish’, making it to season 2 as a sophmore in the ‘Black-ish’ spinoff. Praised effusively by both Oprah and Michelle Obama, Shahidi has deferred her real-life freshman year at Harvard, to take her activism to young people, inspiring them to vote in America’s upcoing critical November 6 elections. Check out eighteenx18.

Yara Shahidi is styled by Caroline Newell in ‘Why Yara Shahidi Is The Voice Of Her Generation’, lensed by Scott Trindle for Vogue UK’s October 2018 issue. Olivia Singer breaks bread with Shahidi at Sweet Chick, a low-key fried-chicken restaurant in the city's Fairfax district, owned by her cousin, Nasir Jones.  "We come here a lot," she grins, as her mom and 10-year-old brother join the convo, craving more crayfish hush puppies. "I'm Iranian-American... I really hit the cultural jackpot in terms of food."

The daughter of Hollywood parents, Shahidi’s rise has been noteworthy. The Obama family’s love of ‘Black-ish’ and its confrontation of issues from police brutality and middle-class black guilt is balanced by Trump’s derision of the show. "Can you imagine the furor of a show, 'Whiteish'! Racism at highest level?" he tweeted

The young and committed Chanel ambassador sees her relationship with the fashion industry as one that gives her a platform where she can discuss issues important to her. Making commercials since age 7, she was required to set up a corporation aged seven: "I called it Dharma Driven," she smiles, "because, even then, I felt like this industry can feel trivial if there's no deeper purpose to it. My dharma, my purpose, is not to live in a self-centred world; to feel like one day I can look back and feel like what I did mattered."

The blazing young star has appeared on stages across the world advocating youth engagement and intersectionality; joining Margaret Atwood and Tina Tchen at Tory Burch's inaugural Embrace Ambition Summit in New York, where she paraphrased James Baldwin to explain, "The paradox of education is precisely this: as one proceeds to be educated, they begin to examine the world — the society — that is educating them." Her drive to confront structural racism, sexism and classism would be remarkable no matter what her age — but when delivered by an 18-year-old it is, frankly, astonishing. "Yara's character, integrity and intellect are matched by a deep sense of purpose, which is extraordinary to see in someone so young," said Burch. "She is positioned to become a voice of her generation."

Yara was seven when the iPhone came out; 12 when Florida teenager Trayvon Martin was shot; and she joined millions watching worldwide as Philando Castile's death from gunshot wounds streamed over Facebook Live, with his girlfriend calmly broadcasting live. "I'm the beneficiary of growing up in a generation which is so involved, and I'm surrounded by activists using social media to make history," she says. "It's an oxymoronic time; so much is happening socially and politically, in a way that is terrifying but at the same time is producing this incredible level of unity."

Singer reminds us that for years Shahidi carried a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte in her bag, "because I love revolutions".  With her insightful historical and political understanding of human relations fully-developed in her consciousness, it seems certain that the best is yet to come from Yara Shahidi.