In a shocking racial incident in London — a reminder of just how pervasive racial profiling is in the lives of people of color — Edward Enninful was “instructed to use the loading bay” when he returned to work as editor-in-chief of British Vogue.

Make no mistake; it could just as easily have happened in America. Still, it’s a gut punch for all of us who admire Edward and his tremendous work advancing issues of racism and racist attitudes in the fashion industry and beyond.

Enninful posted on Instagram Wednesday: “Today I was racially profiled by a security guard whilst entering my work place. As I entered, I was instructed to use the loading bay.”

Edward said that Condé Nast, which owns and distributes British Vogue, "moved quickly to dismiss the security guard." The guard was employed by a third-party contractor.

"It just goes to show that sometimes it doesn’t matter what you’ve achieved in the course of your life: the first thing that some people will judge you on is the colour of your skin," Enninful wrote.

Edward Enninful took the helm of Britain’s most powerful fashion publication in 2017, as the first man and first Black editor of British Vogue. in 2016, Enninful was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire for his efforts to support diversity in the fashion industry.

“My Vogue is about being inclusive,” he said at the time. “It is about diversity — showing different women, different body shapes, different races, different classes, tackling gender.”

Edward Enninful’s Writing on Race

“Racism Is A Global Issue”: Edward Enninful On The Importance Of Cultivating An Anti-Racist Agenda British Vogue June 1, 2020

Last week, I watched a video of George Floyd, the 46-year-old African-American man who died in custody after an officer from the Minneapolis Police Department knelt on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. I am going to tell you exactly how it made me feel.

First of all, I was wracked by a feeling of intense sadness at the senseless loss of life. Then I saw the video footage of Amy Cooper, the white woman who called the police on Christian Cooper, a black man walking in New York’s Central Park, when he asked her to put her dog on a leash. That made me feel enraged. In the days since, I have been unable to shake a very specific feeling that will be familiar to black people around the world: that my life is somehow disposable.

I am lucky to have enormous privilege in my world, but as a man of colour, and as a gay man, I could not escape the sense that it doesn’t matter what you’ve achieved, or what you’ve contributed to society, your life can still feel worthless. When I step out of my door in the morning, to take a walk or to wander alone, I am always aware of increased personal danger because of the colour of my skin.

These past few days I’ve gone between rage and sadness and fear. What these racist acts reveal, among many other things, is that we have a lot more work to do. Anybody who thinks we’re there, that we have created a society where everyone is equal – well, they’re wrong. Racism is a global issue. Racism is a British issue. It is not one that is merely confined to the United States – it is everywhere, and it is systemic.