The usual suspects are saying the April “Shape Issue” of Vogue, with the Cleveland Cavalier superstar LeBron James and model Gisele Bundchen cover pic, is racist.
It’s one thing to have an athlete in that kind of pose and with that kind of expression on a court after he or she has done something miraculous. It’s another thing to couple it with someone who is of an entirely different ilk and gender. That turns it into a racially charged image.
– Jason Rosenfeld, art professor, Marymount Manhattan College
It must suck being hyper-sensitive liberals.
I was just having fun with it, I was just showing a little emotion. We had a few looks and that was the best one we had. Everything my name is on is going to be criticized, in a good way or a bad way. Who cares, honestly, at the end of the day. I am happy with it, absolutely.
– LeBron James, on his shoot with photographer Annie Leibovitz
I thought they told us health care and Iraq troop withdrawals and global warming and voter disenfranchisement were the issues that were important to the American people?
It’s a MAGAZINE COVER, dammit! Get over yourself.
And let’s look at it this way: If LeBron was passed over for Richard Gere or George Clooney and we later saw this very picture, those screaming racism now because of the cover would be screaming racism because James was passed over because of the cover.
What’s next? Are they going to stage a boycott against Volvo for that “I Adore You” commercial with the blonde chick feeling up a black S80?
It never ends.
It is only “racially charged”, dear professor, because you see people as colors and members of groups, not individuals. I look at that cover and see LeBron James and some woman in a dress. The color of the two is never an issue.
NEWS FLASH!!!!!
HUGE FAMOUS GUY HOLDS BEAUTIFUL FAMOUS WOMAN ON MAGAZINE COVER IN A MANNER WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT BE VIEWED AS FAMILIAR.
….
Yeah, some folks have WAY too much time on their hands.
If you show only couples who have the same skin-tone, you’re racist. If you show couples with different skin-tones, you’re racist….
F* them.
Madd, Liberals are ALWAYS projecting. That’s part of why Conservatives frustrate and annoy them so much, because we don’t think the way they want us to think, that is, like them. But they project. They’re deeply racist, and think everyone else is too, and thus come up with all kinds of weird “Irrationalizations” for their statements.
Another example is how liberals think about guns. They project. They think that if they were to commit a crime, step 1 is they would go out and BUY a gun. So they want to regulate that. And they look at anyone who has already bought a gun as one step from being a murderer. (And a corollary, since they don’t already own a gun, they don’t consider that if I already own a gun, stopping me from buying a new one will not prevent me from doing something bad with the one I already own. Already owning one is not part of their mindset, so they can’t project it.)
So liberals look at a picture like this, and they already have a hypersensitivity to race, so they see it and think, well, I’m not sure how the Irrationalization works on this one, because all those Benetton ads deliberately had mixed-race couples etc, and they were considered progressive, but this one is not….
Could it be the critics are projecting? Maybe they see black people as savages and project their negative feelings onto those who created the magazine as innocent fun.
Accusers are often guilty themselves.
Forgive me for being naive, but I’ve read the statement by the art professor 3 times and I cannot for the life of me understand how he could see anything even remotely racist in that magazine cover.
Jason Rosenfeld used the word “ilk” as a racial connoctation, isn’t that racist, too? Just curious, because I am white and do not know the rules regarding what exactly constitutes racism. And is Rosenfeld a Jewish name?
I think that the cover kinda makes Gisele look like a whore, isn’t that sexist, too? I don’t know because I am a man.
I like LeBron though. I wish he could get traded.
He gets to hold a beautiful woman in his arms.
He makes multi-millions playing basketball, something he did for fun as a kid at the playground.
He got who knows how much $$$$$$ for the picture shoot.
And, people are complaining? What a bunch of idiots…they should be congratulating him.