Bloomberg Businessweek Should Explain How Its Racist Cover Got Selected And Published

[mollywobbles867]

To highlight a story about the return of dangerous, pre-crash practices to the housing market, Bloomberg Businessweek decided to publish a cover that didn’t just blame consumers rather than lenders for the rise of subprime lending and the treatment of mortgages as a way to get access to cash, but specifically portrayed consumers of color (and

Comments

[idemandjustice]

Holy shit.

[kittenmommy]

Right??

I'm on my iPhone now, so I didn't realize that green stuff was money rather than shrubbery until I read the article.

[kittenmommy]

And now I'm on my computer... oh, look! The one white person? She's fat!

*sigh*

[idemandjustice]

I'm not convinced any of them are white.

[executivehpfan]

Post racial society, ladies and gentlemen. We just couldn't have 28 days of peace, could we?

[ook]

Wow. It's like going back to the 1930s when blacks were depicted as mammies and Stephin Fetchit caricatures. Then again, Tea Partiers still pass around cartoons and Photoshops of President Obama in various racist ways so it's not really that surprising.

Where's the cover art showing the big skyscraper with white bankers rolling around in piles of money; lighting their cigars with a $100; doing lines of coke and high-fiving each other that they've managed to rob the United States successfully. You could add someone from the DOJ in there too, winking as the police beat up a few Occupy protesters outside.

[cinnamontoast]

That would have been a FAR better cover for the sub-par mess. Allll the people who wound up upside down with their houses weren't minorities.

Seriously, this is stunningly bad.

[kittenmommy]

That would've been a much more accurate cover!

[soleiltropiques]

Beat me to it.

It takes a special brand of asshole to make up a cover like this, and then to come up with as insincere sounding an apology as the one they offered.

[cinnamontoast]

At first glance, when I opened up my page and saw the illustration, I thought it was some kind of retro thing from another community. Something from the late '70s maybe. Then I looked at the whole thing.

WTF. What editor thought this was a nifty idea for a cover?

[shortsweetcynic]

this exactly.

[ook]

Now that I think about it, this cover art reminds me of something from the 1970s satirical magazine "The Harvard Lampoon," but the racist caricatures date back to the Civil War days in the U.S. where blacks were depicted in a negative manner in "humorous" illustrations.

[cinnamontoast]

It reminds me of the same. Like Mad magazine or popular posters of the day. I looked for the poster that reminded me strongly of this illustration and couldn't find it.

Unfortunately, along with avocado green furniture and shocking orange shag carpet, it looks like the worst of the '70s is coming back. :(

You might be interested in this article from the curator of the Jim Crow Museum. It's an interesting read about the way that racist memorabilia fades in and out of Americana. I'll bet that this cover makes its way into the Museum.

[astridmyrna]