Controversy: March 2013 Archives

Poll: Is Businessweek's Cover

Poll: Is Businessweek's Cover "Offensive"?

Controversy has been brewing all week over a cover created by Richard Turley and his team at Bloomberg Businessweek. The February 25, 2013 cover, titled "The Great American Housing Rebound" features an illustration by Andres Guzman depicting an African-American family celebrating in a house stuffed with piles of cash.

The NAACP's Dedrick Muhammad told New York the cover was "racist and a mischaracterization. They are clearly racializing the issue by having mostly Blacks and Latinos--possibly only Blacks and Latinos--benefitting."

According to the New York article, the dust up first erupted this morning after Matthew Yglesias at Slate wrote about the cover (in an article titled "Businessweek Warns that Minorities May Be Buying Houses Again") and suggested that the magazine "ought to be ashamed."

Soon after that post went up, the Twittersphere was in an outcry over the offending image, with thousands of tweets calling for an explanation of just how the cover made it to print. By this afternoon, even Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley was calling the cover art "racist" and "outrageous."

Bloomberg Businessweek editor Josh Tyrangiel has since offered an apology.

Now it's your turn to weigh in. How do you feel about this cover? 


« Controversy: February 2012 | Archives | Controversy: January 2014 »