okay - MAP,

are you saying I lost my bet

Wait a minute...I still didn't see a Vogue issue of a white person king konging it. MAP's pictures just prove that other Black women have been covered more gracefully. In the case of Lebron...there is no case of white folks king konging it. So technically I didn't lose.

Anyways - I'm still offended.

Question, why pick this cover


When they could have used this cover (that was tucked in the inside) Calling it the SHAPE issue is nothing but psychology...pimping yall minds


Vogue has a history of class, grace, and beauty on the cover. If RollingStones did it, it would be a different story (because RollingStones puts crazy isht on their covers most of the time). But Vogue? no.

And Jennifer...Here's an article that also slammed Vogue for that cover of Jennifer

Same question...why use this cover...



When they could have used this beautiful, graceful, cover (also tucked away in the inside)? Calling it the POWER issue is more psychology...


I have to crack on ya'll for a minute...for sleeping on this...some of ya'll gonna be mad at me...but I'm just shocked that this cover is being taking so passively....Its like the black "help" at a country club in the 1800s saying..."Ole massa ain't mean no harm by hanging that noose in front of the coloreds only bathroom...Kunta Kinte and them just making a big deal out of nothing. Why, that noose aint made out of nothing but rope. And rope ain't nothing but wheat and straw. Wheat and straw is in a lot of things. I don't see whats the big deal about that noose"

Are ya'll saying that they can put us on the cover any way they want...as long as they have the right title for the THEME of that magazine?

Poets? whats going on with ya'll?

seriously

Ya'll still lub me

Or it could just be the diva in me. Or maybe even the publisher in me...its just like good common sense...folks are supposed to put the best picture on the cover.

To me, this is the Jennifer Hudson I've seen everywhere:










Thats a long way from this:




And what about Lebron's picture, Sam?


Overall I think Vogue has changed hands in their operations over time and I think this is going to be a pattern for Blacks on the cover of Vogue - unless they are really affected by the high number of people that are getting at them about this recent King Kong Lebron issue.

The Jennifer thing was something that kind of slid under the radar...there was nothing that seemed racial about it...just a bad choice in photo cover...some people raised an eyebrow in the media about it because it was so obvious when you looked at the photos on the inside, but this racial stereotype with the Lebron...this is taking it to a whole notha place with it.

i STILL don't have a problem with the jennifer cover at all. she looks beautiful, and it seems like an expression of her personality.

the lebron cover - i'm sure that my post before was piggybacking off my disagreement with the jennifer cover critique. i didn't say what i wanted to in detail because i didn't want to get into this diatribe that i'm about to spin off on.

honestly, i don't like the cover. and the reason is because he does look like he's trying to scare somebody or something. and yes, i admit, i do see the very possible subtext of perpetuating the insulting characterization of black man as beast and deflowerer of white women. but he put himself in that pose, whether or not vogue asked him to. vogue did have a choice on whether or not to choose the first or second cover and yes they did choose the more aggressive shot of lebron, but you know what? i don't care.

i don't care because people see what they want to see when they look at that picture. they bring their own mindset to it. if they want to see another black-man-as-animal-grabbing-on-a-white-girl image, they're going to see it even if they had used the second cover, believe me. ain't a thing changing either way, so far as i'm concerned, so why should i care? you put a big black man next to a lil white girl anywhere and people are going to think what they're going to think based on who they are. shoot, you coulda put little eva pigford, a black model, in that same dress in that same pose, and people who would want to see a problem would have wondered why they got TWO black people on the cover of vogue acting uncouth by displaying jungle sexuality. i don't know whose idea it was to fish out a king kong/fay wray picture to put next to this cover in the first place, but all they did was make it easier for folks to vocalize what would have bothered them regardless of whether the king kong comparison had been made.

i actually think that it's a good thing that i DIDN'T think "king kong" immediately when i first saw the vogue cover. i think it's a sign - not of my willingness to uncle tom behind what white people want me to think (or ignore), but a sign of my ability to think on my own without knee jerk reacting to the subtext.

somewhere along the line, some revolutionary bamboozled the rest of us into thinking that we all have to think alike and search for the subtext in everything so that we can all carry that chip on our shoulders and let isht get us all mad and misdirected. rope-a-dope isht. i think that this lebron vogue cover is an example of this.

could it be racist or just an innocuous cover? the answer is yes to both. does it MATTER? depends on who you ask. you know, if we still have the right to think as individuals and have different opinions. mine is that if racism is what we're concerned about, there are myriad other things that take precedence over whether vogue (who likely don't give a isht about black folks anyway, given that in their long history they've only had a handful of black covers) drew on racist imagery for a cover.

they (and it's a bunch of theys out there) might be out to mischaracterize my dad, future husband and son, but i say, fcuk 'em. there's nothing i can do about what they think, or even, in this free speech country, how they portray us. if it's not overt, it's covert. if it's not said in mixed company, it's being said on the golf course. their isht ain't gonna change. either way, we gonna keep doing what we been doing for centuries. excelling as best we can.

i expect racism and it doesn't give me pause anymore. i'm not excusing it. i'm not cool with it. i'm just not jumping up every time i see it unless there's something i can do. and in this case, not buying vogue or its sponsors' products ain't much in my case 'cause i don't want that mess anyway.

that inside shot of jennifer sitting at the piano does NOTHING for me...there is no personality in that photo whatsoever. the same thing with that inside photo of lebron or the cover with george (he looks gay if you ask me.) those images do nothing because they say nothing. it's like a picture you would take at sears portrait studio.

perhaps i'm the only that does not feel some kind of way about the cover. maybe it was because i was raised in a racially diverse household and i don't see people as simply black & white with all kinds of motives that are guided soley by their race, (even though i have been affected many ways by it.) i was taught to see beyond that. i teach my children to see beyond that. if i thought that every issue was a slight on either my african-american or italian hertiages, i would be a very disagreeable and untrusting person.

I know nothing about how Vogue's covers tend to look or whatever, so there's not much I can say on this subject, but . . .

If there was a similar picture of a white guy, would this King Jong comparison be out there? In situations like these I wonder if the reactions tell us more about what's going on in the minds of the offendors or the offended. I personally don't think "monkey" when i see muscular black man. Even if he is yelling and holding a white woman. If I had seen the cover without all this controversy, I would have though nothing.

<------- in agreeance with Glory.

Well it looks like we are all on different sides - not a bad thing. I just know that my grandmother, who is a black republican with a flag in her yard and is proudly voting for McCain - also sees nothing wrong with the Vogue covers.

I also had this conversation with a friend...who happens to be Muslim...I asked him, do you see anything wrong with the Lebron cover - is it just me, am I over reacting - he says, "if you can look at that cover and not understand racism, then you never will".

So in that, I will stop with my rants I'm glad that we have the diversity of views on these boards.

LMFAO !! Tizzy? You are too fucking funny!!

If I didn’t know any better, you are almost applying that because a “Muslim” agrees with you that makes it bond. Yo, it’s almost like you’re saying Muslims are the authority of blackness. LOL, well my co-worker who is Jewish agrees with you too, does that automatically refute the Muslims take? Since, religious beliefs somenhow gives you “special” insight into things. Whew! This was so damn funny to read!

For the most part I agree with Glory. ( Especially since it was so intelligently written I’m almost afraid not to ) I guess as an artist/business man my take is slightly different than most of you on this board.

Damali the artist says:

First and foremost I think most people forgot a crucial component to all of this that Astr8 sort of glanced over and that photography is an artform. With that said, any piece of art is always subjective. That’s why some of us can see that picture and see the most dominant basketball player in the NBA expressing his over the top aggressivness that makes him the best with his arm around the biggest model in the world. While some of us see him as an ape swinging his helpless white victim. In almost every way the subjectivness of viewing art is almost identical to a Rorschach Ink Blot test. What you see in an image is more a reflection of YOUR psychological personality than what the artist is really attempting to express.

Damali the Biz brotha says:

Second, as a business man the only thing you are truly concerned with is the bottom line. The bottom line can only be reached via EFFECTIVE MARKETING. The cover shot is the most important photo in a publication. You have maybe 1.5 to 2 seconds max to grab the attention of someone browsing and convince them to open up and buy your product. Tizzy, you and I have always disgreed with what grabs a person’s attention and what doesn’t. I do not think that I am crossing a line when I say ( like your Grandmother ) that you do tend to lean on the more conservative side of photos. I personally never seen one ( what I would consider) “edgy” or “conversational piece” photo in any ofyour papers. They were all gorgeous and artistic but never “edgy”. The fact that we spent all of this time talking about the photo, pouring thru a European magazine that very few of us here could afford the products offered inside is a clear cut example of “effective marketing”.

LMAO !! I just had to read your response again Tizzy…I love you sooo much and damn you’re hilarious!

well, after careful consideration and repeated glances at the lebron photo I have made up my mind.
i find it to be Kongish, gorillaish and Mighty Joe Youngish to say the least. i figure that the vogue people didnt twist lebron's arm for him to ok this flic. he, if no one else, should have put a stop to it.
any black man who has ever had strangers cross the street or clutch their purses or seem to warrant extra survelliance when in the presence of innocent white women knows the repercussions of this image on the mindsets of those we have yet to meet.