Are black people really being profiled?

Vogue came out with their new magazine cover for the month of April, it was a historic cover because it featured two superstars at the top of their game. Lebron James, a young NBA superstar, and Gisele Bundchen, a famous model.

This historic cover is controversial for two reasons. The first is Lebron James is only the third male to ever be on the cover of Vogue and is the first African American male to ever be on Vogue, according to CNN news.

The cover features James showing his mean game face, while simultaneously grasping the lovely Bundchen’s body. This was supposed to be a photo about best bodies, but critics of Vogue have seen it as racist towards African Americans.
Vogue magazine justified this by saying that they wanted to bring out their primal instincts, but this only angered critics who believe this portrayal is purely rascists.

“I understand why this can become a controversy,” said sophomore Sean McKinney. “But it is really dumb to make it this big. I mean come this is not that big a deal, it’s not likeVogue intentionally did this.”

McKinney’s response has been refuted by many who have said that Vogue could have chosen form other pictures which were found inside the magazine that resembled boldness and sharpness, with no racism.

Annie Liebowitz, the photographer, is often extremely controversial, having her subjects pose in bold and unconventional ways.  Liebowitz was the artist of this photo, but sometimes controversial photos can arise because of action taken after the photo is taken in 1994. Time altered the mugshot of O.J. Simpson to make it darker, which outraged many people who claimed the photo showed extreme bias.

“Why can’t we all just get along?” said junior Laura Burton. “This is so ridiculous, it’s just a magazine cover. I love all people, and I can’t seem to figure out why Vogue did this, but I’m sure it was unintentional.”

Vogue is projected to have record sales for this issue because it is a “collector’s item” or it will soon be an “antique.” But if Vogue’s sales do go up dramatically, what might stop them, or any other magazine, from doing this again?

James did say he was okay with it, so this may spark a new way of making and depicting magazine covers. A new marketable selling technique was produced through a misunderstanding and a supposed honest mistake.

But in the end Vogue has stayed as one of the top selling style magazines in the world, and shall continue to keep this trend. The only thing that can stop them now is future competition to this market. So if it Lebron James being on the cover or even Shaq being on the cover, that is enough right there to how sold the audience for million of copies. There is no racism involved; the whole strategy is about making money.