Last week, Bloomberg Businessweek ran a magazine cover featuring gross caricatures of black and Latino people swimming in money, feeding it to their dogs, and burning it for warmth. This cover led Colorlines\u2019 Channing Kennedy to ask, \u201cWould a more racially diverse and equitable newsroom at Bloomberg have presented this mess?\u201d<\/p>\n
As the American Prospect\u2019s Jamelle Bouie points out, the problem isn\u2019t just the racist caricatures. \u201cThe whole cover plays into the widely-debunked myth that unreliable minority borrowers were responsible for the financial crash. \u2026 [T]he truth is that they were disproportionately victimized by unscrupulous lenders. This cover, however, all but implies that minorities are primed to cause another crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Dylan Byers at Politico, Bloomberg Businessweek offered the following half-hearted apology; \u201cOur cover illustration last week got strong reactions, which we regret. Our intention was not to incite or offend. If we had to do it over again we\u2019d do it differently.\u201d Is it too little, too late? Here\u2019s what you had to say.<\/p>\n
Nell Carden Grey:<\/p>\n
Looking at that cover feels like getting punched in the face.<\/p>\n
Jaime Jenett told Bloomberg Businessweek:<\/p>\n
My mouth was literally hanging open in shock when I saw the cover of this week\u2019s issue of Businessweek. The absurdly racist caricatures of people of color only serve to further reinforce the growing sentiment that the upper echelons of finance and business are little more than a thuggish gang of narrow-minded, self-serving, elitist, out-of-touch jerks. Kudos for at least letting your jerk flags fly high and proud.<\/p>\n