Vogue: Racial Undertones towards LeBron James? - Political Forum

panteth4h2o · #1 (**permalink**) 03-21-2008, 04:25 AM

In light of the recent issues with Jeremiah Wright's controversial rhetoric, it seems that racism is becoming more of a revivied topic. But it's not easy to distinguish between percieved racism and actual racism. I've seen a few instances where I've questioned the accuser's perception.

Anyways, it seems that most recent cover of Vogue has prompted a column by ESPN writer Jemele Hill, who suggests that the front picture has racial undertones. Her argument is that the picture looks very similar to King Kong and the damsel in distress, in the way that it contrasts the two models. She is even critical of Lebron James for agreeing to shoot the picture in the manner it was taken.

While I will agree that some people in the sports world have definitely made some bone-headed statements that are legitimately racist in content, I can't help but to wonder if she is stretching a bit on her perceptions of the Vogue cover. When I first saw the cover, I felt that it had more to do with LeBron James's playing style and intensity than it did with his race. While her point about Jack Nicholson certainly seems valid, it seems that her example of Ricky William's popular cover photo on Sports Illustrated didn't carry much weight.

Any opinions on this article?

Quote:

If you've ever seen photos of LeBron James away from the basketball court, it's obvious he takes great pride in his appearance.

In fact, he's widely considered one of the best-dressed guys in the NBA -- perhaps even in all of sports. LeBron's mentor is Jay-Z, the rapper-turned-mogul who dropped throwbacks for Armani suits years ago.

LeBron making the cover is a good thing. But the pose, not so much.
LeBron's image clearly means a lot to him, maybe even as much as pursuing a championship. And that's why I can't understand why he would allow Vogue to feature him with supermodel Gisele Bundchen in such a distasteful manner.

In case you haven't seen the cover, LeBron has Gisele in one hand and a basketball in the other. LeBron is dressed in basketball gear, with his muscles flexing, tattoos showing and bared teeth. Gisele, on the other hand, is wearing a gorgeous slim-fitting dress, and smiling.

She looks like she's on her way to something fashionable and exciting. He looks like he's on his way to a pickup game for serial killers.

Now, maybe the point was to show the contrast between brawn and beauty, masculinity versus femininity, strength versus grace. But Vogue's quest to highlight the differences between superstar athletes and supermodels only successfully reinforces the animalistic stereotypes frequently associated with black athletes.

A black athlete being reduced to a savage is, sadly, nothing new. But this cover gave you the double-bonus of having LeBron and Gisele strike poses that others in the blogosphere have noted draw a striking resemblance to the racially charged image of King Kong enveloping his very fair-skinned lady love interest.

LeBron is just the third male ever to appear on Vogue's cover, but it's hard to believe Vogue would have made Brett Favre, Steve Nash or even David Beckham strike his best beast pose. And even if Vogue had, it wouldn't carry the same racial undertones as having a fear-inducing black man paired with a dainty damsel.

Too often, black athletes are presented as angry, overly aggressive and overly sexual. Or sometimes, they're just plain emasculated.

The examples of this are endless. The 2002 Sports Illustrated cover that featured Charles Barkley chained like a slave. Ricky Williams wearing a wedding dress on an ESPN The Magazine cover in 1999. And while it didn't appear in a magazine, the Terrell Owens-Nicolette Sheridan intimate-encounter tease for "Monday Night Football" gave viewers a sexualized image of a black man.

In fact, the shirtless black male athlete cover is pretty much a staple, reinforcing the idea that black athletes were blessed with physical characteristics, not mental ones.

"Society has become more civilized, more humane over 150 years or so, and that's all fine and good," said Dr. John Hoberman, a University of Texas professor and author of the controversial book "Darwin's Athletes: How Sports Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race." "But what happens to these fundamentally racist ideas over a period of time? Do they simply disappear?"

Having studied the images of black athletes for years, Hoberman contends that the images of black athletes presented today are no better than the ones offered centuries ago. And if it matters to you, Hoberman is white.

See any similarities with the Vogue cover above?
"One of the 19th-century themes was the savage versus the civilized," Hoberman said. "The practice of stripping black males above the waist and displaying him is as American as apple pie."

But we don't even have to dip back to the 19th century to see how images of black athletes have affected how we think and thus how we view sports. In 1994, Jack Nicklaus said there weren't more African-Americans in golf because "blacks have different muscles that react in different ways."

And that backward thinking isn't limited to whites, either. Former ESPN NFL analyst Michael Irvin channeled his inner Jimmy the Greek when attempting to explain Tony Romo's abilities. Irvin surmised that Romo was good because his "great, great, great, great grandma pulled one of them studs up outta the barn [and said], 'Come here for a second.'"

It's like Barack Obama said in his much-talked about speech on race Tuesday. We know so little about one another. Even scarier, we know even less about the fallout of racist history.

"It's a great, great issue that Vogue has made trivial," Hoberman said. "It's exploitative. It's going for the primitive, racial emotion as opposed to something tasteful and edifying."

Vogue deserves criticism, but more blame should go to LeBron and other black athletes, who need to exercise stricter control of their images. If LeBron is brave enough to wear a Yankees cap at an Indians playoff game, picking up a history book and educating himself shouldn't cause a strain.

This isn't to say Vogue's cover deserves to be in the same category as Golfweek magazine, which featured a noose on its front during the Kelly Tilghman-Tiger Woods flap. But as always, it's important to question who was in the room when the cover decisions were made.

As it is, LeBron was the first African-American male to grace Vogue's cover. Too bad it will be memorable for the wrong reasons.

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · #2 (**permalink**) 03-21-2008, 04:35 AM

I don't think it's racist. It definitely plays on race, as a lot of movies do, putting a white woman in a close role with a black man and playing up the tension there.

Will Smith and that white chick in I am Robot.

Will Smith, Martin Lawrence and that white chick in Bad Boys

Denzel Washington and that white chick in Virtuosity

There could be some mandingo overtones, but is that such a bad thing to be daddy longstroke? I think not.

sigma9 · #3 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008, 02:02 PM

i dont know whats wrong with the picture

all i see is a basketball player showing how firerce he can be when hes holding a basketball and a super hot model next to him......

i understand the precived part anout the kingkong white chick thing but at some point in time we have to get passed that.
if the basketball player was white there would be no problems??? what if the model was black???
if the same picture can be taken with a different race and be ok then there is no problem with the original...

if we see a picture of beckham take a scary fighting type pose with beoncee in that same type of posing. whould there be a problem?????

just by saying they are different because of past racial problems is racist within itself..
just take a llok at the WWE or the WCW or ulimate fighting championship.. most of the guys are white. that are thrown into rings and cages to beat each other up for the entertainment of the crowd. if they just happen to be mostly black instead what would happen??? ppl would be up in arm over the savage racist acts that makes blacks nothing more than here to entertain whites. they would look like 2 slaves made to fight eachother to entertain white masters.. but if the fighters were white and the masters were black well that perfectly fine...

Vandal · #4 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008, 03:26 PM

I could see how someone would draw the parallels, but I highly doubt if that was the intent. What would Vogue gain from randomly throwing one racist image on their cover?