The latest edition of Bloomberg Businessweek is getting a lot of press…for the wrong reasons. The newest cover of the magazine features what many are calling racist African American caricatures, grabbing for money as the headline reads, “The Great American Housing Rebound: Flips. No-look bids. 300-percent returns. What could possibly go wrong?” Apparently those at Bloomberg Businessweek think the housing boom and subsequent bust of a few years back was the result of minorities making unwise decisions to buy homes they couldn’t afford.
Because the banks never knowingly gave money to financially unstable families.
Black people of all hues swimming in cash like Scrooge McDuck, drawn with over-sized lips, sitting around the house, and looking like they’re taking advantage of the upcoming projected housing boom. This is the message that Bloomberg Businessweek approved when they ran that cover. It’s hard to believe that this is a real cover. However, racists drawings are nothing new for some well-established magazines. In 2008, the New Yorker ran a cover showcasing the Obama family as Muslim terrorists during his initial presidential run.
Slate.com describes Bloomberg Businessweek as “…a genuinely great magazine that does an amazing job of making business and economics news accessible and interesting.” Many people feel that is true. Bloomberg is like the “Business for dummies” monthly publications that educates averages joes about everything from the real estate market to the stock market. Perhaps because of how great the magazine is with putting difficult financial matters into lay-mens terms is why this cover is so offensive. As the Slate article states, the cover is “warning that minorities may be buying houses again,” as if responsible homeownership is a problem. The Slate writer continued, “The idea is that we can know things are really getting out of hand since even non-white people can get loans these days! They ought to be ashamed.”
Indeed.
The Bloomberg family, (think Mayor of New York) founded and continues to produce the magazine. Whether any member of the family signed off on this cover is unknown, but one thing is for certain; the message it conveys is at the very least offensive and at the very most outright racist.
