THANK YOU for posting this. I thought I was the only one who noticed.

yeah, noticed this yesterday. what are they thinking when they're directing that?

I think Gisele looks happy with him.

This s getting out of control. It seem anything today is racist. I'm not sure what worse. People saying it racist or the way people think the man looks like king Kong. It's a PIC. Yea they should have used a better one but they weren't trying to hurt anyone. There is something I do wonder. People get mad over this but if a gay person get beat up. No one does anything. I don't get it. I aint racist. I respect all people. I treat people the way I want to be treat and I see a person as for who they are. A person. I think this whole race thing. Is going to far. We as people should learn to get a long and respect one another.

I noticed it too ... but was once again sad because it portrayed an African male Athlete ...
It would be SO nice to see the WIDE DIVERSITY of male roles and professions that REAL BLACK MEN LIVE everyday in GEAT numbers in this country ... The Black Male Buck is getting to be a tired image. I think Gisele is beautiful ... but the entire cover looks really dated and to me shows how behind or out of touch some key people are at Vogue ... and possibly some of their clients (advertisers).

Beyond the King Kong images ... and they are not really imagined they are in the psyche of every person on this earth who was exposed to our historical use of these images... America has a LONG AND DEEP HISTORY of intentional caricatures and DE humanizing and criminalizing Black men via media (film, print advertising, TV and literature). Instead of calling those that notice to be "taking the race thing too far" ... I think it would be a true and positive move toward a world where we can "all just live together and accept each other" ... if we were all Re educated in a country that would examine and make clear via all of its MAJOR pathways - The entire education system - including teacher training, Media - Film, Print, Internet, Radio and TV and Literature ...
we would indeed be dealing with race for once and for all in a much deeper way ... from the root ... the historical context of just about everything in this country. Until then we will stumble along with some people screaming "there is no problem!" and others hanging their heads and believing no one sees, feels or knows what they know to be true from peronal experience.

How would this be done? Can it be done by the very country that created this and so much more?

I say YES ... if we the people MAKE it happen.

Get over it people! It seems like EVERYTHING these days turns into something Racist! Im sure Lebron himself dosen't think this cover is racist at all. He probably considers it an honor to only be the third man ever on the cover. Regardless of what he's wearing. Why would he wear anything else? He's a basketball player , thats what got him to where he is today, so therefore he's gonna be wearing basketball clothes. You people who cry racism over little things like this are just as if not more ignorant than racist people themselves!

i dont think there should be a problem with this cover. its a picture, and im sure both of them saw it before it was published. even if they didnt, they knew what they were doing.
its sad how having a brown shirt of the cover (for example) could be seen as racism. people jump to conclusion before they think.
king kong? no. whoever came up with that obviously wanted to start this whole problem.

i don't think this is racist at all. if no one said anything about the king king reference i wouldn't have noticed. even now i don't really see it.

p.s. if a gay person gets beat up no one cares?
what the hell? where have you been?

I'm really sick of people complaining that racism is a figment of the black imagination. It is a racist image. The problem is that it's not really the most important racism going on in our society.
I wish that all of these white people who think that this is being blown out of proportion would please give an example of any form of legitimate racism that they felled compelled to speak out on? Where are all of you race geniuses then?

theyre portayed as they ARE.both objects in their work clothes, adjust!

This is ridiculous. Why do we keep over reacting to crap like this instead of paying attention to real racist problems like our education system. As an educated black person who tries to fight against these types of instances, this is just over the top.

Thinking this type of portrayal is racist is just going to make other races think that a( we're paranoid about the way we look and b( we think anything they say about us is racist.

I think it would be nice if they showed us as something else than athletes and rappers but to make such a national stink over this when there is SO MUCH MORE RELEVANT RACISM in the world is just uncalled for. We need to pick our battles just a little more carefully.

Re: Bob, Jessika, Kittie & Chris

I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say that most likely you are all white, or at least definitely not black.

Pointing out the use of archetypal imagery in major media outlets is not, in fact, creating a problem. It is pointing out a problematic image with decades upon decades of contextual racism and xenophobia.

Nobody is actually accusing Vogue of writing a racist article, or conciously making fun of Lebron. Nobody is saying that Lebron would be upset if he knew about King Kong. I'm sure he does, and I'm sure he's still fine with the picture.

It is just as Lori eloquently put it:

Examining images like this is a step toward "dealing with race for once and for all in a much deeper way ... from the root ... the historical context of just about everything in this country. Until then we will stumble along with some people screaming 'there is no problem!' and others hanging their heads and believing no one sees, feels or knows what they know to be true from personal experience."

The outrage expressed at this cover is not just for the sake of outrage. It is based in shock, shock that our culture has such a short-term memory for coded imagery in our media.
Saying "Vogue is racist" is indeed pointless. The problem here is not Vogue specific racism, but the continued use of images that have a long history of racial connotations.

White guilt is useless, but understanding that white privilage exists is important in discussing subtle racism like this. While it seems like "just a magazine cover" to some of us, to others it may be proof that American media institutions only show Black men as physical aggressors when dealing in "black sexuality".

The implication is not that the photographer and editors of Vogue are klansmen, but that this type of image should have died out by now.

it does seem that way. the nba star might as well be pounding his chest like king kong. i really hate vogue magazine, as a young black model myself its the kind of mag that makes beautiful black models life hard to become a success. they might as well call it NAZI mag.

The article is on ATHLETES and models. They are both just wearing the clothes appropriate for their respective careers. What i think is ridiculous is how people make a big deal out of nothing.

For those who think the image of Lebron James is free of any "interntional" racism they are both right--and wrong. There is a bevy of literature that tells us that old ideas of conscious intent, a standard written into our civil rights laws, doesn't acrurately reflect how we really form ideas and our response to them.

These studies show that our unconscious reactions and emotional associations attached to things and people exercise a far more powerfull influence on our choices and ideas than say "intent' formed by logical deduction. The multi-billion dollar advertising industry is build exactly off of thier understanding of how our minds actually work.

So the real question is what emotional or subconscious response does the James "King Kong" image convey? Secondly, was the photographer,Anny Libowitz who is famous precisely for her ability to "manipulate" our emotional responses to her images aware that she was playing with racial fire? The answer to the first question is obvious--James as "Kong" is simply a modern version of James as Mandigo--replete with all the subconscious fears of the savage black beast lusting for the white virgin aparent in the image.

The answer to the second question is also obvious. Anny Libowitz probably shot a hundred posses and worked with Vogue to establish the "scene for the photograph. She made a conscious choice to choose the "beast and the virgin" image replete with all its racist bagage, or bagage or not, simply didn't care what reactions she was stimulating. Much of the post-modern school of photography to which she belongs thinks that that which shocks is art. She has also done photos of nude children invoking the child as sexual object. So adding a black man to the list seemd to her inconsequestial. But it is consequestial. It does stimulate "unconscious racism" and ther are plenty of studies that verify that conclusion and both Libovitz and Vogue should be well aware of them.

So what is to be done? Write to Vogue and tell them that as long as they depict this tasteless racial inuendo on their cover that their magazine will stay on the newstand. As far as "King James" is concerned--soemone needs to tell the brother to stick to GQ next time. The blazer or the tux is certainly more fiting.