It isn’t going away.  Previous posts have dealt with the issue of race in the context of the presidential campaign, in the context of the workplace and in other contexts when I felt that employment lessons could be learned.

You may recall my post on the controversy that broke out this past January over a remark made on the Golf Channel about Tiger Woods, which was exacerbated by the cover of Golfweek Magazine displaying a noose.  The editor who approved the cover was fired.

We have another magazine controversy, this one involving Vogue.  In case you missed it, Vogue’s April cover has a picture of basketball sensation LeBron James dribbling a basketball while holding onto supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

And guess what?  Some think it looks exactly like King Kong carrying Fay Wray up the Empire State Building.  Thus, it’s racist.

While there has been an uproar over the Vogue cover, it seems to pale in comparison to the uproar over the Golfweek cover.  Is a picture of a noose worse than picturing black male as ape?  Is that why the editor of Vogue (who had to know what she was doing) hasn’t been fired like the editor of Golfweek (who probably didn’t know what he was tapping into)?

As I said in my post about the Golfweek incident, I don’t know what’s ok and what isn’t when it comes to race.  Unlike the author of the Slate Magazine article that I’ve linked to above (weighing in on the Vogue flap), I don’t want to stop talking about this subject.  I want to talk more.  We obviously need to talk more.  I need someone to explain this to me.  Or I need someone to admit they can’t explain it.

I need an explanation because I try to advise employers on issues of employment law, like harassment.  If a white employee tapes the Vogue cover to a black employee’s locker, is that racial harassment?  Is it racial harassment if the white employee writes on the front cover next to LeBron James “ape man”?  Backing up a bit, should an employee be disciplined for even bringing the magazine to work when it’s already racially charged?  Or is it only the cover of Golfweek that we have to be concerned about?

What if the Vogue cover had shown football sensation Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen’s boyfriend in real life, dressed in a Tarzan outfit and swinging through the trees with the light-skinned Halle Berry at his side.  Would it have been said that this was a veiled attempt to portray Berry as white, since Tarzan’s Jane was white?  Would the Vogue editor have been fired then?  Maybe not everyone needs to talk about the subject more, but as you can see, I do.

For the first time in a long time, we have the chance to talk about race in ways never before possible.  Let’s not let Vogue or people opining on the Vogue cover stop it.  Indeed, Vogue gives us even more to talk about.