Gender and race

Scanning the racks of magazines at Borders, many common themes appear. Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey seem to be the hottest couple, The Sopranos seems to be the hottest television show, the 9/11 hearings are the hottest thing in politics, and Mel Gibson takes the helm as the leader of almost every other category. It was difficult to find a magazine which incorporated none of these, but they are out there. Searching for evidence of gender …

…is the picture which is striking. It is a shot of a crowd of people in an audience. Of the six people in focus, five of them are African American. The lone white woman is sitting on the shoulders of a black man. This is very interesting, especially in this issue with the lack of different race which it has. The ad was probably not placed in this issue specifically, but it says a lot.