ESPN under fire for photo recreation

Take a look at this picture. Recognise the face?

That's comeback NFL maverick Michael Vick. And no he didn't develop a sudden case of vitiligo overnight. Nor did he pay a visit to Sammie Sosa's dermatologist. It's simply a case of photoshop manipulation by ESPN's D'arcy Hyde, who created the illustration to go with an article by journalist Touré for ESPN The Magazine.


Touré, who's widely regarded as a cultural critic, wrote a column addressing general comments about the type of punishment Vick would have received if he was white. Touré reasoned that it was meaningless to draw punitive comparisons between black and white players because it suggests that being white earns a "get-out-of-every-crime-free" reward. Switching one's race, he said, changes his entire existence. This would mean setting his life in a different trajectory from the one he's taken now, which would likely not have involved growing up in the projects of Newport News, Va., where he was raised to think dogfighting was normal. You can click here to read the entire article.

Sadly, the story created more buzz for the picture than for its actual contents, which like it or not, was thought provoking. Touré said he asked the editors not to use the title "What if Michael Vick were white?" and was not consulted on the decision to re-cast Vick as a white player. I can understand why he'd question the headline, especially since it doesn't quite reflect the writer's perspective. But why is the illustration that much of an issue. Are we as a nation so sensitive that ANY form of reference to black versus white causes a major controversy?

In my opinion, the magazine's editors knew that using the illustration would generate publicity, which it ultimately did. Maybe too much publicity than was expected because they soon pulled the picture, but reversed the decision and re-posted the picture online. Sometimes you need to grab the attention of your audience, and the picture was successful in doing that. I didn't think it was as bad as this ad released by Nivea. I don't think the illustration, which is a common practice in print journalism, warranted all that backlash. 

What do you think? Weigh in on the controversy.