The Economist magazine faced ridicule on Monday after it revealed its cover for an issue focusing on America’s Latino population: an American flag fashioned out of chili peppers.
“A special report on America’s Latinos,” the cover read.
The thinking man’s weekly tweeted the issue’s cover on Thursday, adding the text, “This week’s cover: Firing up America.”
But the backlash didn’t bubble up until Monday morning. Several people faulted the cover as cringeworthy; Vox Media went so far as to call it “embarrassingly racist.”
I am guessing no Latinos on staff. MT @EconMedia:
Firing up Americs http://t.co/bcLHAj4MQt
March 14th – 20th 2015 pic.twitter.com/IiKDlhjToW
— stacy-marie ishmael (@s_m_i) March 16, 2015
Do we really have to deconstruct @TheEconomist‘s cover photo? http://t.co/9p41eSwCeZ
— Monique Alcala (@MAAlcala) March 16, 2015
The Economist’s embarrassingly racist chili pepper cover gets Hispanic Americans all wrong http://t.co/0sE2ovSmHl pic.twitter.com/Eh8j9EyfHb
— Vox (@voxdotcom) March 16, 2015
I don’t think a Latino journalist would have come up with this cover for @TheEconomist pic.twitter.com/qi91QauYNF
— Ιman | ايمان (@ImaniAmrani) March 16, 2015
Rejected Economist cover. pic.twitter.com/3CeePdRkE2
— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) March 16, 2015