THE RACE CARD

IT ALL STARTED in June 1994 with two murders and a
low-speed car chase, filmed from helicopters and broadcast on
all channels. O. J. Simpson, nicknamed “Juice,” a member of
the Hollywood elite and former All-American football player,
was apparently fleeing police investigating the murder of his
blond ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend Ronald Goldman. There
was little time to design covers, and both Time and Newsweek
decided to use the booking photo provided by the police. Time
called in artist Matt Mahurin for an overnight work session,
asking him to make the image moodier. Aiming at a more
painterly quality, Mahurin darkened the contrast in areas of
the skin. When the magazines appeared side by side on the
newsstand, a tempest ensued. Time’s managing editor, James R.

Gaines, stated that:

Several of the country’s major news organiza-
tions and leading black journalists charged
that we had darkened Simpson’s face in a racist
and legally prejudicial attempt to make him
look more sinister and guilty, to portray him
as “some kind of animal,” as the NAACP’s
Benjamin Chavis put it.

Gaines continued:

It seems to me you could argue that it’s racist
to say that blacker is more sinister. To the
extent that this caused offense to anyone, I
deeply regret it.

Considering the racial tension in
the atmosphere and the intensity of
the public’s reaction to the darkened
photograph, the image proposed by Art
Spiegelman (right), bringing the Ku
Klux Klan and minstrels in blackface
to the discourse, had little chance of
running. It did not make the cover but
was published inside with its caption:
“Race card trumps gender card when
player holds Gold card.”

BOB ZOELL’S O. J. cover, published
at the start of the trial, did not show the
accused man’s face, but it worked on
more than one level: It was stylistically
akin to the quiet New Yorker covers of
the preceding decades, and the juice

glass could be
seen as half
empty or half
full depending
on one’s point
of view (opposite,
and left: a variant
with an empty
glass).

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