Business Insider Hits “Undo” On Racist Illustration

3:37 pm EST April 8th, 2011 | Media | 7 Comments

Business Insider, the news aggregator run by Henry Blodget, ran the following image along with a story about suburbs turning into slums. The picture shows a black man in front of two casinos on Fremont street in Las Vegas.

One hotel pictured, the Fremont Hotel & Casino, has a room available tomorrow night for $110. The other, the 4 Queens Hotel & Casino, has rooms for $99. Not exactly a “slum” is it? So what in that picture read as “slum” to Business Insider?

I called Blodget out about it on Twitter.

He didn’t respond, but a few minutes later the picture had magically changed.

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7 Responses to “Business Insider Hits “Undo” On Racist Illustration”

  1. Quaker in a Basement says:
    April 8, 2011 at 3:45 pm

    Besides the obvious racial message, this is just an odd interpretation. Blodgett makes it sound like the change is traceable to migration from urban centers to the suburbs.

    There is another possible explanation.

  2. Buzz Killington says:
    April 8, 2011 at 3:57 pm

    On top of it all, the picture isn’t of either a suburb or a slum, which leads me to believe they used it specifically because of the person. Odd indeed.

  3. timmy says:
    April 8, 2011 at 4:20 pm

    I know that guy. He was a schoolteacher. Once.

  4. Duros62 says:
    April 8, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    Who says Twitter is useless?

  5. Quaker in a Basement says:
    April 8, 2011 at 7:44 pm

    Buh…buh…but there are black people in slums!!1! Therefore, NOT RAAAAACIST!

  6. doctorpsycho1960 says:
    April 10, 2011 at 2:28 am

    There is, in truth, no “unsee” button, nor an “unshare” one….

  7. hetss says:
    April 10, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    reading the comments of it’s readers. i would say he is diliberately catering to racism. also, i read his “headline” and his “interpretation” of the brookings institute research. he does alot of jumping to conclusions that just aren’t mentioned in the study. Quaker in a Basement already eluded to it. the brookings study points to collapse of auto industry and housing market. it said nothing of gentrification and immigration.