24 Years of People Magazines ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ list and only 1 black man,no Latins,Asians,Arabs…

Johnny Depp's first sexiest man cover of People circa 2003

I met Johnny Depp way back in the late 80’s when he starred on ’21 Jump Street’ with a good friend of mine Steven Williams, for the Fox broadcasting network. He was cordial, and I only would see him briefly, but you can tell when a dude is cool,and Johnny Depp was a good guy, so I have no quarrels with him, and I am a supporter of his work.

I especially liked to go to his club, the Viper Room in Hollywood, and have always enjoyed myself there.

Today People magazine has announced that Johnny Depp is,for the second time in its 24 years of compiling the ‘Sexiest Man Alive” list, the sexiest man alive. It is his second win, and he joins a George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Richard Gere as the only two-time winners.

During my research for another article, I was surprised to see that Denzel Washington was the lone African-American male to be bestowed with the honor, in 1996…and was shocked to discover that no other racial ethnicity outside of White men from European countries and America, sans the token award given to Denzel!?!?

It is also made even more so of a concern, if you are not white, to find that People magazine’s motivation behind putting this annual together for the public is to…designate a benchmark of male attractiveness. It is determined in a similar procedure to Time‘s Person of the Year…

That is a quote from Wikipedia…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_(magazine).

My concern with this is a racial issue, and I know that some of you out there do not like discussing race issues, and dismiss all claims of racial inequality as a ‘race card’ issue, which currently means that…”I am white, and since this does not affect me,it obviously does not exist”…”you people just want some more hand-outs, and I am tired of all this complaining about race”….”you are all lying”…”racism does not, and never has existed in America, so get over it”…

You can see these kinds of comments all over the internet,never in public, unless you are around nothing but white people, then, if they are ignorant, you will hear nothing but racist remarks, because most of them are cowards and back shooters.

I am more direct when expressing my views.

I like statistics and data, like in the O.J. Simpson case, I follow the  preponderance of evidence to base my opinions of guilt or innocence on, as well as it is traditional to notice and identify a pattern of behavior, in order to predict what actions an organization or individual may follow, and that is something that the racist and bigots out there will agree on, given their insistence that the evidence proved that O.J.  was guilty.

To turn your back on the evidence, would to them, be exactly what the jury did in that case, and to hear it from them, it was because there were more black people on the jury weighing the evidence presented to them, and simply disregarded the truth.

I say that is logical, but I have no determination on O.J.’s guilt or innocence, but in the case of People magazine, I do have an idea of what is behind their racially biased list they put together every year.

A pattern of behavior can be determined by a person doing the same thing over and over again, but no less than 5 times to make a relevant claim of specious behavior.

Here we have 24 years of the Sexiest Man Alive award, and out of those 24 years, only one black man has won it, and absolutely no Latinos,no Arabs, no Persians, no Indians, no Native Americans, and no Asians…

I am pretty sure I missed some, so just fill in the blanks, basically what I am saying is that People magazine is biased in what they deem to be a sexy human being.

The preponderance of evidence in this case, finds that it would be a fair statement to say that the editors at People do not see men of color, and I mean any color other than white, …to be sexy, or the sexiest.

I also find to be fair to state, that People magazine may have caved in to political correctness pressures, and awarded the prize to Denzel over a decade ago as a token to their black readers,….but they probably did not believe it then, as they do  not now.

I am certain that Will Smith should have topped that list years ago,as well as stars of all the excluded races that People leave out of the running.

Could the problem be that People magazine may have too many white people on their jury determining what is sexy or not, like the old complaint from those that disagree with th O.J. Simpson jury!?!?

I do not know the races of the editors at People, but I would bet a lot of money that if they employ 50 people, that only two of them are black, and the outside of that, the majority consist of people that do not have color.

I will say this, at least the African-Americans did get 1 out of 24, and I need to advocate on the part of Asians,Arabs,Persians, Natives, and Indians,…because People magazine act like they are totally non-existent.

I am not satisfied with exclusion, and I am insulted by tokenism as an act of appeasement.

This just brings forth a decision that I made years ago working in the media, and that is the fact that if all races do not own their own distribution networks for whatever our productions are, then we will not be in control of our own image, and the one that will be sold to us, will be demeaning and condescending to our people, and disrespect our ancestors.

There is no amount of fame or money that is worth the denigration of our people, and I am speaking to all the races here.

I find the examples of the years of white power, and white-centric mentality to be only beneficial to white people, and highly offensive to all others.

The idea that white or light is a benchmark of beauty, can only drive the more weak-minded of our races to the Sammy Sosa skin lightening cremes…which have the active ingredient of Mercury in them to bleach your skin.

What kind of self-hatred is this?

It all begins with these seemingly benign proclamations every year as to what is sexy, and what is attractive in people, and if I as a grown man can decipher the subliminal continuous message that we are not attractive because we are dark, then I can understand what a young person may feel, or worst than that, an illiterate, unquestioning population, in a country dominated financially and figuratively by white people.

Congratulations Johnny Depp, it’s not your fault, just the machine that we call the entertainment business.

I just do not think any of us, of any race should feed in to it.

People magazine needs to diversify their staff, or let us know this is a magazine that celebrates white entertainers and subjugate all other races to tokenism whenever it is possible.

Comment and let me know your take on this.

JD's 2009 Sexiest Man cover...

 I like to read these news services that are linked below, and I recommend them to all of you…

http://perezhilton.com/2009-11-18-the-sexiest-man-alive-is

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5AH3X020091118