TX - Editor takes doctor to task who finds interracial family 'disgusting'

zwiebel

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Editor Scott Vogel of small lifestyle magazine Houstonia has found himself at the center of a media whirlwind after cancelling the subscriptions of readers who took offense at a real estate ad featuring an interracial family.

Scott hadn't even really noticed the ad until he saw an email from an offended suburban Houston doctor stating, "I will not put this magazine in my reception!" Another subscriber complained he had to put the magazine in the trash, before his children saw it.

Scott was a little outraged himself, and promptly cancelled their subscriptions and wrote an op-ed saying racists needn't bother to subscribe. He's since been flooded with largely positive letters of support and new subscribers, although has received some criticism from people concerned about freedom of speech and if it was a business-like decision.

The offending ad is shown below.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/post...ly-in-my-magazine/?postshare=8591438070926263
 

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I am kind of torn. As the mother of bi-racial children, I appreciate what the editor did, for the most part. And I agree with his disdain. And yet, do we want business owners to be able to make personal decisions like that? IDK
 
Maybe I am just jaded, but I find this a bit suspicious.
 
Maybe I am just jaded, but I find this a bit suspicious.
Me, too.

I live in the south, and I would say photos like this are common in magazines in our area, and I've never heard anyone complain. (Granted, I don't hang around the most racist folks.) I write an article for a very conservative, small town parenting magazine. There's photos of multiracial and biracial children all the time. I've never thought a thing of it.

It sounds like good advertising and an opportunity to drum up subscriptions for this fellow, though.
 
Exactly. Publish the letters with their names in Letters to the Editor and I'll believe it. Also I think it would be more likely the offended parties would cancel their subscriptions.
 
Exactly. Publish the letters with their names in Letters to the Editor and I'll believe it. Also I think it would be more likely the offended parties would cancel their subscriptions.

Ya'll may be right and this may be a p.r. move. But haven't the past 8 years taught us that some people feel comfortable expressing their racism in astonishingly open ways?

I do have to wonder whether the alleged complainants have TV sets. Because my channels are full of interracial couples, in ads and in the programs themselves. Just like night on the interesting series PROOF (TNT), we learned that the main character played by Jennifer Beals (who is biracial herself) has a white mother and a black father. No big deal was made of the fact: we met her white mother and as Beals' character left the house, a black man (played by Glynn Thurman of ROOTS) came by jogging and Beals' character calmly said, "Hi, Dad!"

The rest of the issue dealt with Beals' difficult relationship with her father. Race was never mentioned, nor was a mention required.
 
I am not saying this did not happen. I am saying I find it a bit fishy. Houston is a cosmopolitan city, despite what many think about Texas.

It just does not ring true.
 

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