Time Magazine Apologizes for ‘Yo Decido’ Latino Cover, Was it Racist? [PHOTO]

By Nadine DeNinno | February 24 2012 4:00 PM

The upcoming March 5 issue of Time magazine features portraits of 20 Latino men and women, explaining how Latino influence in Arizona will be crucial in the upcoming election with the title Yo Decido: Why Latinos will Pick the Next President. However, not all of the featured faces were of Latinos, prompting the magazine to apologize for remarks that could be deemed as racist.

Twitter/ergeekgoddess

The upcoming March 5 issue of TIME magazine features portraits of 20 Latino men and women, explaining how Latino influence in Arizona will be crucial in the upcoming election with the title "Yo Decido: Why Latinos will pick the next President." However, not all of the featured faces were of Latinos prompting the magazine to apologize for remarks that could be deemed as racist.

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Over the course of three days we photographed 151 people for the current cover, a Time spokeswoman told Yahoo News. We took steps to ensure that everyone self-identified as Latino, that they are registered voters and that they would be willing to answer our questions. If there was a misunderstanding with one of our subjects, we apologize.

Apparently there was a misunderstanding. Yahoo News reported that Michael Schennum, the man in the center of the top row, does not actually identify himself as Latino and was never clued in by Time or its reporter on why his photo would be taken.

They never told me what it was for or [asked] if I was Latino, Schennum wrote in his Facebook page, according to his friend Michelle Woo. Schennum said he is actually half Chinese and half white.

According to the magazine, photographer Marco Grob spent a weekend in February following Latino voters in Phoenix.

True to form, Grob captured the essence of each Arizona face with a single camera click. He photographed deacons, dancers and dreamers; nutrition undergrads, car aficionados and immigration activists; Mexicans, Hondurans and Guatemalans. 'There were many unique challenges involved in this shoot,' says Grob, who photographed over 150 people on 'three days on four different locations including a university, a local restaurant, an outdoor market and a Catholic church,' the magazine said in a release.

According to Grob, the magazine was looking to break stereotypes and some say, it just strengthened existing ones.

The terms 'Latino' and 'Latina' have a vast identity of their own, Grob said in Time.com's photo essay. So for the duration of this project we strove to break some of those stereotypes.

Those on Twitter seem to agree the mistake detracted from the powerful piece.

Time Magazine can't even tell a Chinese guy from a Latino for the race baiting cover story, wrote Twitter user kurtismarsh.

I guess the GOP didn't get this week's issue of Time magazine, wrote Twitter user ergeekgoddess.

What do you think of the Time cover? Sound off in the comments below.