New Yorker's Racist Cover

It is the New Yorker that claims this is satire; however the definition of satire is:

A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit. (dictionary.com)

The problem is that this picture perpetuates the folly rather than mocking it, and you couple that with the unfavorable article that is within the magazine, it becomes clear that the picture is intended to defame. They are hiding behind the term "satire" and the only irony here is that an elitist magazine like the New Yorker is perpetuating the basest form of hatred--PURPOSELY.

If a subscription is never made or a magazine never bought, due to this classless racism, in the woods and nobody is there, do they still lose the money?

By the way, for something to be satirical it has to have the element of irony that critiques or mocks. There was no object of critique or irony there. Some thought it funny. That's fair game, but it is not satire. You would think that the editorial staff would have known that. Funny is a much lower bar than political satire. No if you had Rove dreaming that picture, that would be satire.

It is easy to laugh when you do not live the biases and bigotry that many live day in and day out. I have often heard my white friends say flippantly, "I don't see color!" And I inform them that it is a privilege to not see color. Their head tilts and eyes roll, but after a time, when they think about it, the honest folks realize that in white skin you do not know what it is like to be treated like a black person, or like a Latino--especially close to the border. When you are the majority culture, you do not know what it is to be discriminated against. Some poor white know what I'm talking about. But often times people who have been treated in a discriminitory way, discriminate. This is not to cast blame, but to show that when the hegemony of a culture enables and even rewards discrimination, it also perpetuates it. So before you wag your finger at individuals who have had to deal with biases their whole lives, think for a minute what it would be like if you served your communities to the best of your ability for your whole life and a prominent magazine such as the New Yorker portraied you this way. Then and only then will you be able to understand why it is not funny.