New York magazine is on the defensive over its most recent issue’s cover, which paints a picture of an all-white celebration in Washington, D.C. on the eve of President Donald Trump’s inauguration but was revealed to have been cropped to cut out several Black attendees at the event.
This week, the cover of New York features a candid crowd shot taken at the Power 30 Awards, which according to a Reuters report, was an inauguration celebration for Trump that handed out awards to social media influencers who aided in his reelection. TikTok sponsored the event just as it resumed operations following Trump’s declaration that we would delay banning the app. The issue’s lead article, by Brock Colyar, is headlined “The Cruel Kids’ Table” which is emblazoned on the cover with a lead-in reading: “Out late with the young right as they contemplate cultural domination.”
Cropped out of that image of schmoozing TikTok influencers celebrating amid an open bar at Sax Restaurant and Lounge in downtown Washington on the Sunday night before Trump’s second term began was the evening’s Black co-host, CJ Pearson. The co-chair of the Republican National Committee Youth Advisory Council does, however, appear in the full image that accompanies the article, along with two other Black attendees at the event; the full uncropped image also appears on the article page on the magazine’s website.
“Almost everyone is white,” Colyar wrote in their cover story as he described both the new set of Trump supporters and the events like the one at Sax. “The men look like Pete Hegseth, in bow ties and black suits, with clean-shaven faces. The women are almost all out of their league.”
On Monday, conservative commentator Christopher Barnard was quick to point out the offending crop job on X, noting that the reporter states a woman turned to them to ask if they’d noticed that “[the] entire room is white.”
Pearson replied to Barnard’s X post to complain about his erasure from the cover, the false angle of the article and the fact that rapper Waka Flocka Flame and pro boxer Gervonta Davis, who are Black, were both in attendance at the event on Jan. 19.
“This is insane,” he wrote. “I hosted this event and @NYMag intentionally left me out of their story because it would have undermined their narrative that MAGA is some racist cult. They also didn’t include the fact that @WakaFlocka and @Gervontaa were also there. You don’t hate the liberal media enough.”
However, the New York article does indicate that Waka Flocka Flame performed, but does not mention that he is Black.
Pearson then posted several photos of Black attendees at the pre-inauguration party, writing of the so-called all-white affair: “I guess none of these black people got the memo?”
Other black attendees included former Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones, PragerU’s Xaviaer DuRousseau, among others, according to the New York Post. DuRousseau is quoted in the story but his race is not mentioned when the author introduces him as a “28-year-old conservative influencer.”
New York magazine’s press representative defended the cover image in a statement sent to The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday evening.
“The magazine’s most recent cover story explores the new class of conservatives taking Washington by storm, through the lens of inauguration weekend,” the statement reads. “The cover was cropped to the center of a picture that was published in full online, and we believe both the cover and story provide an accurate impression of the weekend.”
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