Adam Rapoport, the editor of the tony food magazine, “Bon Appetit,” abruptly resigned Monday after photos surfaced of Rapoport in brownface for a Halloween costume, sparking a backlash.
Rapoport claimed the costume was of a “typical Puerto Rican,” according to CBS News. Rapoport is white.
The incident happened “17 years ago,” according to the food editor, but the photo was posted to social media in 2013. It resurfaced on Monday.
“Staffers at the foodie magazine had criticized him after the photo, of him and his wife, circulated on Twitter,” CBS reported. “That tweet featured a screenshot of a 2013 Instagram photo by Rapoport’s wife that depicted the two dressed in costume. In the screenshot, his wife tagged the photo ‘boricua,’ a reference to Puerto Ricans, and called Rapoport ‘Papi,’ or daddy. He was wearing a large, heavy chain, a do-rag, and a baseball cap. His wife’s account is private.”
The incident is the latest in a string of high-profile “blackface” and “brownface” controversies, most involving high-profile leftists. Late last year, after he spoke out in support of late-term abortion, a source close to Virginia’s Democrat Governor Ralph Northam revealed that Northam was featured in a wildly racist photo in his medical school’s yearbook. The photo showed two men, one dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and the other dressed in 1930s minstrel makeup and appeared on Northam’s personal portfolio page.
Northam denied being in the photo, but specifics about the shot never surfaced.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was also embroiled in a blackface scandal after photos surfaced of him dressed as an Arab man for an “Arabian Nights” themed school function.
Neither Trudeau or Northam has suffered any marked political fallout.
Rapoport, however, says he is resigning his post at the foodie magazine to do some introspection and mull over his own racial insensitivity. In a statement, he said he was stepping down “to reflect on the work that I need to do as a human being.” He called the costume “ill-conceived.”
“Bon Appetit” was caught up further, even after Rapaport announced his departure, with some former writers claiming the magazine paid only white writers to appear in video content for the site’s social media channels. “For their part, staff members said both on social media and in interviews that the photograph was only the latest in a series of missteps and poor treatment of people of color at the publication,” The New York Times added in a report Monday.
Neither the magazine nor its publisher, Conde Nast, addressed those allegations.
Conde Nast addressed only the incident involving Rapoport, saying, “We have a zero-tolerance policy toward discrimination and harassment in any form. Consistent with that, we go to great lengths to ensure that employees are paid fairly, in accordance with their roles and experience, across the entire company.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.