Generalizations
Guys, I think you dilute the strength of your arguments by engaging in some sweeping generalizations, particularly about black women and why they might not like the cover.
I am a black woman who is in favor of any consenting adults being with whomever makes them happy. Indeed, one of my favorite celebrity couples is Seal and Heidi Klum. They just look so right together.
I'm not bitter or lacking in self esteem. I'm not jealous of white women who date black men. Although I've never dated non-black men it's not been for lack of opportunities. I've been hit on by black, white, non-white Latino and Asian men despite the fact that I live in one of the reddest of the red states in the Deep South.
I don't have a huge ego but I do have sufficient feelings of self-worth that I believe that any man of any color that doesn't want me for superficial reasons, doesn't deserve me.
Despite this, I do think the choice of putting Reggie Bush on the cover of a magazine geared towards black women in an issue on black love relationships was odd.
Reggie and Kim are so high profile that anyone who is even remotely hip to pop culture knows about them as a couple. So when we see Reggie on the cover of a magazine that talks about black love relationships, it doesn't quite fit. I think of him as being a man who is attracted to non-black women for whatever reasons. And god bless him.
He would have been perfect for a cover celebrating black men in general. But that wasn't what this was about.
As to the assertion that NO black men would object to Tatiana Ali or Halle Berry on the cover of a black man's magazine in an issue celebrating black love relationships, I strongly disagree. Some black men would object because they don't like seeing beautiful black women with white men and others would object for the same reason that some black women object to Reggie's cover, because when they think of these folks' personal lives, they think of cute IR couples, not cute black couples.
By the way, Halle catches horrible crap for her choice of a boyfriend, but she isn't seen as preferring white guys, having had two black hubbys in the past. Not that preferring white would mean a hatred of black men.
While I'm in total agreement that being sexually attracted to people of other races DOES NOT mean that you are self-hating, lets be honest about something.
We ALL know black people WHO ARE self-hating. They don't think of white people as just people who are no better or worse than anyone else. They buy the theory that the white man or woman's ice is colder. They constantly run down all black people collectively when compared to all white people collectively. They have internalized racism to such a degree that they detest who they are and they will do anything to get away from what they hate.
I feel sorry for the non-black people unfortunate enough to get involved with these types because they aren't wanted for what is in their hearts or heads, they are wanted because they aren't black.
People like these are the real obstacles to happy blending.