welcome to a world of hate
April 22, 2008
In an effort to make you close your eyes and shake your head in shame and bewilderment, I will explore and expound upon the racist/sexist/classist and generally hateful and ignorant things that appear in pop culture and the media. But in a comical way? Hopefully your head won’t explode.
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It kind of sounds like you’re reaching on this one. We all know marketers need to target a demographic, and they do, they target whatever demographic they think will sell. Business is evil–don’t hate the player, hate the game. I feel like you may be inappropriately frustrated that it is in reference to African-Americans. It’s not the most comfortable word, but what other word are they going to use besides ‘urban’. They are not referring to all black people, but the inner-city blacks.
I guess i’m one of those people that feel like it’s these tones of bitterness that hold back the advancement of black people. You can almost relate it to miracles; if you look hard enough, you can convert a coincidence to a miracle, as well as to deliberate racism.
Overall, I do respect and appreciate your attempt to kill ignorance — it’s always good to have independent thoughts and to question everything. Even though I disagree, it was a good read nonetheless, and i’m open to future conversation.
“…If i don’t like it–I don’t like it, that don’t mean that i’m hatin…”
-Common
err….sorry…my reply was supposed to be for the MSNBC post
You should repost this under the MSNBC blog entry.
I really appreciate the response, and don’t get me wrong, I’m always open to different points of view on this.
I guess my biggest issue wasn’t so much that they targeted African Americans, but how they went about it. I’m not knocking targeting certain demographics, or designing products that can relate to other people’s cultures. Unless it’s very stereotypical and out of touch. But, again, if they actually did that—I guess that’s up for debate.
First, the parade of minority employees was ridiculous. Granted, my bad for not finding that ad, then maybe it would have been more clear. They got everyone they could, and they flashed about 20 images of black and brown faces in an effort to say, “hey! we’re not racist! see!” I think companies should have diversity and should value it, but it’s not diversity for the sake of having it, so people will think you’re wonderful, or for the benefit of making a profit. But, hey, wishful thinking?
The juxtaposition of what the program was about with the ads they ran also made it worse. I probably wouldn’t have been so appalled if it wasn’t for the many good points the documentary made, compared to the horrific ads.
As for the urban vs. black debate— that will be the topic of a future post, so we can discuss more about that then!
keep reading and thanks!
-the elahater
People are going to start thinking you are black
And I am jealous