T H E B L A C K AC E
Controlling our Image
about 22 percent make more than $100,000 a year, and only 2.5 percent of those are black.”
Have you ever watched a commercial that you thought was beyond stereotypical? How about one that was so wrong in its representation of the multicultural community that it led to a heated discussion about how we are viewed in America today? These misrepresentations and overgeneralizations are seen regularly, but I can’t say that I am surprised. The battle against stereotypes and racist representations will continue until the day we decide to control our image.
How did our lack of representation affect us in the past? I’ll give you three names: Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus (the image of the cook on Cream of Wheat labels). If those images don’t say anything to you, google “darkie toothpaste.” Browse a few of the sites that come up, and pay attention to the original images. Many of the images we see today have been redone to be more politically correct.
A number of minorities graduate and enter Communications-related fields of work, but how many work in a capacity where they control which messages are sent, the way messages are sent, and the people delivering the message? My guess is not many. We need to position ourselves so that we are the editors AND the creators of the messages sent to our people.
“This is a wake up call to Americans,
In September of this year, The New York Times ran an article about a push for New York City Advertising Firms to hire more Black managers. New York City’s Human Rights Commission found that little improvement had been made in the hiring of black workers since their inquiry on this same issue 40 years ago. “Of 8,000 employees working for 16 agencies the commission examined, Patricia L. Gatling, chairwoman of the commission, said
Many are worried about the images being created today to represent Black women. Focusing on the nature of these images, a series of Dairy Queen commercials is discussed in an August 2006 New York Times article. Here is the rundown of the first commercial: “A man boarding an airplane sets his ice cream shake down so he can load his bag into an overhead compartment. As he reaches up, another passenger on the plane starts eating the Blizzard. Seeing this, the first man lets go of his bag so he can reclaim his Blizzard and inadvertently drops his luggage on another passenger’s head. That unlucky passenger happens to be an overweight black woman who lets out an irritated gasp that reminds all the passengers around her who not to mess with.” The Times quoted Rick Cusato, EVP for Grey
especially Americans of color.”
Worldwide, the firm that wrote the campaign for Dairy Queen, saying that the script was not written with a black actress in mind. “We basically cast the funniest person,” he said. “We didn’t specifically cast for a black woman. We said, ‘Wow, she’s really funny.’ And she was everything we wanted it to be. This is just a strong woman being herself.” Not all believe that race was absent in the selection process. Howard Buford, founder and chief executive of Prime Access, an advertising agency that creates commercials marketed toward minority audiences, said: “It’s not an accident that she’s African-American and heavy. There’s certainly a long heritage of large AfricanAmerican women who are kind of sassy and feisty and humorously angry. There’s a sense that this whole value system is O.K. again.” When people start using humor as a way to justify typecasting and bad stereotypes, you know that our image, as a people, is in danger. The only way to save our image is to be the ones who control it.
James S. Walker President GWU NAACP Foley, ctd p.3
Of Foley and Our Representatives The past few weeks have been extremely telling of our country’s legislative body. To think, the individuals who we place in office to represent the ideals and values that we, as citizens, want to see become apart of the legislative fabric of our society may just turn out to be 50 year old closeted alleged pedophiles. That’s just plain scary. It is important to note that Foley is not the first congress member to have inappropriate interactions with congressional pages, nor will he be the last if some rules don’t change. I have reason to suspect that some Democrats knew about Foley’s inappropriate e mails before September. In fact, the e-mails in question were written in 2005, but were dismissed by reporters. Now, two months before
midterm elections, these year old e-mails have resurfaced with the full force of a sex scandal. “Gotcha B!” exclaims the Democratic Party from the left side of the House floor. There are 40 Republican held House seats that are considered competitive this round with the Democrats only needing 15 to take the House. If Democrats knew about Foley and waited to turn this into a scandal it would mean that they were really trying to make an effort to take the House. The effort, however, is a bit lackluster.
scandal. A recent New York Times poll shows that many people believe that Republican congressional leaders are more concerned with maintaining their power than the safety of congressional pages.
The Democrats haven’t collectively jumped down any throats. I should them slamming the G.O.P., dragging them through their own ideological swamp, pushing them off the cliff of their family ethics jargon onto the jagged rocks below. But all the articles that I read in papers are about how this “might” affect the party in the midterm.
The majority of the members of congress are incumbents, people who’ve sat there for more than one term, more than two terms. They get elected, and reelected and reelected not because they’ve done anything special but because their party spends so much money on their ads.
The media and the experts have claimed that the G.O.P. is in a horrible position in the wake of this
Former Representative Mark Foley’s folly may have cost him his job and reputation, but the effects it will have on the rest of his party are focused on teenage pages. If the representatives from your district are up for reelection this term take some time to consider replacing them.
Obviously, if a person is doing a bang up job for your district then you’d hate to see them go, but it’s more