5973: Madison Avenue And The Color Line—10. Digressing To Address A Pet Peeve.

The fifth chapter of Madison Avenue and the Color Line by Jason Chambers featured adman Junius Edwards, who ran an advertising agency in the 1960s and 1970s. During a 1971 interview with a trade publication, Edwards remarked, “White teenagers have long regarded Negroes their own age as fashion trend setters. Fashion starts in the streets and filters up, not merely from youth to age, but from lower economic class to upper.” Now, for anyone who has ever worked in a minority shop, Edwards’ revelation is common knowledge. Indeed, most minority shops—and most minorities, for that matter—recognize the phenomenon continues today, due in great part to the influence of hip hop culture. Yet self-proclaimed futurist Marian Salzman still positions herself as the discoverer of wiggers on her website. Ironically, Salzman doesn’t recognize the trend for White folks to stumble upon something that’s been around forever and declare they invented it. Her online entry should include an asterisk and qualifier that reads: First White adwoman to belatedly notice wiggers. The futurist ought to spend more time studying the past. Hey, it will only cost about $40, which she’ll no doubt write off as a business expense.

This is the eleventh installment of MultiCultClassics’ running review of Madison Avenue and the Color Line by Jason Chambers. See the previous posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.