Question: OK, I confess. I’m culturally clueless. So how can I become less clueless—where can I get a clue or two?
Answer: Congratulations. You’ve taken the biggest step by admitting you have a problem. Most adpeople afflicted by cultural cluelessness go through their entire professional lives denying the symptoms, or remaining completely oblivious to the infirmities.
Alas, there’s no easy answer to this query. You can begin by reviewing the previous Culturally Clueless FAQs. Then consider the following brainstorm of suggestions.
Lots of folks believe the solution to the global dilemma involves educating minorities. So they’ll launch programs to school schoolkids, college students and mid-level executives. This is all good and fine and necessary. But maybe it’s time to create curriculum for the culturally clueless. This audience clearly needs education and enlightenment. Let’s bus the Whites to Morehouse and Howard University for some serious immersion.
For those more inclined to study at home, regularly check out these online tutorials:
The Big Tent
The Franklin Blog
The Future Is Bright
Kiss My Black Ads
Knock The Hustle
Madison Ave New
The Marcus Graham Project
Mi Blog Es Tu Blog
Prostituted Thoughts
Racialicious
The Root
Sociological Images: Seeing Is Believing
(The sources noted above are only a sampling. Apologies to everyone not mentioned.)
There are endless educational opportunities. Catch the latest Tyler Perry movie. Attend a diversity job fair. Peruse Essence or Latina. Read Michael Eric Dyson or Cornel West. Support a minority-owned business. Nearly every major newspaper features cultural columnists—start scanning their perspectives. Examine multicultural marketing projects. Listen to recording artists beyond Josh Groban.
While many of these recommendations are Black-focused, don’t limit your training. Be diverse. The idea is to step outside of your cultural comfort zone. Get a clue.
Change has come to America. But it took a detour around Madison Avenue. While citizens have adopted phrases like “post-racial,” the advertising industry operates in a pre-Civil Rights time warp. Whenever the topics of diversity and inclusion appear, ad executives consistently display stunning ignorance. MultiCultClassics has sought to address the issues in the past. However, the matters have evolved along with society, despite Madison Avenue’s retarded development. As a public service, this blog will answer a series of Frequently Asked Questions to enlighten the asses… er, masses.
2 comments:
I'm guessing someone actually wrote this and it's not part of the hype for this book that's being promoted.
Sometimes you just have to laugh. Or it's what I get for asking for Google alerts!
Immersion in Howard University, supporting minority-owned businesses. Are we talking about America or some up and coming country somewhere trying to bring change to suit their own tastes?
Two really funny comments - "stepping outside your cultural comfort zone" - since this country is made up of 'patchwork heritage' as our new President has so eloquently stated, and every culture in the world is represented here - it would be the one's who cannot see beyond their own culture that need to take a step - several steps.
The other amusing comment -'Listen to recording artists outside of Josh Groban.' Obviously a statement made by someone who thinks they know something about Josh Groban - and again - needs to take a step outside of their own cultural comfrot zone. Josh's fans have been introduced to a myriad of artists through this young man's music and sharing of his musical tastes - and wonder-of-wonders they encompass EVERY cultual background.
Cultural Cluelessness? For sure!!!!
Anonymous,
Sorry for any confusion or unintended amusement. To be clear on a few points:
1. This is not promoting any book. The book image at the top is nothing more than an illustration of being clueless.
2. We might be in agreement about "stepping outside of one's cultural comfort zone." The belief here is that too many in the advertising industry remain unfamiliar with any culture outside of their own. The intended point of this post was to encourage people to look beyond.
3. Apologies to Josh Groban and his fans.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
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