10484: Where Are Tanner Colby’s Best Friends?

The latest installment of Where Are All The Black People? is scheduled to take place in New York City on October 3, 2012. Among the list of usual suspects and speakers is Tanner Colby, the ignorant author of Some of My Best Friends Are Black. Count on Colby to ultimately wonder, “Where Are Some Of My Best Friends?”

On the one hand, Colby probably won’t be the only culturally clueless character at the soiree, as Jeff Goodby is slated to be there too. Yet it’s hard to fathom why anyone thought Colby would be a positive influence and/or relevant figure for attendees. In his book, Colby essentially admitted to spending nine years as a digital copywriter for Ogilvy, Draftfcb and Saatchi, completely oblivious to the dearth of diversity on Madison Avenue. In fact, he also acknowledged benefiting from White privilege throughout his brief and uneventful advertising career—and he was likely oblivious to the racially-rooted perks during his professional tour through the industry as well. Remember, it wasn’t until the 2008 election of President Barack Obama that Colby realized he knew zero Blacks. Based on his writing, Colby displays all the traits of a typical White man as described by Thomas Kochman and Jean Mavrelis in Corporate Tribalism. The Kochman and Mavrelis book, incidentally, is the polar opposite of Colby’s meandering mess.

But wait, there’s more. Through his book and Advertising Age interview, Colby demonstrated a below average understanding of the issues surrounding industry inequality. Plus, he painted an unflattering portrait of minority agencies—and these agencies will surely be well represented at the affair.

Then again, perhaps Colby has made great strides in his journey towards enlightenment. Maybe he’ll show up to deliver breakthrough insight and ideas for progress. It is possible that Colby is actually championing radical change versus merely hawking his lame book.

The next chapter in Colby’s strange story of integration on Madison Avenue may be written on October 3, 2012.

7755: Corporate Tribalism Review.

From the July 2010 issue of Black Enterprise.

7030: Corporate Tribalism—Part 1.

A recent perspective made reference to a new book: Corporate Tribalism by Thomas Kochman and Jean Mavrelis.

This book appears to have significant relevance for the diversity drama that continues in the advertising industry. MultiCultClassics has only started reading it, and plans to share thoughts via a series of posts in the weeks ahead.

The subhead of the book reads, “White Men/White Women And Cultural Diversity At Work.” Drawing on the training they’ve done with corporations for over 20 years, Kochman and Mavrelis have divided the book into two parts. The first part focuses on U.S. Corporate White Men (referred to as CWM), understanding what’s happening between them and others in the workplace. The second part focuses on U.S. Corporate White Women (referred to as CWW), understanding what’s happening between them and others in the workplace—plus, what’s happening between women within their own collective.

The very first paragraph of Chapter One is definitely worth viewing:

CWM in the United States often feel that corporate diversity initiatives do not include them—that “diversity is about everyone else but them” or that “they are the ones who now have to understand others, but others don’t have to understand them.” At face value, neither of these statements is true. CWM are key players in any organization, and the success of diversity initiatives needs their creative involvement just as it does the creative involvement of others. Moreover, members of other groups have spent decades leaving their different culture at the doorstep of the U.S. mainstream workplace to try to adopt or adapt to a cultural style that mainly fits and serves CWM. CWM miss the extent to which others have had to change their ways to accommodate them, so it seems now that the onus of having to change falls only on them. CWM, looking for others to ante up, fail to notice that the money of others is already in the pot.

This excerpt ought to be stapled to the forehead of every White Mad Man in the ad industry, especially those who constantly opt to delegate diversity.

MultiCultClassics encourages all visitors to pick up the book and follow along. In fact, we were tempted to mail a copy to Dan Wieden, but figured he’s got plenty of his own loot. So to Dan and everyone else, click here now.