15092: Whiteness White-Out Rewrite.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture took heat for posting the infographic above on its website, ultimately bowing to public outcry and removing the image. With a few revisions, the message directly applies to the advertising industry too.

12759: Preferring White Culture.

Adweek reported on a study showing 60 percent of executives and potential clients would rather work with firms that care about culture. Of course, they weren’t referring to racial or ethnic culture—as evidenced by the typical account reviews that end exclusively with the selection of a White advertising agency. Hell, you don’t need to conduct a survey to see that roughly 100 percent of executives and potential clients would rather work with firms that care about White culture.

60% of Execs Would Rather Work With Firms That Care About Culture

Focus on that, not dominance or even innovation, in pitches

By Katie Richards

Culture not only helps draw the best talent to your company, but as a new study from the Fortune Knowledge Group and ad agency Gyro found, it also helps other companies—say, potential clients being pitched by agencies—decide whether or not they want to work with you.

Sixty percent of the 500 executives surveyed said knowing a company’s mission statement, and what it stands for, is one of the most important factors in a business decision. Additionally, 68 percent said they would make short-term financial sacrifices to foster these long-term relationships with a business partner.

“We all know that the strongest companies in the world, they nurture their mission statement and have a strong belief in why they started the business,” Christoph Becker, gyro CEO and CCO, told Adweek.

Becker added that any agency, or company for that matter, that doesn’t have a firm idea of its own mission statement and why the company exists, will have trouble forging relationships with other companies.

“You need to know, what’s your point of difference, and why you do what you do,” Becker said.

Check out other key points from the survey in the infographic below.

9980: Delayed WTF 17—Mad Ave Assimilation.

MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.

The half-hearted diversity discussions at the recent 4A’s conference and the announcement of IAM graduates shed new light on the
training consultancy being launched by Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin.

To recap, Vonk and Kestin are starting Swim, a training program for young advertising agency creatives. “With agencies no longer investing time and money to bring people along, it’s pretty much ‘sink or swim,’ and a lot of talented people sink,” explained Vonk. “Careers are stalling, work is suffering, and retention is poor.”

It’s a safe bet that Vonk is talking about White creative staffers. After all, she and Kestin are chummy alums from Ogilvy, where Ogilvy North American Chairman-CEO John Seifert expressed depression over the company’s lame diversity efforts.

Yet Vonk and Kestin inadvertently point out the monumental challenges that minorities face trying to succeed in the advertising industry. Hey, if White creatives require exclusive training, imagine what it must be like for non-Whites. The presumption already exists that minorities depend upon additional tutoring to make it on Madison Avenue—as evidenced by the plethora of segregated internships, inner-city high school initiatives and colored college courses. It appears that Whites feel minorities can’t make it without extra help.

So if Swim indicates even Whites could benefit from special attentive care, the logical next thought would be to believe minorities need super supplemental seasoning.

On the flip side, this really goes back to the arrogance of White adpeople. Specifically, no one ever considers the reality that the group with the greatest urgency for reform is the White majority. The Impact Study showed minorities endure isolation in the field; that is, our industry is not friendly and/or welcoming to non-Whites. But one never hears about philanthropic schemes to enlighten the culturally clueless. No courses are presented for eliminating exclusivity to build inclusive workplaces.

It’s much more pleasant to promote assimilation under the guise of goodwill.

9384: Patek Philippe Pap.

MultiCultClassics is not a fan of the Patek Philippe campaign. Besides being extraordinarily White and elitist, the ads are sexist too. For example, the men sit around being manly in cafés.


The women primp.


The men are behind the wheel of speedboats.


The women are in the backseat blowing bubbles.


The men handle intellectual challenges involving math or science.


The women sketch pretty pictures—probably of flowers.

9349: In The Mix.

From USA TODAY…

More people claim black-white heritage

By Haya El, Nasser, USA TODAY

The number of people who say they are black and white has more than doubled in the past decade, a trend demographers say reflects a growing acceptance of a diverse society.

Blacks who reported more than one race grew at a much faster rate from 2000 to 2010 than those who listed themselves as black-only.

The black-white multiracial population showed the highest increase of any multirace combination, jumping more than 133% to 1.8 million from 2000 to 2010, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. People who say they are black and white make up 59% of the USA’s 3.1 million multiracial blacks, up from 45% in 2000. The nation’s black population stands at 42 million.

“It is dramatic,” William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution, says of the trend. “It’s the younger generation of blacks. Young people are not afraid to identify their race.”

The nation’s total multiple-race population went from 6.8 million in 2000 to 9 million in 2010. More than a third are multiracial blacks.

It’s not clear how many of those who identified their multiracial heritage in 2010 did not do so in 2000 — the first time the Census allowed people to designate more than one race. “There’s a significant increase in the number of biracial and multiracial people,” says Kerry Haynie, co-director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the Social Sciences at Duke University.

Even more striking is the doubling of multiracial blacks in the South, a region with a legacy of racial tension. About 1.1 million Southerners now report they are of more than one race.

“It’s quite remarkable in a region… where interracial relationships were frowned upon or punished either by law or by society,” Haynie says. “It’s very much a good change in the sense that African Americans are being seen as equals. … Those invisible barriers are starting to break down.”

Blacks are spreading out across the USA — returning to the South for work or retirement, for example — leaving the rural South and highly segregated city neighborhoods for more diverse suburbs. Those factors may contribute to the spike in black-white identification.

“People coming from other parts of the country don’t have the historical baggage,” Frey says.

9192: Black and White TV.

Do these ads—which literally appeared side by side in the latest issue of Essence magazine—show how race, culture and stereotypes work on primetime TV? The White actress portrays a smart and strong character in the series’ lead role. The Black actress plays a sexual object.

8693: Mouse In Da House.

Stuff White People Rodents Like.

8610: Stuff White People Ducks Like.

The Aflac Duck is a wigger…?

8533: Suddenly Black Like Me.

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Actor who didn’t know he was black tells story of discovery

By Maudlyne Ihejirika

In 1992, the impending divorce of Michael Fosberg’s mother — a brunette of Armenian descent — and his stepfather — a blonde of Swedish descent — threw the 32-year-old Chicago actor into an emotional tailspin.

“I was deeply saddened and I guess I got really angry with my mother,” says the author of a stunning new memoir released just in time for Black History Month, “Incognito, An American Odyssey of Race and Self-Discovery.”

The story about the jarring discovery by Fosberg, then living as a white man, of his black history — he had no idea his father was a light-skinned black man — is currently stirring vibrant debate about race and identity, white privilege, and the sensitivity of blacks about light vs. dark skin.

Making its way across syndicated black radio and cable TV, it’s a dialogue Fosberg has devoted his life to since 2000, when he began telling his story in a one-man play, Incognito, which continues to tour theaters, schools, colleges and other venues nationwide.

“The woman I was living with at the time said that much anger wasn’t really about my mother. It was misplaced anger that probably had more to do with the fact I never knew my biological father, and felt like now I was losing my Dad, the man who raised me,” Fosberg says of the event that triggered a search for his biological father. “She was absolutely right.”

Fosberg’s mother, whose parents emigrated from Armenia, was 20 when she met his biological father at Boston University in 1957. She got pregnant, and was immediately disowned by her parents. The couple married, struggled for two years, the Fosberg’s mother told her to come home with the child.

She did. When Fosberg was five, she married his stepfather, never telling her son her secret. And raised in a then all white, working-class north suburb, Fosberg never had reason to question his heritage.

But he always felt different. His two siblings had straight hair. His, coarse and kinky. Teenage queries about his biological father had elicited from his mother little information beyond a name and a lie.

“After bugging my mother many times about it, she told me he was of Cherokee Indian descent,” he said.

But in 1992, he knew it was time. Recalling his mother had said his biological father lived somewhere in the Detroit area, he found six listings for John Sidney Woods, called the first one and bingo.

“When I asked, ‘Did you live in the Boston area in 1957?’‚ he said he did. I said, ‘Were you married to an Adrienne Pilbosian?’ He paused for what seemed an hour, then said, ‘Yes, I was,’” Fosberg says.

“My God, son, how are you?’ ” he said. “‘Where are you?’ When he said the word son, I just melted. We talked. Then he said, ‘There’s a couple of things you should know which I’m sure your mother never told you…I’ve always loved you, always thought of you…I’m African-American.’”

Fosberg describes having to reach out and steady himself, unable to respond, and “catching my reflection in the mirror across the room as if looking to see if I had just changed from white to black.”

“‘Are you alright?’” the voice on the other end asked. “I said, ‘Yeah. You’re right. She never mentioned that.’” Thus began his odyssey.

Read the full story here.

8396: Dap Goes Pop.

FYI