This ad’s headline takes on new meanings given Citigroup’s recent plans to terminate up to 15,000 employees.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Essay 4350
This ad’s headline takes on new meanings given Citigroup’s recent plans to terminate up to 15,000 employees.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Essay 4349
One more noteworthy response to the Gary Bentz perspective from AdAge.com’s Small Agency Diary (see Essays 4343 and 4314)…
-----------------------------------
It is unfortunate that Mr. Bentz has a limited knowledge of both the extent and sophistication of our collective capabilities as “Hispanic shops.” I know that our agency is not alone in moving beyond our clients’ perceptions of segmentation, which often stops at language, gender and age groups. I know because I pitch against them. This expanding segment of agencies who understand that this market is as multifaceted as the so-called “general market” are successfully selling the concept that there are no monoliths in our culture, or any other.
Mr. Bentz perceives himself to be something that doesn’t exist, either from a cultural or a marketing perspective. Since the 1800’s, target marketers have been proving that there is no such thing as an “average American.” And neither is there, nor should there be, an “average Latino.” His opinion piece actually tries to make that point, but fails in that he falls into the “box” in which he accuses us of living.
This gentleman’s perspective may be shaped by ignorance of the innovative direction many Hispanic agencies are bringing to clients regarding more evolved concept of Hispanic customer relationship marketing. And his prior experience, which he’s used to tar us all with the same brush, may have required that he develop creative based on flawed strategy. Nonetheless, his own effort to rail against stereotypes rests on a major stereotype, contained in his description of that former experience. To quote his blog entry:
“It’s all cool to address us Latinos in our own language and it’s OK to make the images livelier with bright colors and big bold letters. I’m fine with bringing the family and the hot music to help connect. While this is the first instinctive approach to make sure everyone is on board with what must be in target, I dare to challenge those who think we Latinos live in that exclusive traditional box.”
Veiled as it may be, it is nonetheless an affront to many of us out here, developing groundbreaking, targeted, data-driven strategies and creative, not to mention the clients who relish our thought leadership. It turns out that Hispanic agencies, just like markets we serve, don’t constitute a monolith.
Beatriz Mallory
CEO & Chief Strategist
HispanAmérica, New York, NY
Essay 4348
Not sure what the hell is being communicated here. CertaPro Painters have balls of steel…?
Essay 4347
Making zero progress in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…
• Elvira Arellano, the illegal immigrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for the past year, has been arrested in Los Angeles (photo above). Arellano was in Los Angeles to participate in immigrant-rights meetings when authorities busted her. “She broke the law. You cannot use your child as a human shield to ignore immigration laws,” said the western regional coordinator of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “You cannot say: I have a child who is an American citizen. That makes me immune to any law I violated.” Hasta la vista, baby.
• Zero does not equal zero when it comes to trans fat. Federal regulations say it’s ok to proclaim your product has zero grams of trans fat if there’s less than half a gram per serving. But most packages contain more than a single serving. Plus, most people eat more than a single serving at once. So the regulations kinda make zero sense.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Essay 4343
As expected, the Gary Bentz perspective posted at AdAge.com’s Small Agency Diary (see Essay 4314) sparked some spirited discussion. An abridged collection of responses appears below. Click on the essay title above to catch all the comments.
--------------------------
I believe Mr. Bentz gets paid to “reach” U.S. Hispanics. Therefore, a more narrow vision or understanding is adequate. I aspire to be paid by intelligent Clients like mine to move, impact, engage, and persuade U.S. Hispanics. A deeper vision and understanding is required.
Tony Ruiz, Partner/Chief Strategy Officer, The Vidal Partnership
--------------------------
Have you read the opinion piece by Gary Bentz titled “Creativity Is My Culture—Why I Didn’t Open a ‘Hispanic’ Shop” in AdAge.com under the Small Agency Diary blog section?
The gentleman states in the blog that reaching Hispanics in language and culture is appropriate. He also agrees “Culture is not only defined by ethnic background, color of skin or language. It’s much more.”
These are the only points we agree with him on out of his whole opinion piece.
Mr. Bentz states he is from Puerto Rico and he defines himself not because of his Hispanic background, but by the fact that he has more in common with the average American than with Hispanics with a distinctly separate culture traits and language preferences.
Well, he is right!
Gary Bentz is probably defined by his $100K plus a year job, his education and the fact that he and his family do not live the average Hispanic lifestyle. He does NOT enjoy common ground with over 85% of all other Latinos or Hispanics in this country, because he has is a US citizen by birth. He probably did not live long enough to be impacted by true Puerto Rican culture and language on the island, he probably went to a prep-school in Puerto Rico or a school in the USA and studied at an American university and does NOT understand the lives of Mexicans in the USA or any Central & South American, for that matter.
His theory is based on targeting US Hispanics by the common values and traits they share with the average American, rather than by the traits and values that they have that are distinctly different. Those that define them as Latinos or Hispanics.
We can guarantee to you that the creative pieces he states he has created for such advertisers as Miller, Pepsi, Gatorade, Burger King, Verizon and General Motors did take into account the difference in culture, language and their non-typical values and traits that differentiated them from the average American. If not, they were not designed to target Hispanics in the USA.
How do Hispanics have more in common with the average American than their differences?
¡Por Favor! Have you been to a focus group lately?
Mr. Bentz is not the target of 99.999% of the Hispanic focused marketing plans in the works today at Hispanic agencies. So to use himself as the model for the correct prototype to target US Hispanics is erroneous and irresponsible.
Yet he states he is an expert in creating creative content to reach this Consumer Segment. He also discredits the value of a Hispanic Agency and their expertise, since he leads the readers to believe that they do not need to be part of the marketing mix. He portrays creative as the end all element that ensures success.
He does not give importance to the other aspects of marketing to Hispanics in the United States besides the creative discipline. Creative is not the end all of effectively and efficiently reaching Hispanic Consumers. What about the marketing and behavioral nuances of consumers, the media savvy and expertise required to ensure the proper points of contacts? Just to name a few elements he does not give any importance to.
¿Quien es Gary Bentz? As we say in Puerto Rico, “esta meando afuera del tiesto.”
Like with most blogs anyone can opine!
He exemplifies a movement within our Industry to minimize the importance of the Hispanic ad agency and the professionals that ensure that advertisers garner ROI from their ad investments in targeting US Hispanic Consumers.
Maybe the average Hispanic agency has moved a little slower than some clients and media outlets might want regarding a shift from a traditional Spanish only marketing model, but progress is occurring for inclusion of multi-faceted linguistic and cultural marketing models that represent the entire cross section of Hispanics in the USA. Even though Hispanic agencies need to continue to grow their expertise, their contact point models and their research capabilities. They are still the experts on reaching Hispanic Adults 18-49, Hispanic Women 18-49 and Hispanic Men 18-49. Core demos with buying power, along with the growing Hispanic 12-17 segment.
The problem here is blogs and pods, where any self-proclaimed expert states their opinions about any complex issue, in this case marketing to Hispanics. How more complex than that!
You also can find them speaking at the many of the seminars and conferences that flood our Industry. They muddy the waters.
If Hispanics are going to represent the majority of the US population by 2050, then instead of Hispanic focused agencies and so called experts proclaiming we have to become more generic “Vanilla” and emulate mainstream ad agencies and experts.
Maybe the reverse is true.
To effectively target the changing face of America, you need to become more of an expert on the art & science of Hispanic advertising to better serve your clients.
¡Basta ya! Let the real experts stand up and be heard.
So… ¿Quien es Gary Bentz? Obviously he has not opened a Hispanic Shop.
Gene Bryan (I am also from Puerto Rico and sometimes an expert in something), CEO HispanicAd.com
--------------------------
It all depends on what we do with the opportunity that is given to us to create advertising and messages targeted to Latinos. We complain about the box we are in and keep cashing in the check. Or while in that box we can expand it, open it up and make the point the box is no longer needed. But you need the work to do that. Not just words.
Mark Gonzalez, New York, NY
--------------------------
Mr. Bentz is right on! All too often, agencies, in their quest to connect with an “ethnic” target market, focus more on surface cultural cues than they do on the deeper insights, which may or may not have anything to do with the color of one’s skin.
I am a qualitative researcher and consultant specializing in the African American consumer market. I cannot count the number of times I have been asked for the “Black insight” and watched GM clients’ faces fall as I tell them that there is no such thing. There are countless sub-segments in the African American community and although members of these segments share a common culture, their interests, lifestyle and experiences impact them and the way they see the world as much as their ethnicity does. This is not to suggest that culture is not important. The reason that there are Black motorcycle clubs, Black wine clubs, Black mom support groups, etc. is that culture still plays a large part in our lives. But it isn’t the only thing that makes us who we are.
In my research, I’ve found that the ads African American consumers appreciate most are the ones that accurately reflect their full lives and experiences—not just their color.
Patricia D. Raspberry, Ph.D., Principal, Black Raspberry Consumer Insights, Chicago, IL
--------------------------
i’d intentionally tried not to weigh in on this one simply because i’ve been championing this and related issues for years now. but i couldn’t resist. still, i’ll add the following:
until current clients and current GM shops end the practice of marginalizing ethnic shops to sub-contractor status and degrading ethnic professionals by measuring ethnic cultures thru a mainstreamer’s view, then the creative culture of ethnic pros will continue to be stifled, to the detriment of the clients we’re charged with serving.
hadji williams, chicago, IL
--------------------------
There is a big elephant in the room perpetuating this stereotypical vision of Latinos: Univision. They have built an empire based on making clients believe that Spanish language media and “muy Hispano” pieces are the only way to go when targeting Hispanics. The big paradox is their owners and top management are mostly American and few of them even speak Spanish!
As long as they continue to drive the market, clients will approach the Hispanic market with a cookie cutter solution—“Prime time Don Francisco, novelas and make sure to add abuelitas and Mariachis to your creative so the ads are relevant.”
Gustavo Garcia—Miami, FL
Essay 4342
Spotted in a Croatian magazine, this Uncle Ben’s ad pushes Western and Asian stereotypes. It’s a culturally clueless triple play.
Essay 4340
From The Chicago Tribune…
----------------------------
EXPANDING DEFINITION OF BLACK UNITY
Pressure builds to end abuse of black women
Abusive men must be held accountable for their actions
By Lori Robinson
I never thought I would see the day R. Kelly would stand trial.
After all, it has been five years since the now 40-year-old R&B superstar was charged with several counts of child pornography. With jury selection slated to finally start next month, the infamous videotape of Kelly allegedly having sex with an underage girl has become a distant memory.
The good news is that momentum is mounting against the use of words and images that denigrate African-American women and girls in so much popular music. But will the black community hold individual African-Americans accountable for actions that harm women?
If the Kelly case is any indication, the answer is no.
Once again, his music is near the top of the charts. Since his 2002 indictment, he has been busy selling millions of CDs, playing national tours and collecting awards.
Positive steps have been made challenging the music industry since the Kelly tape came to light. Essence magazine initiated the Take Back the Music campaign in 2005 to increase public debate about black women’s portrayals in music.
“Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes,” a documentary film about misogyny in the genre, won national acclaim last year. And in April, Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network launched the Decency Initiative, a strategy to pressure record companies into preventing artists from using specific words considered offensive toward black women.
Earlier this month, Sharpton spoke in Detroit in front of a humble white house with blue trim known as Hitsville U.S.A., the home of Motown. Out of the 20 cities where national Day of Outrage protests were held simultaneously, Sharpton chose to appear in Detroit because of Motown’s legacy as a wildly successful entertainment company whose artists didn't debase women in songs.
When asked what message he would like to send to artists who physically abuse black women, Detroit protest organizer Rev. Horace Sheffield said, “The tide is turning. There is going to be a terrible toll exacted upon those who not only demean them with words, but also caricature and conduct.”
I hope he’s right. It’s long overdue.
When the Kelly controversy was at its peak in 2003, I mentioned him in a speech about sexual violence I gave in Harlem. A teenage African-American girl asked what was wrong with supporting him. I responded by asking whether she would still want to support the work of a grown man if he had sex with her little sister. She simply stated that because the victim wasn’t her sister, she saw no problem with buying his music.
Considering the example adults set, it’s no wonder she didn’t care about the abuse of another black girl. Teens aren’t the only consumers purchasing Kelly’s CDs and downloads, and they do not run the record companies and radio stations that enable him to continue amassing a fortune.
Some would argue that boycotting Kelly would be unfair. It’s true that he is legally innocent until proven guilty. At the same time, by supporting Kelly’s work these last five years, the public has discouraged him and other men who may be abusive from understanding that such behavior is criminal and unacceptable.
Maybe that teenager in Harlem, and the millions of others who patronize Kelly, just don’t understand sexual violence. According to a study led by University of Southern California researcher John Briere, an estimated 1 out of 3 girls and 1 out of 7 boys will be sexually violated by age 18. Such abuse results in myriad problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and eating disorders. Girls who experienced childhood sexual abuse are three times more likely than other girls to abuse alcohol or drugs or experience psychiatric disorders in their adult years.
Abuse should not be tolerated or excused, no matter what positive qualities the abusers offer. We should be teaching young people to never overlook sexual victimization.
Instead, the message we’ve been sending is that we value moments of musical pleasure more than the lives of black girls, that it doesn’t matter if Kelly is guilty as long as we can get our groove on.
When Kelly came to the stage to collect his Best Male R&B Artist award during BET’s annual awards show in 2003, he said African-Americans’ support of him was a great example of black unity.
We cannot afford to fall for this diversion. Holding black offenders of black women and children accountable is not tantamount to dismissing the inequities of today’s prison-industrial complex or the racism that has brutalized black men for hundreds of years. Nor does it equate to personal antipathy. To the contrary, I want Kelly to get help and be healed.
Demanding accountability is not anti-black men, but pro-black people. It means keeping everyone in our community safe, healthy and whole.
Holding those who commit sexual offenses accountable for their crimes -- now that would be black unity worth singing about.
[Lori S. Robinson, a freelance writer based in Detroit, is the author of “I Will Survive: The African-American Guide to Healing from Sexual Assault and Abuse.”]
Essay 4338
Everyone and their Uncle Tom have already commented on the German UNICEF ads featuring children in Blackface. MultiCultClassics didn’t feel the need to add a rant because, well, it is Germany. To emphasize the point, check out the article below that originally appeared at the Deutsche Welle-World website in 2005.
Anti-Racism Groups Slam German Ads
“Kent Nagano conducts Wagner” -- charming or tasteless?
Racism in Germany is usually associated with far-right groups and neo-Nazis. But anti-racism campaigners say the country’s advertising industry is also guilty of rampant insensitivity towards ethnic minorities.
Plans to stage an African cultural festival in a zoo in the southern German town of Augsburg last month sparked condemnation among the country’s anti-racism groups. The incident was given wide coverage in Germany’s mainstream media.
But apart from such one-off controversial events, what hardly receives any attention, according to campaigners, is long-running insensitivity towards ethnic minorities in the country’s advertising industry.
A case in point is a poster (photo, above) created for the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden last year to advertise German composer Richard Wagner’s “Parsifal” performed by acclaimed US conductor Kent Nagano, currently creative head of the German Symphony Orchestra in Berlin. It showed a famous portrait of Wagner, given a pair of arms with the help of a computer, making slanted eyes in an obvious reference to Nagano’s Japanese origins.
The poster, “Kent Nagano Conducts Wagner,” didn’t even raise an eyebrow in mainstream Germany. But it did catch the attention of advertising industry insiders -- they awarded it a top prize in Berlin earlier this year.
“I think it’s tasteless and racist,” said Dagmar Yu-Dembski, chairwoman of the German-Chinese friendship society in Berlin, who documents examples of racial stereotypes in the media and advertising. “Highlighting the physical features of Asians in this way is just a cheap ploy to grab attention. The crass reference to Nagano’s ethnicity has nothing to do with a classical music concert.”
Aki Takase, a well-known Japanese pianist and composer based in Berlin agreed.
“It is shameful that his origins seem to be so much more important in this case than his immense musical talent,” Takase said.
Kent Nagano was unavailable for a comment.
Ethnic clichés
Insensitivity to issues of ethnicity is widespread in German advertising, according to campaigners.
Noah So, a prominent black German radio presenter and singer (photo), who founded the group “Der braune Mob,” which monitors race issues in the media and advertising, said most Germans think it’s perfectly normal to make fun of certain racial minorities.
“In commercials or advertising posters, Asians and blacks are usually used to either give Germans something to laugh about or they’re reduced to ethnic clichés,” So said. She referred to a current commercial on MTV Germany for an online music download platform, in which an Asian teenager never manages to buy music by his favorite band, as he can’t utter the letter “r” and keeps saying “Lamones” instead of “Ramones.”
Such stereotypes are frequently played upon in German ads. “Asians are usually depicted as small, giggly people who can't pronounce the letter “r” and constantly take photographs, while blacks are shown either as victims in need of donations or as hip DJs,” So said.
Norbert Finzsch, a history professor at the University of Cologne, agreed. “The way Africans and African Americans in Germany are perceived and discussed, the way they are presented on billboards and in TV ads proves that the colonialist and racist gaze is still very much alive in Germany,” he said in an open letter last month calling for the African cultural festival in the Augsburg zoo not to open.
Selective political correctness?
The allegations might seem surprising given that Germany is known to be particularly careful about relations with its 6.8 million-strong immigrant population, in view of its past.
But anti-racism campaigners suggest that many Germans have a selective concept of political correctness -- an attitude which is perpetuated by advertising, they say.
“Naturally, you won’t find any racist or offensive portrayals of Jews or Sinti and Roma people in German advertising, because most Germans are acutely aware that that’s off-limits,” So said.
Yu-Dembski added that given Germany’s large Turkish population of some 1.9 million, the stereotyping of Muslims in commercials is also taboo. “The Asian community, in comparison, is small and almost invisible. There’s almost this unspoken agreement that the Asians are the laughing stock in German advertising,” she said.
Ad industry denies accusations
The German advertising industry denies accusations of being racially insensitive.
Michael Preiswerk, company board spokesman for the Art Directors Club (ADC), a Berlin-based advertising group that awarded the gold prize to the Wagner poster earlier this year, defended the move.
“It’s an excellent poster that goes beyond cultures to form a great work and that very strikingly and succinctly shows Asian culture.” He denied it was meant to cause offense. “It’s charming and funny and shows openness and multiculturalism,” Preiswerk said.
He admitted, however, when asked, that had Nagano been a black American, it would have been “more complicated” to come up with a creative concept.
Volker Nickel, press spokesman of the Deutscher Werberat, an advertising watchdog, also saw the Wagner poster as acceptable. “People who feel directly affected naturally feel upset about such things, but you have to see the advertisement in its entirety,” he said.
Though the watchdog has drawn up a list of fundamental rules against discrimination of people in advertising on the basis of ethnicity, race, language and origins among others, it has rarely asked a company to drop an advertisement on those grounds.
Nickel underlined that there had not been any “racist advertisements” in Germany over the 33 years of the industry watchdog’s existence, only “questionable” ones and that the country enjoyed high advertising standards.
“There’s a great deal of sensitivity in German society and even among companies and people towards other ethnicities -- we really don’t need to worry about that,” he said. He added that the Werberat received only between one and three cases a year amid some 400-600 complaints about “racist” ads. “It really is a fringe phenomenon,” he said.
German reality not just white
Anti-racism groups aren’t convinced.
There’s agreement that lack of awareness is a big part of the problem -- a sign that the country still needs to make huge strides to become truly multicultural. A further stumbling block is presented by the fact that unlike in the UK and US -- which admittedly also have their own share of racism – there’s no central body or forum in Germany where members of racial minorities can turn when they have a complaint.
Others say that average Germans are also to blame. “In Germany, it’s very important for people not to seem racist. But they’re more worried about how the British press is referring to them and about Nazi comparisons abroad than about how racial minorities are portrayed in their own country,” So said.
She added that, since white people are rarely the target of racial stereotyping, it’s almost impossible for white Germans to understand how people of color feel when their ethnicity is ridiculed or portrayed disrespectfully.
“German reality isn’t only white,” So said, pointing out that there are some 300,000 black Germans living in Germany today. “But to hear and see the mainstream public sphere in Germany, you’d think that all Germans are white.”
“There are many decision-makers -- but ours rely on technology and multimedia.”
An advertisement for Penisplus, a site for surgical penis enlargements. The ad won an advertising award in 2003.
[Click on the essay title above to view the original article, including a few more visual examples.]
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Essay 4335
From The Chicago Sun-Times…
---------------------------------------
The expanded law is vitally needed to curb hate crimes
By Rummana Hussain
The two men eyed the slight, gay university student as he entered the eatery with a female friend.
“Hey faggot!” a voice beckoned toward Brett Timmerman. “Why don’t you take your faggot ass back to Madison?”
Before he knew it, Timmerman’s tormentors greeted him with a slap, gobs of spit and a swift blow to the head as he was tackled to the ground, according to a lawsuit he filed against his attackers.
Timmerman is waiting to testify about the vicious 2005 attack that ruptured his ear drum. While his physical wounds have mended, the Wisconsin man’s psychological scars linger -- just as they do for a black mother of two who heard chants of “Burn mother - - - - - -, burn!” outside her Philadelphia house before discovering racial slurs and fake blood splashed across her steps.
Like other hate crime targets, Timmerman still has nightmares.
Based on FBI statistics, a hate crime is committed once every hour in this country. One out of six of those victims are targeted because they are gay, according to an attorney at the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign. These statistics don’t capture all attacks because victims are often too embarrassed and too afraid to speak out. The data also doesn’t track attacks on transgendered people.
Attacks against homosexuals have remained consistent for several years. Gay rights activists say they have no reason to believe attacks against homosexuals are on the rise, but brutal attacks such as the 1998 torture and slaying of Matthew Shepard, who was tied to a fence and left for dead in Laramie, Wyo., are a reminder of just how savage hatemongers can be.
That’s why the passage of a pending Senate bill, aptly named after Shepard, is considered vital to curb hate crimes and the overall violence that has pervaded our society.
The proposed act simply extends the existing federal hate crimes law -- which now levies additional punishment in cases of violence when race and ethnicity is a prime motivator for the attacks -- to protect homosexuals and the transgendered.
Proponents of the act say the new protections would not legitimize gay lifestyles or keep anyone from using homophobic slurs -- as long as violence is not involved. The few religious leaders and right-wing leaders worried that it would prevent them from spouting their anti-gay rhetoric should stop misleading their flocks, say gay activists.
“They’ve been preaching that [anti-gay rhetoric] since the dawn of day,” said Laura Velazquez, anti-violence project manager for the Center on Halsted. “We’re not trying to stop that. What we’re trying to emphasize is a need to prevent any type of hate crime or violence.”
Timmerman’s attorney Jim Madigan, of Chicago’s Lambda Legal, believes having expanded protections for gays would have brought some relief to his client: “It’ll certainly make those who target certain people think twice.”
Essay 4334
From the Chicago Sun-Times…
-------------------------
Ministers fear law would muzzle religious speech
By Deborah Douglas
Gays are going to hell – that’s what some ministers have been preaching and want to keep on preaching. But a proposed hate crimes law would stop them from saying so -- at least that’s what several believe so firmly that they took out an ad in USA Today to warn churchgoers that the law would curb their religious speech.
Arch-conservative ministers complain that their denunciation of homosexuality is mischaracterized by gay-rights activists as hate speech.
But if religious speech is construed as hate speech under the terms of this proposed law -- the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 -- ministers may be thwarted, says Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of the 3,000-member Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md.
That’s why Jackson and more than 30 other black ministers around the country signed a full-page ad that ran July 11 in USA Today protesting the hate crimes bill, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 3, awaiting discussion by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Jackson says if parishioners commit a hate crime upon hearing their minister's admonitions, those ministers could be held liable.
“They are taking loopholes in the legislation that would create the opportunity to muzzle the church, the pulpit,” Jackson says. “It’s landmark legislation: For the first time sexual orientation is raised to an equal status with race or creed in American law. I don’t think somebody else’s lifestyle preference should be made equal to my struggle as a black man. [But] my primary argument with this bill is religious liberty.”
Both versions of the House and Senate bills provide federal money, up to $100,000 a year, to help local police solve hate crimes when they’ve exhausted local resources and expertise. Each version covers not only people attacked based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but crimes based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender and disability. The proposed law specifically says it cannot usurp constitutional law -- like the kind that guarantees free speech.
But Jackson says additional protections are not needed. He worries that such legislation gags the church’s position on homosexuality.
Not all religious folks agree.
The Rev. Mel White, 67, a gay minister and the author of Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right, called Jackson disingenuous: “At the heart of this imaginary complaint is the fundamentalist Christians’ belief that … God will remove his hand of blessing from this country” if homosexuals are protected. Under that belief, he says, “America is doomed.”
Mainstream black religious leaders don’t necessarily see the law as a threat to their ministries. The Rev. James Meeks, a state senator and pastor of Salem Baptist Church, says: “Ministers will still have the full right to be able to share the Scriptures as they interpret it. They always have, and they always will.”
But is that speech hateful?
“They can say it, and I can say they are wrong,” White says. “That is what America is about.”
Friday, August 17, 2007
Essay 4333
Another view on the topic spotlighted in Essay 4313 (thanks to Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious.com for pointing it out)…
---------------------------------------
Lawmakers ask agencies to draw in more minority-owned ad firms
By Anika Gupta
Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the Defense and Treasury secretaries late Monday, calling on them to award more advertising contracts to small, disadvantaged and minority-owned businesses.
“The Defense and Treasury departments are woefully behind the curve,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who joined Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev. and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in signing the letter. Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick, D-Mich., also signed. The letter asks Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to provide details as to what action the departments are taking to increase the advertising contracts they give to minority-owned businesses.
The letter came in response to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday showing that the two departments lag behind others in fulfilling Executive Order 13170. The order, signed in October 2000 by then President Bill Clinton, calls for agencies to “aggressively” market contracts, including advertising ones, to minority-owned firms.
The report (GAO-07-877), requested by the senators in late 2006, found that the Defense Department accounted for more than half of the total that the government spent on advertising contracts from fiscal 2001 to fiscal 2005, but only 1.8 percent of the money Defense spent on such contracts went to small, disadvantaged and minority-owned firms. By contrast, NASA, which awarded less than 1 percent of all federal advertising dollars during that period, gave 88.9 percent to traditionally underrepresented firms.
Treasury awarded 15.9 percent of the total spent on advertising in the same years, with 1.9 percent of the department’s spending going to small firms. Overall, the government awarded 5 percent of advertising contract dollars to these firms between fiscal 2001 and fiscal 2005, the report said.
“I disagree with that amount,” said Harry Alford, president and chief executive officer of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, a business association that reaches an estimated 100,000 black-owned businesses. Alford said the amount must be less, particularly since some prominent black media outlets have been bought out by European companies in the past decade. “Those businesses no longer even qualify as minority-owned,” he said.
Alford said that if the government wants to work with minority-owned advertising shops, it should maintain a database of such companies and look to that when opportunities arise. He said there are about 50 black-owned advertising agencies in the nation, and about 75 Hispanic-owned.
He also disagreed with the idea that only large firms could create large advertising drives, such as military recruitment campaigns. “It’s not like construction where you’ve gotta buy equipment,” he said. “It can be done with a relatively small staff if you’ve got the background.”
Patricia Perez, spokeswoman for the California-based Latin Business Association, agreed. “There are some long-term government vendors who have locks on contracts, so small businesses are forced to be subcontractors getting a very small percentage of the budget to do niche marketing,” she said. “[Hispanic ad shops] have the expertise and the skills to be able to do a full-blown general market campaign, if given the opportunity.”
Perez said the private sector has done a good job of reaching out to minority-owned businesses. “They give business sessions to small businesses, even ones that do not have contracts with them, on everything from marketing yourself to financing,” said Perez, adding that firms send e-mails to minority-owned businesses, maintain “helpful” Web sites and hold contracting fairs. “Those are the things that we haven’t seen from the government,” she said.
GAO found the executive order followed small business contracting guidelines already laid out in legislation, and most agencies relied on existing training and outreach to fulfill the order’s requirements. NASA, for example, offers a three-day training course for small businesses, while the Interior Department advertises contracts to small business trade associations.
The executive order did not set numeric goals for the contract dollars to be awarded to underserved firms.
Essay 4332
Career killers in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…
• Steven Seagal is seeking an apology from the FBI for allegedly damaging his movie career. “False FBI accusations fueled thousands of articles saying that I terrorize journalists and associate with the Mafia,” claimed Seagal. “These kinds of inflammatory allegations scare studio heads and independent producers—and kill careers.” Actually, Seagal still owes us all an apology for The Glimmer Man.
• Forbes.com reported Jay-Z is the wealthiest rapper, earning $34 million. Maybe he could float some loot in Seagal’s direction.
• The former New York Knicks executive suing Isiah Thomas for sexual harassment failed in her bid to see his tax returns. The woman was hoping to uncover evidence that Thomas and Knicks executives cheated on their taxes or held unauthorized gigs on the side. Sorry, lady, it looks like Thomas is only cheating on his wife.
Essay 4331
For the second week in a row, AMC series Mad Men depicted zero non-White minorities.
However, there was one mention of Negroes.
An account executive had a story published in Atlantic Monthly, generating jealous responses from coworkers. A copywriter sneered that he also had a tale, relating a dream where he “wound up in Jersey City with all these Negroes—and we all got along. Can you imagine how good that story is?”
It’s hard to imagine any story worse than Mad Men.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
