7182: Mad Men Brought To You By Whites.

It’s certainly fitting that a major sponsor for AMC series Mad Men is Clorox Bleach—since 1913, keeping Whites pure White.

7181: Alien Affairs.

Unidentified Flying Offenses in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• A California immigrants rights group asked Target and a costume company to stop selling an “illegal alien” Halloween costume. The costume is comprised of an alien mask, an orange jumpsuit and a green card. A group official called the costume “distasteful, mean-spirited, and ignorant of social stigmas and current debate on immigration reform.” No word yet from E.T.

• Rev. Al Sharpton is threatening to sue Rush Limbaugh over a Wall Street Journal editorial that the conservative talk radio host published last week. Limbaugh wrote that Sharpton “played a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot (he called neighborhood Jews ‘diamond merchants’) and 1995 Freddie’s Fashion Mart riot.” A statement from the Sharpton camp argued Limbaugh “has the right to criticize Rev. Sharpton, but he does not have the right to accuse him of criminal activity.” Wish both of these guys would exercise the right to remain silent.

7180: Harry Webber Is Leaving Advertising…?

At The Big Tent, the always provocative Harry Webber left the comment below…

By HarryWebber.com | LOS ANGELES, CA October 17, 2009 03:15:40 pm:

My name is Harry Webber. I have been working in advertising since 1960. I was 16 at the time and my first client was the once mighty Pennsylvania Railroad, the nation’s first billion-dollar corporation. My product was Employee Safety in the most dangerous business in America. I have been blacklisted and exiled from Madison Avenue as a result of my work in bringing equal opportunity to this industry. I am the poster boy for this issue. On Monday, October 19, 2009, I will turn 65. My advertising career will be at an end. On October 20, 2009, my new career will begin.

I will offer myself as plaintiff to the largest Civil Rights class action suit in the history of our great nation. Wish me luck.

http://MadisonAveNew.com

7179: School Daze.

From The Washington Post…

Racial Doubts At Va. College Homecoming
Controversy Simmers Over Non-Black Queen

By Jenna Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer

HAMPTON, Va.—Nikole Churchill, a tall, thin woman with long, dark hair, was named homecoming queen at historically black Hampton University last week. The next day, she appeared with her court at the football game against Howard University, another historically black school.

All this would be unremarkable except that Churchill is the first homecoming queen at Hampton who is not black. That apparently did not sit well with a handful of people at the game, who heckled the senior nursing major.

This bit of unpleasantness, along with similar comments online, might have passed unnoticed except for what Churchill did next. She posted a public letter to President Obama on a Web site asking him to visit the campus and help with her predicament.

“I feel as though you could relate to my situation,” wrote Churchill, 22, who grew up in Hawaii and performed a hula as her beauty pageant talent. “I am hoping that perhaps you would be able to make an appearance to my campus, Hampton University, so that my fellow Hamptonians can stop focusing so much on the color of my skin and doubting my abilities to represent” the school.

Obama hasn’t responded, but the school, established in 1868 to educate freed slaves, has become embroiled in a discussion about race, the role of historically black colleges and alternatives to mainstream definitions of beauty.

Even those who had supported Churchill when she was crowned were angered and confused by her letter to Obama. Student body President Matthew Washington, 20, said he wishes she had let him know about her concerns before writing the president.

“There are always color issues: The light-skin/dark-skin thing. The long-hair/short-hair issue. But to issue a blanket statement like that?” said Washington, a senior economics major from Los Angeles. “It just really put the university in a negative light.”

The comparisons Churchill made between herself and Obama also angered some students: “We all had to go through a lot more racial intolerance than what she had to in a pageant,” said Brittany Riddock, 19, a sophomore public relations major from Atlanta. “There is no comparison at all between a black man becoming president and a white woman winning a beauty pageant at a black school.”

By Monday evening, Churchill found herself standing alone at the front of the student center theater, looking out at dozens of Hampton students who wanted to vent their frustrations and hear her explanation for the letter. This was her first introduction to many of the student leaders there. Churchill attends Hampton’s satellite campus in Virginia Beach, a handful of classrooms on the 10th floor of a high-rise, where about 90 students study nursing and hotel management or take education-certification classes.

Churchill, who has a white mother and an Asian father, explained how she was hurt by the comments hurled online and at the game and that she couldn’t believe she was being judged by the color of her skin, according to several students who were at the meeting. (Churchill did not respond to messages from a reporter via Facebook.) She told them she thought that reaching out to Obama would help the situation.

The debate encapsulates some of the changes sweeping across the campuses of historically black colleges. These schools still produce a disproportionate number of black college graduates, and they retain their social missions to bring higher education to poor students and those from deprived backgrounds. But they have been changing in ways that often carry a heavy symbolic weight: for instance, when Grambling fielded its first white quarterback, and that about half of Southern University Law Center graduates are white.

When the Hampton beauty pageant began that Friday night, the 10 contestants came swirling onto the wooden stage at Ogden Hall in black leotards, flowing skirts and coin-covered scarves, performing an Arabian-themed dance for the crowd of several hundred people.

The contestants took turns modeling swimsuits and ball gowns. They answered questions and explained their platforms. When the talent portion arrived, Churchill, dressed in a pink-and-white swimsuit, a skirt and thick necklaces made from yards of tiny white shells, performed a traditional hula. Huge pink flowers were tucked behind her ear.

As the two-hour pageant neared its conclusion, the women lined up under the stage lights to learn the verdict of the five judges—two professional pageant judges, two faculty members and a local bank vice president.

“It was obvious who was going to win” after the first runner-up was announced because the two women stood out, said Lapraya McCoy, 21, editor in chief of the weekly student newspaper, the Hampton Script, and who was at the pageant. “But it was kind of like there was this pause before everyone applauded. Everybody was just stuck, surprised this had actually happened.”

Churchill sat down as the jeweled crown was placed on her head, a white sash across her plum-colored gown. She posed for photos with the other contestants, and her family and friends who had driven in from out of town, according to her Facebook scrapbook. “It truly was the best night of my life!” she would later write to Obama.

That night, Facebook and Twitter were abuzz with the news. Some said she represented a step forward for the school. Several questioned why students don’t vote for the homecoming queen. Others argued that Churchill didn’t represent a typical Hampton student, not just because of her race but also because she doesn’t attend classes on the main campus.

“She doesn’t have the same experiences as we have,” said Arianna Griffin, 18, a sophomore political science major from Seattle. “She didn’t get a big brother or big sister her freshman year. … She doesn’t live in the dorms.”

“There were a lot of people who asked, ‘What message are you sending by picking her?’” McCoy said. “There are different reasons I think people decide to attend [historically black colleges and universities]. They know who goes here. They thought that was the playing field.”

Homecoming festivities begin Monday night with a car show and a “Hampton Idol” singing competition. Then a fashion show, step show, gospel concert, pep rally and parade. Miss Hampton University will be officially crowned the Homecoming Queen on Wednesday night. A concert Thursday night will feature hip-hop artist Fabolous; LeToya Luckett, formerly of Destiny’s Child; and rapper Jeremih. The homecoming football game Oct. 24 is against S.C. State.

Churchill has told organizers she plans to be at as many events as possible so she can meet the students she now represents.

7178: Fired Up.

Hey, fired advertising executives can pursue a career in digital after all.

7177: Hating Hate-Crime Laws.

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Hate-crime laws pervert justice

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which President Obama plans to sign soon, is named for two men who were murdered in 1998. Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten to death in Wyoming. Byrd, a black hitchhiker, was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas. Bigotry seemed to play a role in both crimes.

Here’s something else Shepard and Byrd have in common: Their killers were arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison or death, all without the benefit of hate-crime laws, state or federal. Hence, it’s very strange to slap their names onto a piece of legislation based on the premise that such crimes might go unpunished without a federal law aimed at bias-motivated violence.

In more than a decade of lobbying for this law, its supporters have never shown that state officials are letting people get away with murder, or lesser crimes of violence, when the victims belong to historically oppressed groups. Instead, they have presented the legislation as a litmus test of antipathy toward violent bigots and sympathy for their victims.

Given this framing, it’s surprising the law’s opponents managed to resist it for so long, when all they had on their side was the Constitution and basic principles of justice.

As the Supreme Court has noted, the federal government has no general authority to fight crime. Yet, this law covers any violent crime where the victim is selected “because of” his actual or perceived race, religion, national origin, gender, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity, as long as the crime in any way involves or “affects” interstate commerce, even if the connection is limited to a weapon made in another state or country.

Like state laws that enhance penalties for crimes when they are motivated by bigotry, the federal law requires courts to examine defendants’ beliefs. To prove that a defendant selected his victim based on one of the prohibited criteria, prosecutors inevitably will cite things he said at the time of the crime and other evidence of his hatred toward members of the victim’s group.

If someone hits me in California with a baseball bat made in Kentucky, that is not a federal crime. But if he does exactly the same thing while calling me a “dirty kike,” it is. No doubt the prosecutor also would deem it relevant that my attacker owned a dog-eared copy of Mein Kampf and belonged to a neo-Nazi group.

Consider the impact of federalizing this crime. In California, the maximum sentence for assault with a deadly weapon is four years. The state’s hate-crime statute could extend that sentence by up to three years, for a total of seven.

By contrast, the maximum sentence under the new federal law is 10 years. Hence my assailant could serve more time for his anti-Semitism than he does for his violence.

Imagine that my attacker is acquitted in state court because the jury accepts his self-defense claim. Or suppose he is convicted and gets a one-year sentence. He can still be prosecuted in federal court.

The law allows a do-over if the Justice Department decides “the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to state charges left demonstratively unvindicated the federal interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence.”

The idea, as then-Attorney General Janet Reno explained when the law was first proposed, is to “give people the opportunity to have a forum in which justice can be done if it is not done in the state court.”

Although such serial prosecutions are permitted under the doctrine of “dual sovereignty,” they look an awful lot like double jeopardy, which is prohibited by the Fifth Amendment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) nevertheless claims the federal hate-crime law upholds “the ideals of our Founding Fathers,” who evidently were big on punishing people for their beliefs, retrying defendants after they’re acquitted and letting Congress make a federal case out of anything that attracts its attention.

7176: Denying Interracial Romance.

The New York Daily News reported a Louisiana justice of the peace denied a marriage license ot an interracial couple. However, he probably allowed them to get a Tassimo brewing system.

Interracial couple is refused marriage license by justice of peace over concern for future children

By Patty Lee
Daily News Writer

A Louisiana justice of peace refused to issue a marriage license because the couple trying to wed was interracial.

Keith Bardwell, a justice of peace in Tangipahoa Parish, cited concern for children that the couple might have as one of his reasons.

Bardwell, who claims most interracial marriages do not last long, came to the conclusion that offspring from those relationships are discriminated against.

“There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage,” Bardwell told the Associated Press. “I think those children suffer and I won’t help put them through it.”

He supports his decision by saying he treats all interracial couples the same way.

“I try to treat everyone equally,” Bardwell said.

The justice of peace estimates that he has denied marriage to four couples during his two and a half year career.

The latest couple to be denied, Beth Humphrey, 30, and Terence McKay, 32, will look into filing a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Justice Department.

“That was one thing that made this so unbelievable,” Humphrey said. “It’s not something you expect in this day and age.”

Humphrey, who is white and an account manager for a marketing firm, and McKay, a welder who is black, recently returned to Louisiana.

Humphrey called Bardwell on Oct. 6 to ask about getting a marriage license and learned through Bardwell’s wife that he would not sign for interracial couples.

“We are looking forward to having children,” Humphrey said. “And all our friends and co-workers have been very supportive. Except for this, we’re typical happy newlyweds.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana has already sent a letter to the state’s judiciary committee asking it to investigate Bardwell.

“It is really astonishing and disappointing to see this come up in 2009,” ACLU attorney Katie Schwartzmann said. “The Supreme Court ruled as far back as 1963 that the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry.”

But Bardwell insists that he did nothing wrong.

“I’ve been a justice of the peace for 34 years and I don’t think I’ve mistreated anybody,” Bardwell said. “I’ve made some mistakes, but you have too. I didn’t tell this couple they couldn’t get married. I just told them I wouldn’t do it.”

7175: Taekwondo Takeoff.

Visit Seoul and don’t worry about airfare, as the Amazing Flying Taekwondo Masters will transport you.

7174: Blog Action Day—Climate Change.

Climate Change is a growing cause of concern, especially as we increasingly believe human activities have contributed to the measurable shifts.

Yet there’s one spot on Earth where climate change has not happened at all: Madison Avenue.

For over 70 years, the advertising industry has remained completely static in the area of workplace diversity. Our business looks Whiter than the shrinking polar ice cap. You don’t have to be a global warming specialist or rocket scientist to recognize human inactivity has contributed to the total lack of measurable shifts in color and culture. The situation does not appear to be a growing cause of concern, especially for top-level executives who delegate matters to ADCOLOR® drones.

Agency leaders allegedly dedicated to company climate change will sporadically heat up the environment by releasing gaseous emissions—usually in the form of announcements for minority internships or inner-city youth outreach programs. But the inconvenient truth is, these initiatives have yielded few visible transformations.

Clients ultimately maintain the atmosphere’s composition by turning blind eyes and deaf ears to the matter. Despite pledging commitment to and embracing diversity in their own ranks, they continue partnering with enterprises where exclusivity pollutes the landscape. Plus, clients prohibit minority shops from going green—at least in terms of revenue—by denying them lucrative AOR status.

White adpeople and clients even blame natural factors for the unchanging world, insisting minorities prefer to pursue alternative sources of employment energy—like professional sports or musical entertainment.

Oddly enough, the Madison Avenue climate change phenomenon has not managed to draw the interest of Al Gore or Al Sharpton. Go figure.

7173: Comments Commentary.

Not surprisingly, the Hadji Williams perspective on minority shops’ inability to win AOR status inspired a fair number of comments. Can’t say there were many new viewpoints, as the topic is pretty common knowledge—especially among regulars at The Big Tent. Of course, at least one culturally clueless jackass with racist tendencies joined the thread, spewing the contrived condemnations and lecturing the group on America’s post-racial society. It’s never clear exactly how well these individuals represent Madison Avenue. That is, are they renegade bigots or typical of the standard White adperson? Would they protest the ADCOLOR® Army or enlist?

7172: Interracial Family Bonding.

Mom likes her coffee black. Dad likes his with plenty of cream. And the ad even ends with a reference to hot chocolate.

7171: Excuses, Excuses.

The Big Tent published a new perspective from Hadji Williams. Wonder if Williams will inspire an Army to stand with him.

Why Can’t Ethnic-Owned Shops Be Agencies of Record?
Hadji Williams Offers Six Popular Excuses

By Hadji Williams

Since the 1930s there’s been one major yet unspoken requirement for U.S.-based agencies to become an agency of record for a general-market client: Your agency must be a majority White-staffed and -owned shop.

With a couple of exceptions, a Fortune 1,000 company will almost never retain an ethnic-owned shop as its AOR for general market pieces of business. Furthermore, few ethnic shops have ever even been allowed to compete for the chance.

Now this wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that general-market spend nearly 95% of their budgets with White-owned agencies, which relegates Black-, Hispanic- and Asian-owned shops to beg/fight over the remaining 5% slice of the pie.

So why the disparities? Well, the excuses have been numerous. Here’s a look at the Top 6:

Excuse No. 1: Black Ad Agencies are too small to be AORs.

Quick: What do you call five White ad pros starting an agency? A boutique. What do you call five Black ad pros starting an agency? The boutique’s Black subcontractor.

I’ve worked on over 60 new-biz pitches over my career. New business is about getting laid—and everyone lies on the first date. For most White agencies, touting global capabilities is like Paris Hilton saying she owns hotels—her daddy owns hotels, she’s just the name. Secondly, some of the creative work that helps land accounts is often done by hired guns (like me). As for their “core competencies,” you can thank their holding company’s roster or so-called strategic alliances for the extra muscle.

Every big shop is just a small shop that won a couple AOR gigs. Unless you’re a Black small shop, in which case you don’t get that chance.

Excuse No. 2: Black agencies aren’t good enough to be AORs.

Black agency creative sucks. There, I said it. Most won’t, fearing being labeled “racist,” but it’s true (and I’m Black, so I can say it and you can’t. Deal with it.). But seriously, a lot of work that comes out of Black agencies just isn’t very good. (God knows I’ve done some crap. But I’ve done great work, too. So have a lot of Black creatives. And Latinos and Asians…)

A big reason most Black creative work is so bad so often is that Black agencies are forced to translate and adapt general-market executions and strategies to their audiences whether the strategies are relevant or the work’s any good or not. (Nothing creates crappy creative like having to boilerplate someone else’s idea with a fraction of the budget in a fraction of the time.)

But despite all those handicaps, the crap coming out of ethnic shops doesn’t hold a candle to the sheer volume of garbage cranked out by general-market shops.

But truth be told, general-market shops have turned brand-killing, clutter-creating and off-base strategies into sweet sciences—out of sheer trial and error, if nothing else. Yet general-market shops will continue getting the chance to jump every shark and miss the broadside of as many barns as they want mainly because they’re not Black.

Excuse No. 3: Black agencies lack the mainstream insights/connections needed to be AORs.

No minority survives without being able to understand and adapt to the majority’s cultures, standards and values. That’s true of every aspect of any society—and the advertising industry is no different. People of color have survived and thrived in America since Day One because we’ve had no choice but to understand and adapt to White America’s ideas, ideals, values, mores, etc. But somehow once we hit the doors of an ad agency, that skill set goes away?

Also, lemme get this straight: General-market shops and clients can jack everything including the kitchen sink from Black culture for profit and cool points, then claim Black shops filled with the same folks who create the culture they ripped off can’t do the same?

In 2009, clients and general-market shops alike still rationalize making Black agencies translate often-irrelevant general-market campaigns for Black audiences and call the process “integrated.”

Conversely, recent industry studies have shown that more and more work created by Black agencies targeting Black audiences actually resonates equally well with White consumers.

Excuse No. 4: Black Agencies are too “unprofessional” to be AORs.

Heard it. Seen hints of it, too. Funny thing is, when White shops dress in non-business attire, rock faux-hawks, goatees and pepper their pitches with mood boards and silly buzzwords, they’re labeled as “hip.” When Black shops rock trendy clothes, use insider-ish lingo and nontraditional work approaches, they’re labeled “unprofessional.” When general-market shops fail it’s “the consumer didn’t get it” or “but the research said…” If Black Agencies were afforded half the excuses general-market shops are allowed to make, they’d enjoy twice the billings they have now.

Excuse No. 5: Black Agencies are too “race obsessed” to be AORs.

Working at general-market shops and dealing with general-market clients always reminds me of one thing: Most White people still think the world revolves (or should revolve) around their view of it. For example:

When a general-market shops say “18- to 34-year-olds,” unless ethnicity is specified, they mean White 18- to 34-year-olds and whoever else follows suit. It’s why we use handles like Soccer moms, Gen-Xers, X-Gamers, Tweeners, Baby Boomers, Nascar Dads, etc., and claim we’re targeting everyone. But when you note that ethnic consumers of color might be overlooked by these efforts, out comes the hand-wringing, backtracking and occasional crocodile tears and confused stares.

Why?

General-market shops are still largely filled with and run by White liberals who, like the Democratic Party, take Black folks for granted (beyond talking about how rotten their alternatives are), while general-market clients seem content to treat Black agencies as tax write-offs. The process creates ad efforts that are more remix-the-GM shop’s work and pseudo-kumbaya PR ploy than legit partnership. And with 40-plus-million Hispanics to court, this biased indifference now has a lucrative backdoor to snake out through.

Excuse No. 6: The economy/changing landscape is tough …

I know, I know, money’s tight and budgets are being cut across the board. Plus the internet is killing everyone, too. Cuts have to be made.

So why not start with the companies and communities you don’t respect as equals and take for granted? After all, if you can keep the consumers and cut the agencies, vendors, media outlets out of the equation, that’s “good business,” right?

In the end, Black Agencies and marketing/PR firms (the good ones, at least) don’t want (or need) to be handed their crowns in the manner Donny Deutsch and other Whites got theirs. All they need and deserve is to have their insights and talents respected enough to be taken seriously—first as human beings; second as professionals, and thirdly, as assets to the brand-building process.

Also, if Blacks can dedicate nearly 85% of their some $700 billion in annual spending power to general market companies (nearly 85% of every Black dollar goes for non-Black businesses) and endorse general-market products on camera, then why can’t Black professionals get an equitable shot at building those brands behind the scenes?

Lemme leave you all with a challenge:

If general-market shops are really so great, then why not end the White-skin privilege and start developing work that doesn’t co-opt cultures of folks you won’t even hire? Why not open up the pitch process across the board and let the best shop, regardless of color, win?

Otherwise, let’s just re-post the Whites Only signs at the receptionists’ desk. At least then, we’d be putting some truth back into advertising.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hadji Williams is a 17-year advertising industry vet and author of ”Knock The Hustle.” As a copywriter, he’s built brands, helped win and maintain accounts … and has even managed to tell the truth. He can be reached at: hadji@knockthehustle.com

7170: Monday Evening Quarterbacking.

Quick hits in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• The Reverend Al Sharpton has joined the NFL players who don’t want to see Rush Limbaugh succeed in his bid to become an owner of the St. Louis Rams. Sharpton sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, asking for a meeting. Not sure why everyone’s getting so worked up. Limbaugh will not likely pass the league’s drug testing.

• Wesley Snipes apparently fell victim to a Ponzi scheme that cost him millions of dollars. However, the total still pales in comparison to the scheme Snipes tried to pull off with the IRS.

7169: Mad Men Erases Ahead.

AMC series Mad Men continues the clumsy erasure of culture that Latoya Peterson noted earlier this year.

First, Don Draper and his daughter’s pretty young teacher were in his car listening to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the radio. The teacher was focused on the oratory—declaring she would read the speech to her students—while Draper obviously had completely different dreams on his mind.

Salvatore Romano rejected the advances of a gay client, and the client demanded that he be fired. Don complied with the client’s request, even sneering, “You people,” when Sal revealed details of the incident. After years of watching Peggy Olson take abuse from her coworkers, Sal becomes the first victim of sexual discrimination in the workplace. Don displays progressiveness with Blacks, yet presents blatant bias with an employee he promoted. Go figure.

Carla the housekeeper appeared throughout the installment. She busted Betty Draper with Henry, her new lover. Later, Betty and her catty girlfriends were discussing Civil Rights marches, with one woman clearly spewing racist perspectives—while Carla stood behind them.

Toward the end of the episode, Carla listened to MLK on the radio. Betty expressed confusion over Civil Rights and remarked, “Maybe it’s not supposed to happen right now.” After growing up with a Black housekeeper, hiring Carla and even having fantasies featuring Medgar Evers, why is Betty suddenly exhibiting cultural cluelessness and insensitivity?

In many respects, Mad Men is being true to Madison Avenue, revealing the root causes of the exclusivity that exists today. Specifically, Whites are so self-absorbed that all other cultures are annoying background noise and ultimately dismissed.

7168: The Cons Of Snitching.

From The Chicago Tribune…

Snitch and you’re a dead man

By John W. Fountain

Snitching can get you killed.

That much I understood growing up in the ‘hood. In kindergarten, I was taught not be a tattletale. But to tell on bad guys, on the criminally minded, especially those who breathe bloody murder, is a more serious matter than being a tattling toddler.

Lately, particularly in light of the senseless violence that continues to claim innocent lives in Chicago, I have heard the lambasting of the good people of terrorized neighborhoods for not readily coming forward with information on murders. I have seen some shaking their heads, shrugging their shoulders and essentially blaming those unwilling—at least reluctant—to tell, as being in some way complicit.

Some even seem roiled that someone might witness a murder and be reluctant to come forward to police. And, in fact, they convey the sense that those unwilling to be witnesses are somehow less human, less feeling and less willing to assume responsibility, less eager to play a role in helping turn their neighborhoods around.

In my experience growing up in an impoverished Chicago community like those under siege, it boils down to an issue of trust. And many who live in the city’s most murderous neighborhoods—who have also witnessed police and political corruption and a trail of broken promises—simply don’t trust the authorities enough to come forward. By doing so, they could be laying their lives on the line.

It isn’t that people don’t want to tell. They do. And it isn’t that they aren’t concerned about their neighborhoods. They are. But to come forward is to risk everything, even in a world where “safety” is always relative.

In poor black neighborhoods, we have seen the revolving door of criminal justice. We have come to understand that there is a new breed of serial killer—young men who kill and kill and kill again. And we also know this: that when the feds seek witnesses in high-profile cases to bring down notorious mobsters and crime families, they at least have the good sense to offer witness protection. They understand what’s at risk for those who come forward.

In my old West Side neighborhood, “body snatchers” are real. There, I have known of masked gunmen to creep upon their prey in the still of night as they sit on a porch unsuspectingly, to kick in doors and hold people at gunpoint, to kidnap, maim and murder. From a child, I have witnessed gunplay and gangs and drug dealers and pimps in shiny Cadillacs, glaring like the sun, and the police drive by street corners—where hustlers hawk their wares—and do nothing.

The Law—the police—in certain neighborhoods isn’t necessarily the law. Once the flashing white-and-blues disappeared, we understood that we were at the mercy of the lawless, left to protect ourselves by any means necessary. For some, our insurance was God. For others, it was the gun. For others still, a little bit of both. But seldom did we consider the police.

Some students have alleged that a police squad car arrived at the scene of the recent beating death of 16-year-old Derrion Albert, though no officers intervened to save him. If that is true, what measure of protection can anyone who witnessed it expect they might receive as a “snitch”?

Given the historic marginalization of black and brown life—and death—why would one think that losing their life for having been brave enough to speak out might somehow make the difference? Why wouldn’t they simply become like the scores of murder victims whose names don’t even make the newspaper’s police blotter?

And yet, I have heard them—politicians, police and pundits—reviling the people of these neighborhoods for not coming forward. And I think to myself, “Easy for them to say. Let them lay aside their bodyguards, their chauffeur-driven limousines and their legal sidearm, and let’s see just how brave they’d be.” Instead we all leave the ‘hood and go safely home.

Whenever gunfire thundered in the night in my old neighborhood, I was grateful when the scene was blocks away, relieved that any blood spilled had not come nigh my front door. Except in a way, I always realized it was never that far away. That every evil that happened in my neighborhood, in one sense or another, always happened to us all.

I also remember wishing there was someone we could tell, someone who might be ready, willing and able to do something to end the violence and crime, in essence, to be able to snitch in a way that would not jeopardize our lives and our family’s once the bad guys learned we had ratted them out.

What would happen if we diminished the risk and created a greater sense of assurance that the law would do its job in actually making the streets safe as well as protecting those who decide to turn killers in?

They still might not be lining up to testify. But I’ll bet you’d find some willing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

John W. Fountain is a professor of journalism at Roosevelt University and author of “True Vine: A Young Black Man’s Journey of Faith, Hope and Clarity.”

7167: Georgia Restaurant = Cracker Barrel?

From The New York Daily News…

Billboard outside Georgia restaurant uses N-word to deride Obama health care policy plan

By Neil Nagraj
Daily News Staff Writer

And you thought Joe Wilson’s “You Lie!” outburst was a low point for political discourse.

A Georgia businessman is using the N-word on a sign outside his restaurant to slam President Obama’s health care plan.

The billboard outside the Peach Oyster Bar in Paulding County reads, “Obama’s plan for health care — [N-word] rig it,” Atlanta CBS affiliate WGCL reported.

“I’ve used the N-word most of my life and there is different ways to put your opinion up, but that’s just the words I choose to use,” owner Patrick Lanzo told WGCL. “I’ve put signs up for 22 years. … I’ve put all kinds of political signs up.”

Despite the presence of a mannequin clad in a Ku Klux Klan outfit standing amid the pool tables, Lanzo maintained he’s no a racist. The bar has pictures of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. on the walls, he pointed out, and he also showed a reporter his 2005 NAACP membership card.

Lanzo said he’s just opposed to Obama’s health care plan, which he called “substandard.”

“I stand by my President, but I also stand by my right under the First Amendment to criticize him if I feel he’s wrong,” Lanzo said.

In a statement to WGCL, a local NAACP chapter took aim not at Lanzo’s message, but those who are allowing it.

“This latest ploy for attention by Mr. Lanzo is not surprising. What is of concern, however, is the total lack of leadership and action from the elected officials of Paulding County, who repeatedly have allowed this type of toxic public display,” the statement read.

7166: AdVerve—Not Your Stereotypical Podcast.

Bill Green of Make The Logo Bigger and Angela Natividad of AdRants have launched AdVerve, a new podcast. The inaugural topic is race and diversity in the advertising industry, and the duo are joined by Hadji Williams for a two-hour discussion. Check it out here and hear why Bill, Angela and Hadji can pretty much kiss goodbye any chance of ever winning an ADCOLOR® Award.

7165: LaNeve Lands.

Advertising Age reports General Motors’ Mark LaNeve will land at Allstate. Wonder if the Allstate minority advertising agencies will be affected in the long run. Ad Age says LaNeve has a challenge ahead because “the insurer was recently ranked ‘about average’ by customers…” Um, GM just came out of bankruptcy, and the automaker’s advertising has rarely even been average. Seems like Allstate found the right guy.

GM’s Mark LaNeve Set to Become Allstate’s Chief Marketer

Automaker’s Former Marketing Head Will Take Over Post From Acting CMO Joan Walker

By Jean Halliday

DETROIT (AdAge.com) — Mark LaNeve, General Motors Corp.’s former top marketer, is preparing to join Allstate Insurance as chief marketing officer, according to two executives close to the situation.

Mr. LaNeve, who was bumped to VP-sales at GM from VP-sales, service and marketing North America when Vice Chairman Bob Lutz assumed control over marketing in July, officially leaves the automaker Oct. 15.

The 50-year-old GM veteran, who is on his second tour of duty at the automaker after several years as a Volvo executive, will succeed Joan Walker at Allstate, who had been acting CMO since Joe Tripodi jumped ship in July 2007 for the same job at Coca-Cola.

An Allstate spokesman declined to confirm the appointment, saying only that there is an active search under way for a CMO. An announcement is expected Monday from the Chicago-based marketer.

Mr. LaNeve declined to comment.

There’s a link between Allstate and GM: Publicis Groupe’s Leo Burnett, USA, handles the insurer as well as GM’s Buick and GMC brands.

The former All-American linebacker at the University of Virginia is likely to appreciate Allstate’s advertising tied to college football. Burnett, Chicago, created the offbeat Bergwood, a college-football-crazed character in fall 2006. Allstate’s newest multimedia campaign using Bergwood broke last month and aims to recruit college-football fans to increase the points for a safety from two to eight points.

Mr. LaNeve will have his work cut out for him at Allstate. The insurer was recently ranked “about average” by customers earlier this month in consultant J.D. Powers and Associates’ annual National Homeowners Insurance Study of 27 companies.

7164: Will Cadillac Cruise Culturally Cluelessly?

Advertising Age reports the Cadillac account is going into review, and incumbent Modernista will not defend. Will General Motors allow minority shops to compete for the business? After all, the automaker handed the Black portion of the business to Modernista—and completely cut its Asian-American agency. Shouldn’t the minority shops be permitted to vie for the prize?

Cadillac Account in Review; Modernista Will Not Defend

Move Seen as Financially Motivated

By Jean Halliday

DETROIT (AdAge.com) — General Motors’ Cadillac has started a review for a new creative ad agency, and incumbent Modernista, Boston, has decided not to participate, Brian Nesbitt, general manager of the luxury brand, said today in a statement.

GM has hired Ark Advisors as a consultant.

Since GM’s exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy this summer, the Detroit grapevine has swirled that Modernista was the odd agency out because it was independent, and that it would be replaced with a shop from one of GM’s two main agency-holding conglomerates: Publicis Groupe or Interpublic Group of Cos. Pundits figured the leaner GM could no longer afford the luxury of a smaller, independent shop.

The move is financially related—GM wants to cut fees, said a former GM exec, as Modernista had higher fees than other, longer-term agencies to the marketer. Other pundits said GM needed to move at least one of its remaining four core vehicle-brand accounts to show that it was indeed a “new” GM.

Modernista also handled GM’s Hummer account. But Modernista’s fate on that account is hazy as GM CEO Fritz Henderson said earlier this week he expected a sale of that brand to close by year’s end. Modernista is losing one of its biggest fans inside GM: Mark LaNeve. Mr. LaNeve, the VP-sales who had, until mid-summer, also overseen all advertising, is leaving the automaker next week.

“We are extremely proud of the work we created for both Hummer and Cadillac,” Modernista said in a statement. “We feel it ranks among the best, if not the best work in the automotive category.

7163: Not Rushing For Limbaugh.

From The New York Daily News…

Black NFL players crush prospect of playing for a Rush Limbaugh-owned St. Louis Rams

BY Ohm Youngmisuk
Daily News Sports Writer

Mathias Kiwanuka loves his former defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, but the Giants’ defensive end says he will never play for Spagnuolo’s Rams if Rush Limbaugh purchases the team.

Kiwanuka and the Jets’ Bart Scott made it clear Thursday that they would never play for the Rams or any team owned by the controversial conservative radio host.

“All I know is from the last comment I heard, he said in (President) Obama’s America, white kids are getting beat up on the bus while black kids are chanting ‘right on,’” Kiwanuka told The Daily News. “I mean, I don’t want anything to do with a team that he has any part of. He can do whatever he wants, it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play.”

“I am not going to draw a conclusion from a person off of one comment, but when it is time after time after time and there’s a consistent pattern of disrespect and just a complete misunderstanding of an entire culture that I am a part of, I can’t respect him as a man.”

Limbaugh said on Tuesday that he is joining former Knicks president and Madison Square Garden CEO Dave Checketts in a group bidding to purchase the Rams. Checketts, who owns the NHL’s St. Louis Blues, is heading the group, reportedly one of many bidders. The potential sale is still in an early stage. If the Rams are sold, St. Louis will choose one bidding group, which will then be subject to a vote by the NFL’s 32 owners, with approval needed by 24 of them.

Limbaugh’s controversial comments are well-known. He resigned from ESPN in 2003 after he said the media were “very desirous that a black quarterback do well” in reference to Philadelphia’s Donovan McNabb being overrated. “If he’s rewarded to buy them, congratulations to him,” McNabb said during his weekly press conference. “But I won’t be in St. Louis anytime soon.”

Scott says players remember what Limbaugh said, and adds that the NFL would be wise not to allow the nationally syndicated host into the league. “It’s an oxymoron that he criticized Donovan McNabb,” Scott said. “A lot of us took it as more of a racial-type thing. I can only imagine how his players would feel. I know I wouldn’t want to play for him. He’s a jerk. He’s an ---. What he said (about McNabb) was inappropriate and insensitive, totally off-base. He could offer me whatever he wanted, I wouldn’t play for him. … I wouldn’t play for Rush Limbaugh. My principles are greater and I can’t be bought.”

Limbaugh, who grew up in Missouri about 100 miles south of St. Louis, is an avid sports fan who once said that “the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.”

Kiwanuka cringes at the idea of Limbaugh becoming an NFL owner. “They are flat-out racist,” Kiwanuka said of many of Limbaugh’s statements. “He jumps on Obama and he jumps on other people for being racist. But a lot of the comments that he said, I feel like they have no place in journalism. It is just an opinion show that should be only be taken for shock value. I liken it to ‘South Park’ when I am listening to him.”

“I love Spags and would play for him in a heartbeat, but under that situation … obviously trades you have no control over, but if it was a free-agent thing, I wouldn’t care if I only had one offer on the table, I would rather stay a free agent.”

With Rich Cimini