Essay 320

The MultiCultClassics Monologue presents naughty and nice news…

• A holiday lawn display featuring a Black Santa has sparked ugliness in Illinois. First, vandals put a noose around Black Santa’s neck and hung him from a tree. A week later, Black Santa was stolen, and a death threat and racial slur were spray-painted on the resident’s home. “We can’t figure out a motive for this other than race,” local police said. Wow, did they have to call in Columbo to come to that conclusion?

• Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, known as FIAC in the immigrant rights community, celebrates its 10th anniversary today. A commemorative dinner is planned for March 6. Keynote speaker will probably not be Bill O’Reilly.

• The New York Times reported that advertising agencies are launching new techniques and initiatives to keep up with cultural trends. Shops like DDB, Leo Burnett and Lowe are mining the Internet, polling global opinion leaders and even interviewing cab drivers to tap into culture. Free insight for advertising agencies: Your cultural cluelessness is directly linked to your homogeneous staffs.

• Philadelphia has officially ordered Sony to remove its graffiti-inspired campaign for Playstation Portables. “[The ads] are not only illegal — they are disrespectful to the community,” said a spokesman from the mayor’s office. “We believe in removing urban blight … and now we have a major corporation come in and just throw up ads without approval.” Sony thought it was covered by gaining approval from building owners, but Philadelphia has city ordinances prohibiting graffiti. The advertising agency creatives responsible for the shitty campaign are probably wondering, “Does Cannes have a category for urban blight?”

• “If anti-immigrant forces in Congress had their way, illegal immigration would be a crime punishable by death.” That’s the opening sentence of a provocative editorial published in The Chicago Tribune. The piece was written by Bill Ong Hing, a professor of law and Asian-American studies at the University of California at Davis and the author of “Defining America Through Immigration Policy.” Click on the essay title to read the complete editorial.