8432: Color Commentary From Harry Webber.

Not surprisingly, the various articles published this week at Advertising Age are drawing comments. The following perspectives by the always passionate and provocative Harry Webber cannot be matched or ignored. Well, actually, the White folks will likely ignore Webber.

Advertising sucks.

No really. As an industry. You people are an embarrassment to the American ideal of liberty and justice for all. And you are an insult to the memory of every black or Hispanic soldier who ever shed blood or lost lives for American ideals on foreign soil.

But not just because of your narrow-minded and myopic worldview. Your arrogance in the face of a documented history of biased hiring practices and brutal, systemic racism has singled you out as an example of an under-educated culture of self-important Neanderthals that have elevated the worst of our Nations character flaws to a mean-spirited art form.

This ongoing act of white supremacy will continue as long as this industry is allowed to indulge in de facto apartheid. The truth is that this industry is not diverse for one reason and one reason alone. You people simply don’t want to work with anybody who doesn’t look like you. That’s it.

There is no conspiracy here to deprive people of their equal rights. There is a culture here that seeks to replicate the esthetic of the Third Reich. Nobody says, “Don’t hire that guy because he’s black.” It is simply “understood” that a black person is just “not the right fit” for the team.

How do you live with yourselves? How do you face the black child that comes home with your tween-aged daughter, announced as her “Best Friend For Life,” knowing her father or mother would be dismissed as a candidate for employment in your firm because of something as trivial as the pigmentation of their skin?

I have witnessed your handiwork in the broken lives of those you have robbed of any chance of a meaningful future. When Derek Walker wrote, “I love advertising, but advertising doesn’t love me,” I cried at the funeral of his life’s aspirations. When they found the great Georg Olden dead in the front seat of his gold Cadillac, his reward for a lifetime of amazing work a self-inflicted bullet to his fertile brain, a part of me went with him to Paradise. When I think of generations of gifted black and Hispanic creatives whose books got them interviews only to be told, “Have you considered Burrell?”, my heart shudders with grief. When they are left unattended to and abandoned by interviewers who simply turned on their heel when they saw the owner of the portfolio’s ethnicity, a little part of me dies with their spirit as they sit there and wait. And wait. And wait.

How can you people be so ruthless to your fellow human beings? And then pat yourselves on the back for being masters of the universe.

This article is another testament to your worth as individuals and your merit as an industry. You boast of your technical achievements, yet you embrace the mentality of red-neck sharecroppers. How do you face yourselves in the mirror?

Advertising sucks. Not because of what it does, but because of what it’s done. Pitiful.

:::

To All,

The words that Derek posted are not my words. They are the words informed by the honor and privilege of working under the great advertising minds of our era. They are the words of Tony Isadore, Bob Elgort and Marv Lefkowitz, who taught New Yorkers to “Give A Damn.” They are the words of Jim Millman and Irv Weinberg, who allowed me to explain why Dr Pepper was the “Most Misunderstood Soft Drink In America.” These words come from working with Mike Becker, who gave the world “Earth Day” and was my partner in teaching America “I am Stuck On Band-Aid Brand.” These words come by way of Helmut Krone and Gene Case, who allowed me to say, “Thanks I Needed That.” They are inspired by Ed McCabe, who said yes when I asked him to teach the first Minority Ad Course for the 4A’s, and Jock Elliott, who put the power of the 4A’s behind the effort. These words resonate because of what I learned from Charlie Moss, Bob Wilvers, Julianna’s dad Paul Margulies, who allowed me to state the fact that “Quality Is Job 1.”

I am a product of Madison Avenue. My words have sold billions of dollars in goods and services. Not millions…billions. I have been molded by the best minds in advertising so that I could put into the words above what it means to be black in a world that would deny me the right to support my family, in spite of such a pedigree.

The programs listed in this article have existed for decades. Yet the government has determined that they have had no effect on the ranks of our industry.

At a certain point it becomes obvious that the issue is one of cultural preference. At a certain point it becomes clear that the idea of a level playing field has no place in such a culture.

After the “Great War” the Allies attempted to change the social structure of Japan, one of the world’s most segregated societies. They failed. The response of the Japanese was elegantly simple. You cannot legislate personal preference. The advertising industry is ample proof of that statement.

We cannot legislate the personal preferences of the advertising industry. Even though the law of the land demands it. Even though the President and his Attorney General could have never risen to such heights had they chosen advertising instead of public service.

I had the great privilege of working for those listed above. The credit for the words Derek posted belongs to each of them for seeing me as a talent and not just a token. But the greatest insight of all came from my very first employer, Mr. Berry Gordy Jr., when I asked him why general market radio stations flatly refused to play the music of Motown. “Why ask why? It is what it is.”

Why ask why? Advertising is what it is. The deck being stacked is what it is. Deplorable is what it is.

HarryWebber.com