Wednesday, August 21, 2013

11373: C’MON WHITE MAN! Episode 31.

(MultiCultClassics credits ESPN’s C’MON MAN! for sparking this semi-regular blog series.)

Digiday published a story about part-time Mullen Chief Innovation Officer Edward Boches, who was initially invited to speak at a PR conference, uninvited when the event organizers realized he wasn’t a traditional PR professional, and reinvited after he took to his blog and Twitter, ultimately creating a PR nightmare for the hosts. The tale itself isn’t very interesting; however, one paragraph warrants commentary:

Discrimination of all kinds is now pretty universally frowned upon in decent society. Sure, ad people frequently rank on the lower rungs of most admired professions, but they are humans, after all. They bleed when cut.

Yes, discrimination of all kinds is now pretty universally frowned upon in decent society. The advertising industry, unfortunately, bears little resemblance to decent society. In fact, it routinely displays all kinds of discrimination—the very least of which involves an Old White Guy having his party invitation rescinded by a bunch of PR wonks.

To make matters worse, the alleged victim of discrimination whined on his blog, “But yesterday the Council of PR Firms uninvited me. Apparently they found out that I was an ‘ad guy.’ And damn if a PR organization would have an ‘ad guy’ talk to PR students and young professionals about change and diversity.” Um, if the Council of PR Firms presumed an “ad guy” was unqualified to lecture on change and diversity, well, it’s only because of the negative PR our industry has generated for itself on the topics. The negative PR, incidentally, is completely, unequivocally, and absolutely justified. And that’s no hype.

C’MON WHITE MAN!

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