The Marketing Of Black People

Has anyone seen that Fiber One commercial with the black man in his pajamas and housecoat standing at his garbage can next to the curb?  A man walking by takes notice and asks the guy why he’s throwing away his Fiber One when he loved it so much.  The black man said he really did like it.  But his wife said it can’t be good if he liked so much and so he had to throw it away.  Then the dude in pajamas starts getting cocky and says something like he can eat what he wants.  At that, the guy walking by glances behind the brother’s shoulder.  The black man notices the eye movement and realizes his wife is standing right behind him.  He dons a stupid look of acquiescence and says in his meekest voice, hey honey.  Obviously his tail just went between his legs.

Or has anyone seen the Midas commercial, where a black man and a Midas technician are under a vehicle discussing what the car needs.   The black man is on a roller from the left, the technician is on a roller from the right.  The tech is telling the guy what his options are.  The black man is about to reply with what he wants when his black wife suddenly rolls up under the car, ignores her husband, and tells the tech what she wants and as quickly as she made her entrance rolls away.  No discussion what so ever.  The commercial ends with the tech telling the man that they have donuts in the waiting room.  The woman rolls back up under the car and tells the tech, he doesn’t need any donuts and rolls away again.

Or has anyone seen the commercial where the black man and woman walk up to a pharmacy counter.  The man looks like he is about to cough up his lungs.  The black woman asks the pharmacist where they can find the cough medicine.  The pharmacist answers the question.  The woman looks at her husband as if she’s looking at a child that has gotten on her last nerve.  She grabs his hand and starts leading him away with a pretty rough, come on.

Or has anyone seen the commercial with all the talking parrots.  The commercial shows different scenes where people have obviously recently purchased birds that talk.  But instead of the birds saying something cute like “pretty bird” or “let’s have a kiss” or “Polly wants a cracker”, the birds say things like “where’s my invoice” or “did you pay me”.  Eventually we see a woman in a pet store at a desk in disarray with papers everywhere looking for an invoice.  The commercial was for Quick Books software designed to help keep you organized.  There are a handful of scenes where the people are looking at their bird with obvious displeasure.  But in one scene there is a black couple and the woman is looking at her husband as if to say can’t you do anything right.  And the husband is looking all sheepish and stupid as if he’s the epitome of a dufus.

In all of these commercials there is a blatant reinforcement of the racial stereotypes of black women being overbearing and black men being emasculated by overbearing black women and disharmony in the black household.  These commercials, and many others just like them, bank on the falsely held belief that black households have a reputation of being more easily broken than their white counterparts.  And the idea that it’s just an injection of a bit of comedy into marketing doesn’t always cut it.  We see our President make subtle references to the bowling talents of Special Olympians and people lose their minds.  It was meant as comedy, but people understand something offensive when they see it regardless of how funny it is.

A commercial that showed a black woman being disrespected by a black man in the same way black men are disrespected by black women probably wouldn’t be very successful despite its less than successful stab at comedy.  And I haven’t seen too many commercials with interracial couples where a black man is being cut down by white women or black woman is cutting down a white man.  The emasculation of the black male is a unique comic phenomenon reserved almost exclusively for the black female.  The utter contempt the black women have for a black man is so thick and blatant how anyone can find that shit funny is beyond me.  If the general relationship between black men and women is so tenuous, the last thing we need is to be depicted as being at each other’s throat over something stupid like a bowl of cereal.

Fiber One will be one of the cereals you’ll aren’t likely to find in my house.  And Midas can keep it mufflers.  Quick Books ain’t worth a quick look in my humble opinion.  Companies that are quick to promote their products tainted with these racially biased concepts are companies that are not even trying to be sensitive to the black community.  Whether true or not, deserved or not, we do not need to see any more depictions of any animosity between black men and black women.

Mr. Obama And March Madness

Mr. Obama explains his March Madness picks and explains that Air Force One has high definition.  We wouldn’t want the President to suffer without an opportunity to have the same distractions as the average joe.