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There's quite a lot of articles but here's one:

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/09/0...nd-Photoshops-Black-Guy-To-White-One?from=rss

Basically, on Microsoft's website, there's a picture of an Asian, Black and white person. On the Polish version of the site, the black guy was replaced by another white guy. This has caused people to accuse Microsoft of racism and they even mentioned it in the news this morning.

Of course, it's easier to complain than to think why the Polish site had a change: the black population in Poland is virtually zero. Is it racism because you simply want to portray your target audience?

If two thirds of your advertisement models (at the least) aren't minorities you're being a racist/sexist swine.

I highly doubt that the change was racially motivated. In all likelihood, it was a simple marketing decision. However, the sloppy Photoshop job makes it seem a little careless. How hard can it be to find a stock photo of a bunch of white guys in a conference room? :blue:

I do too, actually. While I believe in being courteous and honest, one should not have to constantly monitor everything they say or do just because they might accidentally offend somebody.

Positive discrimination and exaggerated Political correctness are two of my pet peeves really. Both make matters worse instead of better. The moment you make sweeping accusations and being unbalanced in such matters, you're just giving those that are truly racist and discriminating another reason to stick to their ways.

I agree with the "stock photo of white dudes in a conference room shouldn't be too hard to find", but meh...just a poor marketing decision. I highly doubt this was done with racist intent.

Real discrimination is always a problem but that doesn't mean we should be going on witch hunts and slamming down anyone who does anything that may be perceived as racist.

A few months ago, a Dutch pool owner refused to let a Muslima enter while wearing a burkini. A burkini is a burka which covers the entire body while only leaving part of the face. It's made of a thick non-transparent material which is a lot heavier than a standard swimsuit. The reason for not allowing entry was because the owner said it was against the pool's rules for reasons involving hygiene. (the showers at the entrance of the pool are ineffective against a burkini, the hair is not properly held the way a bathing cap would, etc.).

Anyway, they filed a complaint and the Commission of Discrimination and Racism filed a lawsuit against him which they won. Result? The pool got closed down and people were not able to go there at all anymore. Does that really help? Why can't a pool owner set the dress code for his pool? It's not like he's not allowing them in - he simply laid down rules which he has a right to.

I don't know. I don't see this being made an issue at all if they had either left the black guy with a black face or found a white guy or even just photoshopped the entire image of the black guy. The problem for me (and I should probably mention that I'm white) isn't necessarily that they replaced the black guy with a white guy so much as they did an incredibly piss poor job of hiding the fact that they were replacing a black guy with a white guy. I mean, come on, that face obviously doesn't belong on that body.

Or they didn't want some old dude in their ad.

I bet they did that on a mac.

Just watched an episode of Better off Ted called "Racial Sensitivity" with a similar story. Veridian Dynamics installs motion sensors to activate everything in their building, from automatic lights and doors, to drinking fountains, elevators, etc ... Problem is: the motion sensor doesn't sense black people.

Probably the best half hour of television I've seen in a very, very long time.

mr_thehun said:

I fracking hate this PC nonsense.

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But, it sure beats owning a Mac.

Bah, political correctness... what a load of hooey.

Icarus said:

Anyway, they filed a complaint and the Commission of Discrimination and Racism filed a lawsuit against him which they won. Result? The pool got closed down and people were not able to go there at all anymore.

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I've looked at the picture long enough that I'm not even sure the original head was supposed to go on that body. Maybe now I'm going to see all Microsoft models' heads as interchangeable. [shudder]

Yeah, both of those heads look strangely disproportionate to the body.

As someone who is part hispanic (my left toe, right shin, and most of my scalp), I'm just offended that my people were not represented in the picture. Laws should be passed that someone of each ethnicity should be included in any advertisement involving a group of three or more people, just to keep it fair. Steps should also be taken to make sure the images clearly include parties from all major political groups, religious groups, sexual preferences, etc. Exceptions can be made for furries, because they're freaks, but everyone else.


(Just kidding, Pojo. )

here is a gif I saw that showed the two images

Now that is a Photo-shop disaster.

They didn't even recolor the hand!

And they insult the black guy! Calling him a "tool"!

Man, I didn't know Polish people hated black dudes so much!

Joe Johnson said:

Man, I didn't know Polish people hated black dudes so much!

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We do... damn black people...grrr...

Joe Johnson said:

Man, I didn't know Polish people hated black dudes so much!

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They didn't even want to have them as slaves, they hate them so much...

I don't begrudge Microsoft for ignoring a virtually non-existent minority in another country. I do think PC gets out of hand sometimes, and you obviously can't have perfect racial balance in every advertisement or story (And even if you could it would be just as unrealistic).

BUT

(WARNING: INCOMING RANT)

A lot of the attitudes in this thread are the reason why racism is still a big deal. I realize a lot of them were jokes, but even a lot of the jokes clearly stem from an attitude that is contributing to the problem.

1. "It was a marketing decision, not racially motivated"

Um, totally missing the point. If I refuse to hire a black man because he will be "bad for business" (say I'm a shop owner in the 1960s), the fact that my decision is completely financially motivated does not stop it from being a racist act. The vast majority of American films, tv, games and books are starring white people, with nonwhites generally getting good sidekick rolls at best, rolls that emphasize their ethnicity and making it out to be a big deal that causes problems at second best, and often just being caricatures. This is not meaningless. As recently as 2006 there have been experiments that show that young black children often have a negative self image. 1/3 of black males go to jail at some time in their life. You either have to believe that black people are inherently more likely to be bad (which is pretty blatantly racist) or you have to admit that there still some serious inequalities in American society that cause this.

(I'm focusing specifically on America because discrimination is going to depend entirely on the country in question - which is part of why yes, the Polish Advertisement Uproar was stupid. Poland is a different place with different issues)

2. "OMG REVERSE DISCRIMINATION."

Dude, you're white. You barely know what discrimination means. (With the possible exception of the guy who went to China and had people badmouthing him in Mandarin all over the place, which still isn't "reverse" discrimination because it happened in a country where whites weren't in power). Yes, reverse discrimination happens sometime. No, we have not remotely reached the point where it comes close to balancing anything out, let alone cause any meaningful hardships for whites in America).

3. While I believe in being courteous and honest, one should not have to constantly monitor everything they say or do just because they might accidentally offend somebody.

I do agree with this. BUT a lot of people haven't the slightest clue that they are being genuinely offensive, and until you have made an effort to examine your behaviors and think about what you might be doing that is contributing to institutional racism, you should not be complaining when people call you out for being offensive. There's a guy (call him Mike) in my class who made a "get to the back of the bus" joke to a black kid when the kid wanted to sit down. If Mike had intentionally been ironic, that actually may have been funny (even to the black kid). But Mike didn't even realize it was a remark steeped in racist understones. Where he grew up, (I believe somewhere in Texas) it apparently was a phrase used common enough that he assumed it was just a generic insult. (A few months ago he similarly didn't know that "There goes the neighborhood" was originally a racist remark).

Mike is not a bad guy - I don't think he's "truly" racist at all, but you don't need to be "truly" racist to say or do things that are offensive, or to contribute to the problem.

---------- Post added at 09:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:03 AM ----------

I'd like to amend that by reminding everyone I'm not specifically targeting anyone here with the rant - all I know about your actual opinions on the matter are a few snarky comments that were mostly just joking.

Also:

Thank you Raemon, I think that people here are overreacting about this:

First: there are worse cases of excessive PC.
Second: Someone did took the effort to actually change the picture, they don't even decided to get a new one, they decide to eliminate the black guy with a white one, racially motivated or not, is not that hard to think that the issue was the original guy skin color.

I think it's racist of you to focus so much on his skin color and not his age. Both of the others are young business types. Have you considered they might want to appeal to a younger generation rather than seeming like "the old guy" (IE: Mac vs PC ads).

SeraRelm said:

I think it's racist of you to focus so much on his skin color and not his age. Both of the others are young business types. Have you considered they might want to appeal to a younger generation rather than seeming like "the old guy" (IE: Mac vs PC ads).

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The new guy is younger but not that young.

He's not some gray-haired old wrinkle-bag.

SeraRelm said:

He's not some gray-haired old wrinkle-bag.

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Nope.

I am not saying that the change was racially motivated, what I am saying is that is not all that absurd to think that it was.

Though, saying that it could only be motivated by race, it would be absurd.

On the matter of racism, how many white people do you see in sneaker commercials? RACISTS!
How many white scholarships do you know of? RACISTS!
Is there a White Entertainment Television channel? No? RACISTS!

SeraRelm said:

On the matter of racism, how many white people do you see in sneaker commercials? RACISTS!
How many white scholarships do you know of? RACISTS!
Is there a White Entertainment Television channel? No? RACISTS!

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YEAH! RACISTS!! *Falls asleep*

SeraRelm said:

On the matter of racism, how many white people do you see in sneaker commercials? RACISTS!
How many white scholarships do you know of? RACISTS!
Is there a White Entertainment Television channel? No? RACISTS!

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Rabble Rabble WHITE EQUALITY!!!

Wait a min... I'm not white... HEY!

I think I'll paraphrase the Game Overthinker a bit here. The problem with modern racism is one of perspective, not intent.

To Black people (and other races) in America, racism is something they are always on the watch for because they are trying to preserve the ground they have gained in the last 50 years. They were raised on the stories of the previous generation who had to fight for the fucking right to be treated as human beings. They can see and sense the uncomfortable and nervous feelings they inspire in some people... they can feel the tension in the air. This is something White people will never experience unless they leave the US or Europe.

Contrast this to White People: To most white people, racism ended when the signs proclaiming "White Only" came down in the south. We literally don't see the racism happening until somebody complains about it because we don't have any frame of reference TO see it as it's happening... and it's hard not to be a little bitter about still being called racist when you see things like Affirmative Action and racially based college scholarships, actions that would be utterly condemned if they benefited whites.

Actually I was calling the whole thing stupid. we should all ignore skin color and focus on the real enemy.

Furries.

There are no white people.
There are no black people.
There are no red or yellow or brown people.

There are only the living, the dead and the Undead.

SeraRelm said:

Actually I was calling the whole thing stupid. we should all ignore skin color and focus on the real enemy.

Furries.

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Agreed.

I fucking hate furries.

Yes, really.

There's a white people network. It's called "the other 90% of TV."

Really? I never saw one channel named "White Entertainment Television". Thank you for proving me wr- wait, you didn't. Carry on.

The point wasn't that your statement was wrong. The point was that your statement was meaningless. You don't need one special channel when you control 90% of the programming.

Ask a white supremacist who runs the television networks.

And I'm sure you'll get a credible response.

If a white person speaks up about wanting to have something special just for them based on the color of their skin, they're damned and called racist but it's ok for everyone else. If you don't understand that, the rest of the conversation on that one, small aspect of my previous comment is meaningless.

I think i understand Sera's point. The thing is, many people have the mindset that its ok for minorities to one thing, but not ok for whites to do the exact same thing, lest they be labeled as racists or hate mongers. For example, several years ago, I had a college class called "Cultural Diversity". I once posed a question to the professor where I asked if she considered groups such as the New Black Panthers, a group labeled as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation group, to have unacceptable attitudes like she considered the KKK and other white supremacist groups to have unacceptable attitudes. Her response was that she saw no problem with the Black Panthers because "they aren't in power". That just smacks of hypocrisy to me.

First, I'll note for the record that I do not support many of the militaristic tactics employed by the black panthers. (From what I know the organization as a whole has done a lot of good things though, and members had a lot of diverse opinions on how to accomplish their goals). Regardless, I do think there whether something is "right" or not depends a lot on the situation, and who holds power (and how they wield that power) is an important variable to consider.

In an ideal world, any oppressed group would always be able to use Martin Luther King style tactics in order to accomplish their goals. In the case of American racism in the 1960s, obviously MLK pacifism worked wonders, and the reason it was effective was we already lived in a democracy that valued freedom and equality, with a free press. If MLK or Gandhi had attempted what they did in a dictatorship or a world where the culture placed no value on equality at all, they would have accomplished nothing. In that case, I'd consider militaristic tactics for an oppressed minority not only acceptable but necessary.

In the context of 1960s America, I do think some of the extremist elements of the Black Panthers were wrong, but I do think they would have been even more wrong if implemented, not by a minority struggling against injustice, but by people in power trying to maintain the status quo.

Now, with regards to "W.E.T." vs B.E.T, the reason a black television network is acceptable and a white television will draw criticism is the inherent mindsets involved in creating them. There's nothing inherently good or bad about "black" or "white" television. But BET was created as a response to the vast majority of programming being white centric. Black people didn't see themselves represented, so they went and made a network where they could represent themselves.

By contrast, what kind of white person would even WANT a network to themselves? They're already represented all over the place. The only people who would actually want to make it are either genuine white supremacists or people completely clueless about institutional racism and power imbalances. "They have a network so clearly we should ALSO have a network" ignores the reasoning behind BET in the first place. WET programming would either be identical to most other stations, or would be actually racist. Neither strikes me as a good reason to start a brand new station.

(Having said all that, I don't actually think BET is that great a network, but that's a whole 'nother story).

But UPN already existed.

I actually believe Ghandi tried and failed to do his style in other countries, explicitly because they governments of said countries were more than willing to bust open the heads of protesters.

...huh? (I just read through the UPN wiki entry and still am not sure why that's relevant. Let me know what I missed)

Raemon777 said:

...huh? (I just read through the UPN wiki entry and still am not sure why that's relevant. Let me know what I missed)

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She's saying it was bland and uninteresting, which basically sums up what most people think of the contributions of white people to entertainment

AshburnerX said:

I actually believe Ghandi tried and failed to do his style in other countries, explicitly because they governments of said countries were more than willing to bust open the heads of protesters.

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Wouldn't surprise me.