9860: Princesses & Prejudices.

For Valentine’s Day, Disney presented culture- and color-coordinated candy: White Cinderella is Vanilla while Black Tiana is Watermelon.

From Sociological Images.

9841: WTF FHM.

From The New York Daily News…

FHM Philippines magazine pulls its March cover featuring beauty Bela Padilla after ‘racism’ outcry

Cover shows fair-skinned Padilla ‘Stepping Out of the Shadows’ surrounded by three black models; publisher and Padilla apologize

By Philip Caulfield / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The Philippines edition of British lad mag FHM has dumped its March cover showing a fair-skinned model surrounded by a group of black models over charges of racism.

A headline on the cover, which featured Philippine beauty Bela Padilla in a bright pink bikini posing between three black models in black bikinis, blared, “Bela Padilla stepping out of the shadows.”

The cover was posted to the magazine’s Facebook page on Saturday, sparking complaints on Twitter and Facebook.

“DISGUSTING representation of #colorism and #racism in the Philippines!” one user Twitter user wrote, according to London’s The Telegraph.

“Shame on FHM Philippines!” another reader, who identified herself as a Filipino-American shoe designer, tweeted.

Just hours after the cover was revealed, more than 300 people signed a petition on Change.org calling for FHM to scrap the shot and apologize.

“A cover starring Bela Padilla ‘stepping out of the shadows’ would be uncontroversial, if the shadows weren’t black models,” the petition’s creator, Victor Bautista, wrote.

FHM announced it was yanking the cover on Monday.

“When FHM hits the stands in March it will have a different cover,” the magazine’s publisher, Summit Media, said in a statement, The Telegraph reported.

“We apologize and thank those who have raised their points. We apologize to Bela Padilla for any distress this may have caused her.”

Padilla, 20, who is the niece of Filipino action star Robin Padilla, tweeted an apology, saying, “I’m so sorry to everyone who got offended. I hope all of you see the beauty of the cover and appreciate it.”

“My cover is supposed to be about stepping out of MY shadows, inhibitions, fears, etc. And has nothing to do with race,” she added later.

9831: Inspired By Aunt Jemima.

Images found while searching for something else.

9805: ESPN Displays Linsensitivity.

Add ESPN to the list of idiots engaging in Linsensitivity. The iconic sports network posted a racist headline on its mobile website that prompted the following official statement on its regular website:

Last night, ESPN.com’s mobile web site posted an offensive headline referencing Jeremy Lin at 2:30 am ET. The headline was removed at 3:05 am ET. We are conducting a complete review of our cross-platform editorial procedures and are determining appropriate disciplinary action to ensure this does not happen again. We regret and apologize for this mistake.

9798: Eric Bolling’s Bollocks.

From The Huffington Post…

Fox News’ Eric Bolling Tells Maxine Waters To ‘Step Away From The Crack Pipe,’ Later Says He Was ‘Kidding’

Fox News host Eric Bolling shocked his co-hosts on “Fox and Friends” when he told Rep. Maxine Waters to “step away from the crack pipe” on Thursday. Bolling quickly said that he was “kidding.”

Waters stirred up anger on the right when video surfaced on Wednesday showing her calling House Republican leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor “demons.”

On Thursday, Bolling and co-host Steve Doocy took turns bashing Waters for the remarks. But Bolling took things to another level.

“Congresswoman, you saw what happened to Whitney Houston,” he said. “Step away from the crack pipe, step away from the Xanax, step away from the Lorazepam because it’s going to get you in trouble.”

The other hosts immediately gasped, and Doocy muttered, “she’s not using drugs.”

“How else do you explain those comments?” Bolling said. When the show returned from a break, Bolling quickly backtracked. “I just want to say I was kidding about the crack pipe,” he said. “Just kidding.”

“Of course,” Doocy said.

Bolling has gotten himself in hot water for racially charged comments before. He had to apologize last July after saying that President Obama was bringing “hoodlums” into the “hizzouse” — the White House, that is.

9788: Jason Whitlock Is A Witless Twit.

From Bleacher Report…

Jeremy Lin: Why Are We Letting Jason Whitlock off the Hook for His Tweet?

By Trevor Medeiros

As an Asian-American who has spent his entire life growing up in an urban setting, hearing demeaning ethnic stereotypes hurled in my direction is something I’ve become totally accustomed to.

“Hey, Yao Ming, pass the ball!”

“Don’t get all Jackie Chan on me!”

“Does he speak English?”

Maybe it’s because of my non-confrontational demeanor or because I’m so used to it that I usually don’t care when I hear this Asian-American stereotypical rhetoric staining my eardrums. And that’s why I wasn’t exactly outraged when I read Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock’s Linsensitive tweet (see, I can get in on the clever wordplay games, too!) pointed towards New York Knicks point guard, NBA sensation and Asian-American Jeremy Lin recently.

But the more I think about the aftermath of Whitlock’s tweet, the more I’m surprised that he isn’t receiving more backlash for his insulting one-liner.

Let’s get this straight: Whitlock has made a habit out of adding comedic flair and introducing issues of race to his columns for years.

However, this doesn’t give Whitlock the right to tweet a misguided joke that essentially degrades an entire race of human beings. And Whitlock followed that up by posting a half-hearted, half-assed apology, only after a group with a bit of ethos (the Asian American Journalists Association) called him out on it.

And yet, as I write this, it seems like Whitlock is on the verge of emerging scot-free from this incident, which baffles me, to say the least.

What if it was a white columnist, say, Skip Bayless, and not the African-American Whitlock, tweeting about the size of Lin’s package? Call it prior precedent, journalistic intuition or simply common sense, but something tells me that Bayless would find himself in much hotter water than Whitlock finds himself in today.

(Full disclosure: Whitlock’s work was once prominently featured on Bleacher Report’s website, via Foxsports.com.)

I bring up prior precedent for the fact that Whitlock’s peers have been reprimanded in the past for their own racially-insensitive comments. In 2008, Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman was suspended for two weeks for suggesting that some golfers should lynch Tiger Woods.

And in case you think I’m insinuating that only white journalists are punished for insensitive remarks, let me remind you of the Juan Williams incident. In 2010, the African-American Williams of Fox News was fired from National Public Radio over stereotypical comments directed towards Muslims.

Now, I’m not calling for Whitlock’s head on a silver platter. Too many times media outlets overact when one of their employees utter verbal gaffes.

But to punish the likes of Tilghman and Williams while letting Whitlock off the hook is hypocritical at best and racist at worst. It will tell me that you can expect to be punished when you bash African-Americans (like Tilghman did) and Muslims (like Williams did), but it’s OK to take to social media and talk in not-so-complimentary terms about an Asian-American point guard and his genitalia.

I told you that I don’t usually care all that much when I hear anti-Asian stereotypes flung about carelessly. But if supposedly reputable journalists like Jason Whitlock can fling them about carelessly and without consequences, maybe I—and much more of the public—should start caring after all.

9784: Draftfcbullshit.

The Adweek-Draftfcb-U.S. Census Bureau publishing partnership is more extensive than a Black History Month list of factoids. The New America is labeled as sponsored content—which is actually code for advertising. Or self-promotional pap.

There are already a dozen entries producing a growing pile of editorial excrement that can only be described as airheaded, arrogant and asinine.

Additional inane press releases include The Multiracial Native American and The End of the Segregated City? However, the original perspectives are particularly annoying.

Has Webster’s Redefined Urban? is the title of an essay allegedly authored by Draftfcb Global Chief Talent Officer Cindy Augustine. Criticizing Urban Outfitters for excluding Blacks from its catalogs, Augustine remarked, “We Black Americans do not see this as a marketing oversight. Marketers are savvy and they certainly know their stats so it’s either a deliberate signal that we and our trillions of dollars are not welcome (don’t want the ‘urban’ brand to become ‘Black’) or they hope that the word ‘urban’ is enough of a signal for us to come shop, but hope we’re blind to our own invisibility—the best of both worlds and a sweet ROI.” Wow, that’s a mouthful for someone who admitted having zero advertising agency experience when she took the job in 2011. Now she’s a spokeswoman for Black America. The budding thought leader should know that multicultural marketing professionals are cautious to position themselves as experts by essentially declaring, “I am; therefore, I know.”

Draftfcb EVP Group Management Director Jeff Tarakajian proclaimed, “I officially predict the fall of multicultural advertising and the rise of advertising that’s multicultural.” Can’t help but recognize the inherent ignorance and latent racism in the bold vision. The truth is, as the country becomes increasingly diverse, the exclusively White advertising historically produced by agencies like Draftfcb is what has really fallen. In short, traditional “general-market” messages are irrelevant and obsolete. So how do the White guys respond? By stealing the work usually handled by minority shops, whispering to the clients that segregated efforts are no longer necessary. What makes Tarakajian’s statement most outrageous is the fact that Draftfcb produces perhaps the greatest amount of offensive, culturally clueless campaigns in the industry. These morons have not earned the right to execute “advertising that’s multicultural”—they are woefully unqualified for the task.

If anything, it’s safe to predict the fall of Draftfcb, especially considering the recent and impending account losses. The agency remains proof positive that the mergers of past decades—coupled with the hubris of out-of-touch, outdated and financially obsessed leaders—have created a lumbering dinosaur representing everything that’s wrong on Madison Avenue today. The Agency of the Future is history, and it does not deserve to be part of The New America.

9781: Post-Apartheid South Africa.

Democratic Alliance Students Organisation—a part of DA Youth in South Africa—sparked controversy with the poster depicted above. Commentary can be viewed here, here, here and here. Plus, the image that upset so many South Africans turned out to be a stock photograph of a couple that is probably not even South African.

9752: Racists Really Are Stupid.

From The Huffington Post…

Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism

The Huffington Post | Rebecca Searles

Are racists dumb? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent than liberals? A provocative new study from Brock University in Ontario suggests the answer to both questions may be a qualified yes.

The study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on I.Q. tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood.

I.Q., or intelligence quotient, is a score determined by standardized tests, but whether the tests truly reveal intelligence remains a topic of hot debate among psychologists.

Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at the university and the study’s lead author, said the finding represented evidence of a vicious cycle: People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice, he told LiveScience.

Why might less intelligent people be drawn to conservative ideologies? Because such ideologies feature “structure and order” that make it easier to comprehend a complicated world, Dodson said. “Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice,” he added.

Dr. Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist, echoed those sentiments.

“Reality is complicated and messy,” he told The Huffington Post in an email. “Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies.”

But Nosek said less intelligent types might be attracted to liberal “simplifying ideologies” as well as conservative ones.

In any case, the study has taken the Internet by storm, with some outspoken liberals saying that it validates their suspicions about conservatives and conservatives arguing that the research has been misinterpreted.

9732: Is Ageism Getting Old?

Advertising Age published a lengthy piece titled, “Aging in Adland: The Gray-Hair Phobia That’s Hindering Older Execs.” The piece spotlights the trials and tribulations of 56-year-old adman Dave Shea, essentially hinting at the ageism rampant on Madison Avenue. It’s an old story that increasingly gains media attention with the graying of Mad Men. And of course, these tales inspire comment threads featuring lots of anger and frustration.

Can’t help but think Shea is hurting his cause by posing with a copy of Ogilvy On Advertising, surrounded by classic campaign paraphernalia. He may as well have been clutching James Webb Young’s How To Become An Advertising Man while clacking away on a Corona Sterling typewriter and humming jingle concepts.

Back in 2008, MultiCultClassics presented a series titled, “Until The Boomers Die.” Ironically, the effort was short-lived, with only two entries here and here. Yet the goal was to examine the generational-rooted issues that are snowballing in an industry purporting to be on the cutting edge of culture. Like it or not, Madison Avenue isn’t just a Boy’s Club—it’s a Young Boy’s Club. Hell, add “White” to the list of adjectives too.

One stereotypical comment left at the Ad Age story reads, “…[Ageism] is code for discrimination. People who shudder at sexism or racism are often quite comfortable with ageism. Why?”

Well, mostly because the overwhelming majority of alleged ageism victims comprise the primary source of our industry’s sexism and racism—as well as the full spectrum of isms that have stifled progress for several decades. The proverbial shoe is on the other foot, turnabout is fair play, what goes around comes around, etc. Although the new casualties prefer to label it reverse discrimination.

Cultural cluelessness can lead to flawed reasoning and peculiar terminology.