12
Jul
Ok, here’s the story:
An undated handout photograph shows a Dutch billboard advertisement. Sony Corp. said on July 11, 2006, it has pulled the Dutch billboard campaign for the new white version of its PlayStation Portable video game player and apologized to anyone offended by ad, which critics dubbed racist. (joystiq.com/Handout/Reuters)
This is stupid beyond imagination. Has political correctness gotten so completely out of hand that simply mentioning the word “white” leads to racial tension? Sure, white is coming, but why would one single person on the planet assume it was a racial overture? Is the mere printing of the word “white” so enflaming that no one notices that the babe in the pic is LOOKING at something very intently?
Get over it people. This is pathetic. If you see racism every time you see the word “white”, you’re the one with the problem, not whoever printed the word.
My idiot of the day is whoever was offended by that billboard in the first place. And, if that idiot wants to explain their logic here, I’d love to hear it. I’m calling it as I see it, the billboard’s not racist, the people reacting to it are. Racism cuts many ways, it’s not all white.
Yahoo’s pic wasn’t too good, I didn’t see what was going on clearly enough apparently. Here’s a clearer version of it:
OK, you can call me stupid now. The thing is actually a white woman domineering a black woman. Gawd, how stupid can Sony be? I figured she was holding the product. That would have been a striking image with excellent product placement. No problemo I would think. That being the case, eveything I said above would have been true. However, a white person showing aggression towards a black person is racially insensitive and needlessly provoking racial tension. In this case, Sony is the racist for taunting the racial issue, and I apologize to the ex-idiots of the day for being insulted. Now, their defense is it only ran in Holland. But, the world is very small these days. And, oddly enough, Sony relies heavily on world-wide advertising. They can’t expect to have it both ways.
Sony is the true idiot of the day here. What the hell are they thinking? What is their target audience? Whites only? I mean, do you think any black kid would be caught with that thing now? Sheez.
Now, I’ve been around long enough to know that advertisers like to push buttons. That’s all fine and good. However, it’s the manufacturer that has the ultimate yes or no and whether an ad runs. So, bottom line, Sony screwed this one up BAD.
CAD does an excellent take on this story. Much better than I did originally for sure.
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