9896: Mad Men Mumblings.

Didn’t have time during the week to examine the two-part perspective published at Slate titled, “Mad Men and Black America”—but better late than never. Writer Tanner Colby painfully painstakingly dissects the AMC series, attempting to argue that creator Matthew Weiner is being deliberate in the clumsy handling of non-White characters on the show. Can’t help but think Colby isn’t very familiar with the program, Madison Avenue or the concept of cultural cluelessness.

The author did manage to reference Latoya Peterson’s 2009 DoubleX story on Mad Men, yet it’s not clear if he understood that piece either. Peterson griped that if Mad Men continued to ignore race, “it is truly written by cowards.” Colby countered by typing, “It’s a show about advertising. And it is advertising, not Mad Men, that is written by cowards.” Not completely sure what Colby meant, but it sure sounds provocative. Too bad his lengthy musings fail to reach the intellectual level of Peterson’s viewpoint.

MultiCultClassics wholeheartedly disagrees with Colby’s contention that Weiner does indeed comprehend the complexities of race and ethnicity on Madison Avenue and beyond. The belief here has always been that Weiner is a wienie when integrating Black culture and characters. For groups that he shares some affinity—Jews and gays, for example—Weiner doesn’t hesitate to expose the pretty and ugly sides. With Blacks, however, the series creator puts on the kid gloves, reverently presenting colored people as humble, heroic and stoic. Even Lane Pryce’s girlfriend who served drinks at the Playboy Club was more respectable than most of the ladies at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The accuracy-obsessed Weiner has used original ad men as consultants to verify the details are correct. For Black culture, Weiner probably just relies on Google searches.

Colby concluded the first part of his exposition by opining:

Mad Me isn’t cowardly for avoiding race. Quite the opposite. It’s brave for being honest about Madison Avenue’s cowardice. While Don Draper and Sterling Cooper may seem woefully behind the times, that just means Matthew Wiener is right on schedule, historically speaking. And if Mad Men’s schedule stays on the course it’s been following, it’s a safe bet that the season now beginning will finally bring us to the point when black consumers stand up and refuse to sit at the back of the advertising bus.

Um, Black consumers and Black ad agencies continue to sit at the back of the advertising bus. And many have been left at the bus stop. Sorry, but seeing prominent and fully-developed Black characters on Mad Men is about as likely as Don Draper taking the bus to the office.

Colby ended his puffery by proclaiming:

Black Mad Men viewers have every right to want a TV show that depicts the experiences of blacks in advertising—that show takes place in the 1970s.

First of all, who said anyone was hoping to see characters depicting the experiences of Blacks in advertising? It’s not as if everyone on the program is tied to Madison Avenue. The majority of minorities might be content to see Carla return in a decent role. However, if viewers did wish to witness Blacks in the ad game, it wouldn’t require a time warp to the 1970s. Vince Cullers launched his shop in 1956. Junius Edwards toiled in the business during the 1960s. If Mad Men fans can accept Don Draper changing identities with a dead soldier, is it really too fantastic to let a Black person type a few taglines? Although for authenticity, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce could simply hire a new mailroom attendant.

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.

9679: Defining Latinos.

From The New York Times…

For Many Latinos, Racial Identity Is More Culture Than Color

By Mireya Navarro

Every decade, the Census Bureau spends billions of dollars and deploys hundreds of thousands of workers to get an accurate portrait of the American population. Among the questions on the census form is one about race, with 15 choices, including “some other race.”

More than 18 million Latinos checked this “other” box in the 2010 census, up from 14.9 million in 2000. It was an indicator of the sharp disconnect between how Latinos view themselves and how the government wants to count them. Many Latinos argue that the country’s race categories — indeed, the government’s very conception of identity — do not fit them.

The main reason for the split is that the census categorizes people by race, which typically refers to a set of common physical traits. But Latinos, as a group in this country, tend to identify themselves more by their ethnicity, meaning a shared set of cultural traits, like language or customs.

So when they encounter the census, they see one question that asks them whether they identify themselves as having Hispanic ethnic origins and many answer it as their main identifier. But then there is another question, asking them about their race, because, as the census guide notes, “people of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin may be of any race,” and more than a third of Latinos check “other.”

This argument over identity has gained momentum with the growth of the Latino population, which in 2010 stood at more than 50 million. Census Bureau officials have acknowledged that the questionnaire has a problem, and say they are wrestling with how to get more Latinos to pick a race. In 2010, they tested different wording in questions and last year they held focus groups, with a report on the research scheduled to be released by this summer.

Some experts say officials are right to go back to the drawing table. “Whenever you have people who can’t find themselves in the question, it’s a bad question,” said Mary C. Waters, a sociology professor at Harvard who specializes in the challenges of measuring race and ethnicity.

The problem is more than academic — the census data on race serves many purposes, including determining the makeup of voting districts, and monitoring discriminatory practices in hiring and racial disparities in education and health. When respondents do not choose a race, the Census Bureau assigns them one, based on factors like the racial makeup of their neighborhood, inevitably leading to a less accurate count.

Latinos, who make up close to 20 percent of the American population, generally hold a fundamentally different view of race. Many Latinos say they are too racially mixed to settle on one of the government-sanctioned standard races — white, black, American Indian, Alaska native, native Hawaiian, and a collection of Asian and Pacific Island backgrounds.

Some regard white or black as separate demographic groups from Latino. Still others say Latinos are already the equivalent of another race in this country, defined by a shared set of challenges.

“The issues within the Latino community — language, immigration status — do not take into account race,” said Peter L. Cedeño, 43, a lawyer and native New Yorker born to Dominican immigrants. “We share the same hurdles.”

Read the full story here.