At Advertising Age, Bob Garfield published a pretty amusing editorial on the McDonald’s incident featuring a local radio spot that offended pit bull advocates. As expected, the column managed to further piss off dog lovers, inspiring initial comments that will likely increase once Garfield’s regular workweek audience views the piece. But here’s a particularly ignorant one:
James Heike
Chicago, IL
Really disappointed in Garfield’s bumbling response here. Associating Pit Bulls with aggressive behavior is as ignorant as associating African American’s (sic) with criminal behavior. By proportion, the crime rate for African American’s (sic) is far higher than that of caucasians (sic). Does that make shaking hands with any African American dangerous? Of course not. While he provides no evidence, let’s say for the sake of argument that there are statistics out there that say there are higher rates of attacks by Pit Bulls, does that mean Pit Bulls are inherently dangerous? This neglects the fact that there are higher rates of abuse towards Pit Bulls, driving certain dogs to be aggressive. When was the last time you saw a Black Lab fighting ring? The bottom line is the media absolutely gives Pit Bulls a bad name and advertisements like McDonald’s further damage their reputation fueling unfair breed specific laws.
Wow. Wanna believe this moron is not a member of the advertising industry. Unfortunately, his cluelessness depicts an accurate profile of the modern-day Mad Man.
Mr. Heike does a nice job of displaying insensitivity by indirectly criticizing and stereotyping African Americans during Black History Month. Was the later reference to Black Labs a Freudian slip?
It’s easy to imagine Heike behind the keyboard, filled with delusions of intellectual grandeur as he drafted his passionate argument. Too bad it’s all rooted in flawed and incomplete thinking.
For starters, Heike obviously missed the Black History Month celebration co-created by Adweek, Draftfcb and the U.S. Census Bureau; otherwise, he might have noted the 27.4 percent poverty rate for Blacks. Nearly every researcher on Earth recognizes the direct link between poverty and crime.
More importantly, the trials and tribulations of pit bulls hardly reflect those of Blacks in America. Contrary to the insistence of organizations such as PETA, animals do not share the same rights as humans. To use Heike-like logic, NFL star Michael Vick was charged and convicted of illegal acts involving pit bulls—including actually killing dogs. Vick dealt with fines, faced protestors and spent time in prison for his crimes. Yet he ultimately and officially paid his debt to society. Now, if Vick had been found guilty of running slave rings where Blacks were forcibly used in evil fight clubs, and Vick actually murdered Blacks in the process, he would not be a leading NFL quarterback right now. The man would have received a court-sanctioned death sentence.
To be clear, MultiCultClassics is not seeking to diminish the positions of pit bull fans. But please keep matters in proper perspective, folks. And show some fucking respect during Black History Month.
