Intel, Racism Inside
So, this morning we got the mail at work, and in it was the Dell catalog. Seeing as I’m the only one in the office who has a PC, the bosses handed it to me. Take a serious look at the advertisement I found in it for Intel. I really wonder how many people in the company this ad went past, because it makes me worry about the state of the ad department of Intel and Dell.
Don’t see it? Really? Cause it seriously looks like a bunch of African Americans in an office bowing in submission to the white devil – I mean boss. And every black man is a carbon copy of the others, because after all, “it’s tough to tell them apart.” Reading some of the text doesn’t make things any better: this “40% more performance” is a little bit lower of a deal than the 3/5′s Rule… and all this in the 21st century, where racial equality is a paragon we try to hold ourselves to.
Maximize the power of your employees, indeed.
UPDATE: Please DIGG this!
That’s a sprinters’ starting pose, using starting blocks…
http://www.scienceclarified.com/everyday/images/scet_02_img0144.jpg
But with the furniture in the way there’s a whole new interpretation… and just… wow. That’s the kind of mistake that ends a career.
Whoops.
… sorry to double-post, but this reminded me of another stunningly bad add by another big company:
http://www.insomniacslounge.com/uploaded_images/psp_omg-726710.jpg
You got dugg: http://digg.com/tech_news/Intel_Racism_Inside
So I asked Tom about what he thought of the picture. He doesn’t think there’s a problem but he referred me to this article: http://680news.com/news/local/article.jsp?content=20070722_101843_4620
I thought that’s another good one to discuss about.
[...] (Hat tip to Penciled In) [...]
Hola faretaste
mekodinosad
How can you tell they’re African American?
Um, no hate intended with this comment – perhaps it’s just your subconscious inner racism at work here? Because to me, they don’t necessarily all look black – the lighting is funky and is casting dark shadows.
Could it be that we are conditioned to the point that when we see an athletic male with a shaved head, we automatically assume they’re black?
But if you’re correct (and maybe in a full-size version of the ad, rather than scanned on a monitor, it’s obvious they’re black), then oh, yeah, baby..some (bald) heads need to roll!
How can you tell they’re African American?
‘They’ are quiet clearly a single black male photographed from two sides and each side reproduced three times.
It looks to me as if they’re all the exact same individual person “multiplied”.
[...] Visto en Penciled in [...]
yeh, sorry but your way off, its one person, two photos, has nothing to do is black/white. this is silly.
Looks like their just heavily tanned to me
I think you are really reaching on the racism thing.
If you switched the guys around it wouldn’t be racist I don’t see why this is.
I wonder if they made all the guys one skin colour if the complaint would be “Intel doesn’t support multiculturalism”. Or maybe you could label it “Intel doesn’t support women in the workplace inside” .
if you think this ad symbolises/implies/displays white supremacy over the black workforce you must be wearing your stupid glasses today.
its a picture of a guy in the middle and a collage of the pic of an athlete around him. no more no less.
of course in your country, logic has no place. common sense is long gone, some “black equality
‘ organisation could make millions off a lawsuit here.
it might even help the news people to divert attention away from anything actually important.
I’m not necessarily sure he meant that Intel is intentionally being racist, more that this picture could easily be construed as racism and that for the ad department not to have caught this is pretty bad.
The fact is that someone will look at this and see a “hidden message”. Even if there was no intent. That’s why ad companies scrutinize their work to make sure no hidden messages are present. Else their clients may go elsewhere (or worse, sue them).
Personally, I found this amusing, and immediately saw a hidden (but not intended) message (I refuse to believe anyone at Intel could be that stupid).
And the guys in the ad are definitely all of color (what is the PC term of the day?), and imo, all the same guy just resized/scaled & flipped.
Nice catch man
They are obviously black. The ad is poorly executed; but the concept is cute. The composition could have been tweaked:
1. Rather than having them all “bowing to Whitey”, have the athletes lined up as if they are on an actual race-track (in the office) and the shot taken from a more conventional angle: from the sidelines, slightly in front of the runners.
2. Delete the White dude, he adds nothing to the ad, he actually throws off the balance of the composition
3. Have the racers dressed in desk-jockey clothes; shirt, slacks, loafers, with their ties slung behind their back. That’ll make it actually funny, and more of a metaphor for “performance”. Right now they just look like a stock photo that was poorly photoshopped in.
4. for a dramatic effect have the desk cubicles seem as if they are being blown away by the “speed” of the runners, paper flying everywhere etc. And instead of them being in start position, pose them in mid run…
5. Have a runner of each race (Black, White, Asianic, Hispanic etc); it’ll make the ad more visually pleasing imo. While Blacks my dominate running, they aren’t the only athletes in existence you know.
6. Have some women runners two, women geeks do exist…
[...] Intel, Racism Inside Comentarios en Reddit :: temas que pueden estar relacionados :: Procesador Intel sale de “cajas aburridas”Intel Santa Rosa en GizmodoEntretenidos comentarios de lo que se dijo en WWDC 2005 [...]
I agree with MSY’s suggestions for change, except deleting “the white dude” – he’s supposed to be the “your” in “your employees.”
Aside from the overused “it’s tough to tell them apart,” mind frame, there’s also the “blacks are better than whites at sports.” If I see anything racist about this ad it’s that all of the athletes are African American (OK, the same one), which may lead some folks to think whites’ athletic abilities aren’t considered worthy of using in this ad.
Too, anyone with an inkling of familiarity with track (which is just about everyone if I have an inkling, haha) knows that the men are in a track starting position AND they’re wearing athletic gear.
Oh, and another agreement with MSY – where ARE the women? If we’re going to make this racist, let’s go all out and make it sexist, too.
How do you know the white guy isn’t an African American? There *are* white people in Africa you know. Don’t go stereo-typing a whole continent you racist
Isn’t there actual work you dorks need to be doing. Stop foolishness.
[...] All hail the white lord of the cubicle farm. [...]
[...] Beliebtheit geschafft. Ein Blogger macht die Welt darauf aufmerksam, welche Konnotation eine Werbeanzeige von Intel (engl.) haben kann. Die Frage, die wir uns stellen können: Ist diese Anzeige [...]
Ok, if you separate races everywhere you see, then I guess you’re the racist.
Don’t you get it? A non-racist person sees us all the same! So, there’s no difference between one or the other!
And sorry about my spelling. I suck speaking english.
If it were one black guy standing there and 8 white guys in a starters pose, no one would say anything. Why is it when it comes to blacks everyone is so obtuse. Are we not all supposed to be equal? Some of you take an immature view to this and should start opening your minds and trying to play everything as racial, slavery is over, remember that. Also, the advertisment company sold intel the idea and intel agreed to it, so no heads are going to roll, and intel won’t lose any business over this either.
Way to over-PC an ad. Let’s read all types of PC bullcrap into everything we see, that way things can be even more vanilla than they already are.
6 black men bowing down to whitey? Seriously? Penciled In, you’re looking to hard.
It looks like 6 guys (okay, one guy repeated six times, hense the “multiply computing performances”) who look like Olympic sprinters, with ripped muscles and shades on inside, preparing to launch off at the start of the race. If anything, it looks like the white guy is gonna get tackled by two people from both sides.
The messages Intel are sending out are A) the athletes are black, and B) black people have more muscles than you, geek.
If you see something racist in that picture, then you must be racist yourself.
It is only racist if you dig for it, or have racist motives.
I come from a multi-cultural background, and sadly had to go through the ignorance of racist people growing up. But to be honest, I’m getting sick and tired of every step someone is screaming and pointing racist. Do you know what I see? I see intel claiming duo core is far better for the office to multi-task.
Intel: It’s like having 6 really fast niggers in your PC!
You know, I i was a compagny wanting to display an image of high performance with runners, I would use african-american or “black” runners. Did you know that the last “white” champion in 100m was Allan Wells in 1980. I think it’s more like a recognition of the great capacity and performance of black runners than racism.
If this ad offends you you are a bigot
I don’t see a color, I just see a man
[...] Intel, Racism Inside – another ad gone wrong [...]
…actually intel was making a case by stating that the fastest performance athletes are from a particular race. That’s pretty racist to me.
[...] Penciled in has a post about one of Intel’s ads that seems to have a racist tone. The ad in question is this one. [...]
only thing i saw was some world class athletes in a runners stance. I guess us white guys are the racists though…
I see no racism. Let’s face it, a bunch of white people dressed as sprinters is just unbelievable, anybody that watches the dominance of the Olympic 100m knows that that the power of the black body is superior to the white.
Racism is using race to discriminate and disadvantage. I don’t see how an advert that recognizes the power and strength of the black athlete disadvantages them. It’s an advert and not a reflection of society so lets not get too melodramatic about pictures that show white and black people next to each other.
Like most things in life, I always find that every word a person says is merely an example and reflection of their own feelings and personality. From this post, I see somebody that is uneasy about their own feelings of racial discrimination and that hasn’t quite decided what is right, wrong or acceptable. There’s nothing wrong with that, we all have a duty to ask these questions of ourselves and the world.
white liberal guilt is the only thing that I can see.
It’s a bunch of niggers, you can’t tell them apart. It’s not like they are people anyways.
Is this the race condition those multicore guys always talk about?
[...] of their racist underpinnings that have been with them throughout their socialization process. Read Posted by Jeremy Franklin Filed in [...]
[...] Via PenciledIn. [...]
Does that say “Intel Leap Ahead” in the corner? – In which case, shouldn’t they be jumpers?
The really funny thing about this, given Intel’s preoccupation with the touchy-feely, image-over-substance, deeply misguided egalitarianism in which our society has chosen to marinate (I have to work there, so I’m quite aware of their fascination with the subject), is that they likely made the ad the way it was in an effort to be more openly multicultural. Talk about missing the forest for the trees. One would think that the people we hire to produce this stuff would be aware that you can never do right by a moral busybody.
I really dont see why people are backing this ad up. For this ad to go past a WHOLE committee is insane. That is why they are there, to make sure an ad sends the message effectively without offending anybody (man, woman, child, religion or race).
So no matter how you explain this ad, there is no reason why this should of even been released just based on its potential offensive visual message. Its obvious that the one department that create a message for the world to see cant be a diverse board.
I don’t like the add but I don’t see any racist tones in it.
I see athletes getting ready to run, rows of desks and dork in slacks.
Of course any image may be interpreted in any way, but if you see racism in it maybe that’s more in your eyes, background, education and current worry than in the picture itself…
(By the way: I’m caucasian, so it may also be said that I don’t see any racism because of that. Go figure.)
Obviously, it can be interpreted many different ways. The first thing I thought is sprinters. Then I looked again and thought “galley slaves.” It’s often the case that in artistic endeavors the artist’s subconscious comes through to reveal the inner self. If you don’t want yourself exposed, don’t create. As for people outside the US commenting, you don’t understand our particular culture as it relates to history, even though you watch our tv shows.
Someone stop thos coons! They’re stealing all the computers!!!
Oh, brother! I am so tired of this over-sensitivity that our country has brainwashed us all into. I’m not saying that the good ol’ USA isn’t still suffering from racial issues – that’s obvious – but come on, people. Looking for every single hidden racial message you can imagine is not going to help the problem at all. We’re all so quick to pull the racial card; it’s like living through another witch-hunting McCarthy era. If you see “galley slaves” in that ad just by taking a quick glance at it, you’ve got some serious issues. It’s only when some nut with a blog and a little too much free time at his job brings it to light that you all start shouting, “Witch! Witch!”
You know what I see here? I see a multi-billion dollar corporation that’s too cheap to spend some money on a decent ad campaign. This stock-photo-collage-gone-bad is poorly executed and under-thought at best. Even trying to make racial accusations against it gives it a lot more credit and attention than it deserves.
This event (the ad and these responses) are emblematic of where we are, i.e. still not quite sure how to play in the sand box yet. Yeah, that’s a bummer here in 2007, but a dispassionate approach might help us unbundle our shorts on this one.
First, demote the importance of intentions. They don’t matter. Markets and consumers do. They say you have offended them. Period. Either be “brand” enough to stick to your message or “brand” enough to acknowledge their opinion and engage the discussion.
Next, ask if this type of response could have been predicted with some basic business scans, i.e. taking what you “mean to say” and testing it. That’s nowhere near near the pc paranoia referred to in some posts – just simple business thought that takes into account the context in which the ad will be viewed.
So, unless we set out with the original goal of tanking the brand, we don’t all need to jet to sensitivity training just yet. An academic approach to simple Cultural Competency (M. Chichester, E. Wilson) would yield tons of case studies and real reasons why you may not want to drop an image like that in the marketplace if you really want to do business, your racism or humanitarian virtue notwithstanding.
Too often we assign our emotions to political factors (especially race) but if we see them as simple environmental and business realities, then we can build them into our thinking. Mitigating risk by being aware of potentially negative cultural considerations is a BUSINESS skill as defined by managing any component that can directly affect ROI.
I mean, I wish people’s hearts would change and that that would inspire some basic human awareness of “the other.” That’s a higher plane of thought, creativity, and action – one that I strive for. But, in case the hearts of the masses don’t change, I’m all for holistic business thought in the meantime, i.e. thought that doesn’t exclude Cultural Competency.
The difficulty that I think will persist lies in people seeing the utility of cultural solutions in business problems. It may seem too “touchy feely” or pc to actually ask a member of a particular ethnic group, “What does this say to you?” …until you start losing the touch and feel of MONEY behind that misstep.
The anger on the board should be the first cue that we have better odds on solving the business problems than the whole sandbox thing. But I have hope.