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Sunday, January 18, 2009—the New York Times
In this, what has been christened the “inaugural weekend” by CNN and others in anticipation of Tuesday’s process and Right Now’s advertising dollars, we have some amusements upon which to report.
Let’s leap right to today’s, that is the vaunted Sunday “The New York Times Magazine.” Right off the bat we have the expected OBAMA’S PEOPLE headline on the cover and some interesting, full-body portraits of the incoming cabinet inside. But as in all things what lies between the lines is more interesting still.
A few flips of the pages and we find an ad for eMusic.com, promoting the free download, to one’s iPod or equivalent, of “1 Free Audiobook” and the audiobook featured, as you’ve already guessed, is Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope.”
Four pages later we are confronted with a two-page spread from Steuben Glass offering a $7,500 example of the very sort of “commemorative plate” already familiar to consumers from the $24, strict-limit-of-two-per-household as-seen-on-TV variety from Franklin Mint or other such gilt-edged junk merchants. The Steuben version is audacity, indeed.
Barely one page beyond and we face Chevron’s ad; featuring a close-up shot of an attractive black woman and the subhead “And we will, too.”
Yes we can? And so can the fat-ass oil industry?
Then, on page 41, we have the ad for the Visa “Black Card.”
Oh fer christsakes.
Deeper in we are confronted with the Carnegie Hall/Bank of America full-pager flogging (sorry) HONOR! A celebration of the African American Cultural Legacy. One page beyond we see a fashion ad for a brand called Tallia, available at Macy’s, wanting us to know in both words (“standing behind President Obama and his team”) and pictures (a young, African American male model) that they’re ready to ride that Magic Negro wave.
But that ain’t all.
Right on Page 5 of the proper newspaper is a full page, full color ad for Ralph Lauren’s Polo line that is composed entirely of a mocha-hued child wearing an $800 polo shirt and straw boater hat in Lauren’s typical yacht club backdrop.
Like if.
Black, it seems, is the new black.
And that is starting to piss Illuminaught right off.
I voted for BHO not because he is “black” nor in spite of the same. I voted for him because he wasn’t [1] Bush or [2] a Republican and [3] the guy actually seems to have his shit together. This pathetic trolling for what Madison Avenue’s “consumer planners” are undoubtedly calling Black Gold is as unseemly as it is obvious.
It must hurt his back.
The other day an elderly African American lady (please note my delicate, politically correct phraseology) stopped me on the street to ask, “Do you know where them busses gonna’ be?” “What busses, ma’m?” I replied. “Them busses that for free gonna’ take us to the inauguration!” Nope. Didn’t know a damn thing about that. But I do know that this inauguration event is expected to draw at least as many people as JFK’s (2 million?) and I doubt the Secret Service is all about free busses from the ‘hood.
From the black Americans thinking “now it’s our turn” to the marketers happy to capitalize on that delusion this whole thing is frustrating for all the wrong reasons.
We didn’t elect a “black" man. We elected a smart man who’s stupid enough to believe he can change things for the better.
And we’ve done that before, even when the dude was only white.
Only white.
I lucked-out in high school when the primacy of musical acts like David Bowie and etc in the Glam Rock period made skinny, somewhat effeminate boys a desirable item on the girls’ checklist. Guess I’m finally, officially out of fashion.
Muscle I can build. Weight I can gain. But Black I’m not.
Is anyone else embarrassed by this blatant commercialization of skin tone? If not, please let me know the next time you see a black kid in a Ralph Lauren Polo Shirt, wearing a boater mind you, at the yacht club.
Peace out.
Worse it will get
-M of Ingleside