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Old 09-01-2003, 12:46 AM   #23 (permalink)
SkanK0r
Crazy
 
To this discussion I can only bring a bit of experience I've recently nabbed.

I live in Missouri - a particularly "white part" of Missouri. Two black kids in my high school. I recently took a trip to the south, and stayed what appeared to be a very "black part" of Mississippi. I noticed that all of the white kids holding skateboards, eating Big Macs in the commercials back home had switched to black kids listening to hip hop, eating Big Macs.

I'm not entirely sure that this is a bad thing. While it may further some sort of ethnocentricity within the community that it airs, that's hardly the company's fault for running an ad to appeal to a demograph.

Disclaimer: I haven't seen the commercial - my response was just an experience I've had. I have seen racially insensitive commercials - you know, the kind that are just oozing with stereotypes.

Here's something I've been throwing around in my head - I think our concept of stereotypes have been dictated by a broader (and somewhat more "dangerous") ethnocentricity that's never been directly attacked by the types that are usually so fond of attacking those sorts of thing. We never think of "white stereotypes" because, to us [and by "us" I mean white people, the only "us" I can speak for (or can I? heh) in this context], whites are diverse. We aren't offended by skater punk kids eating Big Macs, because, to us, that's just one facet of our super-diverse whiteness. Look at the whites you see on T.V. - there are whites in suits, whites in T-shirts, whites with long hair, whites with short hair, etc. etc. But the blacks we see are always the same - young, hip, rap-listening, jewelry-wearing, etc. etc. This lends itself to a belief that there is only one kid of black person in the world today - but there are many types of white people! It's like the whole Matrix within a Matrix thing, or something. I'm rambling. Somebody shut me up.
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