Race and ethnicity

[murielm99]

I listened to the President's remarks today. Then went to the nail salon. My daughter is having a wedding shower, and I want to look presentable.

The TV was on there. The Cheerios commercial with the cute little mixed race girl came on. I perked up and watched it. THEN, right at the point she goes through the door to see her daddy, they cut the commercial. We see a person lying on the couch, but we can't tell if he is white, black, skinny, fat, etc. etc. I thought WTF?

I looked around the nail salon. There were ten customers in the place. Seven were white, three black. One of the black customers was a man who was there with his white wife. I know them vaguely. They have been together long enough to have a thirty year old daughter. So we had black and white customers and four or five Vietnamese nail techs. All we needed were a few Hispanics, and it would have been a good representation of the community.

I only notice race or ethnicity with the back of my brain these days. Who cares? I guess someone must, if that commercial is considered controversial. Someone must, if Zimmerman is found not guilty.

Our President said things are getting better. Really? Are they really?

[Hoyt]

1. Better compared to slavery, but not to what should be in 21st century.

[Igel]

2. Can you think of any other alternatives?

The assumption is that since there was a racist outcry against the commercial the only reason to change the channel from the commercial is racism.

What was on the tv before? If it was news and one story ended, somebody may have thought a commercial was a good time to move to another channel because they didn't like the one it was on.

What was on the tv after the neutral person on the screen? Was it something that somebody may have had as a "destination"?

This is more likely if it happened at the half-hour or hour break.

It might be that somebody even looked at the commercial and thought, "Gee, some customer might find this offensive. I'll change the channel." In other words, the controversy played a role, but it's not necessary for anybody to be offended.

(Check out abductive reasoning at wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning )

[murielm99]

3. No one in the shop cut the commercial.

The TV station airing the commercial, or someone responsible for network content, edited the commercial. The same channel remained on the screen. I repeat, no one in the shop had anything do do with it. The commercial had been edited before it was shown. If I had not seen the commercial elsewhere, I would not have known what the controversy was all about.

[kwassa]

4. The way you notice things might be different than the way others do ...

not saying that there is one way to notice things.

You do it in the back of your brain, and for some others it is right up front and the very first thing.