« Brilliant | Main | Stop the presses!!! »
Oh, irony, thy art a cruel mistress…
See this magazine cover? It is from Blackhawk Technical College’s recent magazine-style advertisement. Take a good look. For some reason, nearby residents of Janesville, Wi were up in arms about said cover.
The cover featured two smiling adults and two children. Underneath the photo was this headline: “A Family Affair: BTC is the perfect fit for the White family.”
Perhaps most people understood immediately that the article was about a family whose name is White.
Apparently, others read it as an assertion that BTC is especially good for white people. Or at least, that it was insensitive.
Now it is quite clear it was not intentional, and it has been changed. And, if anyone bothered to open the magazine, they would have seen the story about James and Casey White, as well as several people of color. Still, the school had to field quite a few calls about the publication.
I can’t stop laughing, and I can’t quite figure out why. Someone get me some oxygen, please….
Comments
Perhaps BTC could offer a course in the understanding of the usage of capitalization for proper nouns.
Posted by kushiro | January 25, 2008 10:24 AM
wow...just, wow. Is that what we've come to, finding any reason at all to be able to be offended?
Posted by Shadows of Dakaron | January 25, 2008 4:10 PM
Hmph. Janesville, WI is clearly prejudiced towards people not named Jane. I'm gonna write an angry letter once I sober up.
Motherfuckers.
Posted by TK | January 25, 2008 4:55 PM
I haven't been this offended since the Black family from The Amazing Race Family Edition.
Posted by TL | January 25, 2008 6:04 PM
While I don't think the college tried to offend or exclude, maybe they should be a little more aware as an institution.
It's really easy to say that people are playing a "race card" or saying they have a chip on their shoulders, but maybe years of exclusion and racism have made it so that people have a over-sensitivity to these things (in order to spot when it really happens).
It was an innocent mistake, but it was also an ignorant one.It won't kill Blackhawk to be mindful.
Worse is if they made that mistake and nobody cared.
Posted by Brown(it's my last name and coincidental skin colour) | January 25, 2008 6:29 PM
On the Biggest Loser (shut up) they have couples competing together to lose weight. Each couple gets a team color. The only black couple..the brown team.
I just want people to have more imagination.
Posted by greer | January 25, 2008 8:39 PM
"Perhaps BTC could offer a course in the understanding of the usage of capitalization for proper nouns."
How about one on the distinction between the (admittedly defunct) English 2nd person singular pronoun and its possessive form?
Posted by A | January 27, 2008 4:53 PM