MultiCultClassics

6907: Legally And Morally Bankrupt.

2009-07-06T11:08:00.002-05:00

Hating Mondays with a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• General Motors was granted permission by a federal bankruptcy judge to sell the bulk of its assets to a new entity. Somebody better ask for a CARFAX® report.

• Rep. Peter King of New York declared the late Michael Jackson was a “pervert” and wondered why Americans are “glorifying” a “low-life” while ignoring real heroes like firefighters, cops and teachers. Ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer will probably step in to tell King to tone it down already.

• Colin Powell criticized his fellow Republicans for their attacks on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Powell believes Sotomayor should not be condemned for ruling against White firefighters in a reverse discrimination case. He added, “What we can’t continue to have is to have somebody like a Judge Sotomayor … called a racist.” Rush Limbaugh will likely respond by calling Powell a racist.

6906: MBA In Bullshit.

2009-07-06T00:07:00.000-05:00

Build your brand online —with a Master’s Degree in Internet Marketing. The hype states, “The Internet Marketing Master’s Degree provides an in-depth exploration of Internet-specific marketing methodologies, Internet law, and interactive advertising design principles, as well as teaching the best ways to utilize social media networks and search engine optimization. Through it all, you’ll gain the necessary tools to create a viable marketing and strategic plan for selling products, developing and cultivating a brand, and for protecting a company’s reputation within the Internet community.”

Um, why is a college offering a Master’s Degree promising expertise in areas that the entire industry has not yet figured out?

6905: Multibingual.

2009-07-06T00:01:00.006-05:00

Has anyone actually used Bing™ for anything?

The brand’s commercials are completely unintelligible. One would be hard-pressed to explain what the fuck Bing™ even is after viewing the spots. Ironically, the best way to find answers about Bing™ requires a Google™ search.

The recent PR surrounding Bing™ seems to confirm the problem. It’s as if the stories are forced on the media to generate fake hype. And tying to Twitter smacks of desperation.

Bing™ needs to do a search—for a new advertising agency. Of course, if Bing™ executives tried Bing™ to conduct the quest, they’d probably wind up with a bad decision like, say, Draftfcb.

Then Draftfcb would employ its cutting-edge—albeit culturally clueless—consumer insight expertise to appeal to diverse audiences. And the end result might include copy and imagery such as this:

6904: Bad Role-Playing & Bad Role Models.

2009-07-05T14:19:00.000-05:00

Antisocial media and behavior in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• CNET News reported that social media entities like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are raking in serious loot with Mafia-inspired games. Seems folks just can’t get enough mobster role-playing, carrying out crimes including stealing and killing rivals. It’s amazing that Draftfcb has not emerged as a major player in the action.

• Former Washington Mayor Marion Barry was arrested and charged with stalking a woman. If only this guy would confine his criminal activities to online role-playing.

6903: Closing Notes On The Fourth Of July.

2009-07-04T23:05:00.003-05:00

Perhaps society has grown so accustomed to things like Twitter and TMZ—with the instant delivery of news and short bursts of mindless content—that we fail to appreciate and savor the true historic moments.

On July 4, 2009, Serena and Venus Williams staged another groundbreaking event by dueling at Centre Court, with the younger sister picking up her third Wimbledon title.

And as Harry Webber pointed out, advertisers and media failed to recognize “the importance of celebrating the first Fourth of July since the birth of our nation—the very first—when we could tell our children, ‘Yes. You can grow up to be President.’ And know it to be true, deep down in your heart.”

6902: How Harlem Celebrates Independence Day.

2009-07-04T09:41:00.002-05:00

From The New York Times…

Harlem Journal
The Good Old Red, White and Barbecue

By Christine Haughney

Limited space has long forced New Yorkers to celebrate Fourth of July rituals differently. As the rest of the country has backyard barbecues and pool parties, city dwellers cook lunches in tiny kitchens and carry them up to rooftops, or, if they can get a spot, they spread blankets in the parks.

In Harlem, Dorothy Davis celebrates with a front-stoop cookout.

Ms. Davis, 54, a full-time baby sitter with an encyclopedic knowledge of the comings and goings of her West 119th Street block, starts shopping weeks ahead for a communal feast. In a decade of yearly cookouts on the sidewalk in front of her building, Ms. Davis — known to neighbors as Dot or Auntie — has come to feed at least 50 relatives and neighbors.

“I don’t mind sharing my blessings,” she said, sitting in her living room near a tall stack of take-home containers. “I’m a people person.”

Part of the reason her cookout is so popular is her reputation for generous portions. Anthony Burrell, an Alvin Ailey dancer whose 3-year-old daughter, Sifare, is under Ms. Davis’s care, described the dinners she cooks for him on Friday nights.

“You could feed the whole block off one plate,” he said, recalling fried white fish, rice, collard greens and macaroni and cheese.

For her family, Ms. Davis’s efforts have made the Fourth of July into one of the biggest holidays her family celebrates, but the observance has taken on added significance since her Aunt Lillian, who loved the holiday, died two years ago.

This year, about 30 relatives drove in from Texas, Virginia, Rhode Island and South Carolina. Weeks in advance, Ms. Davis invited her building superintendent, a neighboring landlord and retired police officers from the local precinct.

“The neighbors come; she doesn’t have to invite them,” said one of her aunts, Lena Perryman, who stops by the cookout each year, even though she dislikes crowds. “She doesn’t turn anybody away.”

Ms. Davis, who says she has been cooking since she was 10, usually prepares collard greens, green beans, barbecue chicken, potato and macaroni salads. (She did not have time to bake this year, but she hinted that there might be a Costco cake for an uncle whose birthday is coming up.)

In an effort to cut costs, she is serving lemonade instead of cans of soda — though at some point, Ms. Davis may retreat to her apartment for her favorite Cognac.

The way Ms. Davis sees it, food is not just a source of sustenance. When guests are well fed, she said, there is “no fussing.”

“Usually at a cookout, there’s somebody who wants to fight,” she said. “We never had no arguments.”

In the weeks leading up to the cookout, Ms. Davis tries to squeeze in shopping around baby-sitting for eight children. Last weekend, she headed to two Western Beef stores in the Bronx to buy $400 of ribs, chicken and hamburgers, which she stored in a deep freezer in a bedroom. By Monday, she had already decided to set up the grill in a vacant lot next to her building. She was still sorting out what kind of pork to use in the collard greens.

On Thursday, she headed back to Western Beef to pick up hamburgers. As she shucked corn and soaked chicken, her sister Deborah picked up plates, and her daughter, Dequasha, headed to a party shop to make a deposit for 30 balloons.

By Friday, her entire family had started to pitch in with last-minute shopping and preparations. A goddaughter, Denise, was expected to arrive from Providence, R.I., to make the fruit salad. Aunts, brothers, daughters and nieces helped with peeling potatoes, spicing chicken and preparing ribs.

Her friend Tina is bringing a macaroni salad. One aunt who does not like to cook will bring a tossed salad. Setup is to begin as early as 6:30 on Saturday.

By late afternoon, her brother Marshall will start to grill. She will seat her relatives and neighbors on a half-dozen tables set up on the sidewalk. As the aroma of grilled chicken and ribs wafts down 119th Street, neighbors will start to appear.

In the end, she makes sure that no leftovers come home with her. One year she cooked so much, she had to hand out trays of food to relatives, neighbors — even strangers — to get rid of it all. While she estimates the cookout will cost $600, she does not keep track. Her concern is that people leave well fed.

“I spend, and I cry the next day when I’m broke,” she jokes. “It’s always better to have enough than not enough.”

6901: How Slaves “Celebrated” Independence Day.

2009-07-04T08:46:00.002-05:00

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Slaves denied even the chance to celebrate Fourth of July

By Anne Pastore

In America today, both black and white citizens gather to celebrate the Fourth of July, but that has not always been the case. Blacks in the antebellum North were sometimes pressured to stay away from celebrations, while in the South no one thought to include them. In his book Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic, Len Travers reports that in the overwhelmingly black South “no one was about to allow crowds of blacks to march anywhere.”

In the plantation country surrounding Charleston, S.C., in 1800, for example, the African-American population was 84 percent. As a minority, the whites never allowed slaves to celebrate the Fourth of July, Travers says, and they themselves “celebrated, as it were, while glancing over their shoulders. White Charlestonians could never quite dispel their fears of what their enslaved servants might do while their masters celebrated liberty.”

They had reason to be wary. Charleston suffered a devastating bout of fires, often at the homes of slaveholders, not a few of which occurred while the owners were out observing the Fourth. As fears spread, laws were passed forbidding gatherings of more than seven blacks. The use of fireworks, cigars and anything capable of starting a fire was outlawed.

Edward Hooker, a white visitor to South Carolina, found the Fourth of July experience unsettling: “The tables were served by negro slaves under the superintendence of the managers. What an incongruity! An Independence dinner for freedmen and slaves to wait on them. I couldn’t keep the thought out my mind, the whole time I was there feasting.” This “incongruity,” however, was not apparent to the party-goers, or to most white southerners.

As Travers writes, “Independence Day was for Americans only, and as far as white Charlestonians were concerned, blacks simply did not qualify.”

In northern cities, blacks were allowed to gather on the Fourth, Travers says, but when a hostile group of black youths took to the streets of Philadelphia on that day in 1804, whites retaliated the next year by forcing them out of the town square.

In his book Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1720-1840, Gary B. Nash says that in the years following this incident the exclusion of blacks from Independence Day celebrations became customary. “Black citizens could enter the public space in front of Independence Hall only at their peril.”

As a result of their exclusion from Independence Day celebrations, African Americans in the North began to create their own holidays. In The Roots of African-American Identity: Memory and History in Antebellum Free Communities, Elizabeth Rauh Bethel says one of the first opportunities for a celebration came on Jan. 1, 1808, when the United States formally abolished the slave trade. This was also the day in 1804 when Toussaint L’Ouverture declared Haitian Independence, a date that would be commemorated by American blacks well into the 1820s.

On March 5, 1858—one year to the day after the Dred Scott decision—Boston’s African-American community began the Commemorative Festival, which marked the anniversary of the death of Crispus Attucks in the Boston Massacre as well as the Supreme Court ruling.

In the years before the Civil War, African Americans’ attitudes toward Independence Day were perhaps best expressed by Frederick Douglass in his 1852 speech named after its most famous line, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

Douglass asked the crowd why they had invited him, a black man, to speak on this occasion celebrating freedom in a country where his people were not free.

“Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us,” he said. “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”

Anne Pastore is a writer for History News Network.

6900: Nielsen Rerun.

2009-07-04T00:00:00.002-05:00

Nielsen is getting lots of play out of a single lame layout. Insert minorities here.

6899: Freemasonry At Last!

2009-07-03T10:52:00.001-05:00

From The New York Times…

Black Member Tests Message of Masons in Georgia Lodges

By Shaila Dewan and Robbie Brown

ATLANTA — The members of the Gate City Lodge No. 2 would like it known that Freemasonry, a centuries-old fraternal organization founded on the principles of the Enlightenment, is not racist.

But some of their fellow Masons here in Georgia are spoiling the message.

In June, the Worshipful Master, or leader, of the Gate City Lodge was served with complaints from two other lodges, whose Worshipful Masters were upset that Gate City had admitted a “nonwhite man” to its ranks.

Although the rules of Freemasonry do not say that members must be white, and there are numerous Hispanics, Asians and other ethnicities represented in lodges across the state, the Grand Master of Georgia decreed that the complaints would be heard in a Masonic trial that could have resulted in expulsion of a lodge or members of it. In response, Gate City (the name is an old nickname for Atlanta) filed a lawsuit in state court seeking an injunction to prevent its charter from being revoked.

The “nonwhite man” whose presence had caused such a fuss is Victor Marshall, a shy, 26-year-old African-American Army reservist who has been eagerly studying the secret catechisms of the Masons for almost a year. Mr. Marshall, who has the Army rank of specialist, said he was attracted to the Masons because of the group’s spirit of volunteerism.

“I’ve been interested in the Freemasons for a very long time,” he said in an interview. “It took me a while to find my place and get up the courage to try and join.”

Mr. Marshall investigated historically black Masonic lodges, which are part of an entirely separate organization known as Prince Hall Masonry, but said he felt most at home at the Gate City Lodge, a predominantly white Masonic group where officers attend in tuxedos and regular members wear suits and ties. Recent Gate City programs have included talks by Hindu priests, a Mozart recital (the composer was a Mason) and a visit from an Auschwitz survivor.

After petitioning to join, Mr. Marshall moved up through the ranks, becoming a Master Mason, giving him the right to visit other lodges.

Mr. Marshall was actually the second black member of Gate City, said David Llewellyn, a member and lawyer who is representing the lodge. But he was the first to attract notice, when he and Masons from across the state attended the 275th anniversary of a lodge in Savannah.

“There were ill-informed brethren who were surprised that there was an African-American brother,” Mr. Llewellyn said, “and some of them were very upset.”

Read the full story here.

6898: Horny On The Fourth Of July.

2009-07-03T00:19:00.000-05:00

Celebrate Independence Day with a new dependent, sugar daddies.

6897: Classic Bullshit From Coke…?

2009-07-03T00:00:00.001-05:00

An anonymous comment left at the post on Coca-Cola Assistant VP of African-American Marketing Yolanda White inspired this follow-up perspective. The comment included declaring, “Ms. White is Black and even she is culturally clueless.”

It’s not fair to presume Ms. White is culturally clueless, and it’s quite probable that she isn’t. MultiCultClassics’ original remarks were never intended to question Ms. White’s cultural credentials.

At the same time, Ms. White did make a lot of bizarre statements. She said, “Three years ago, we began to see new evidence of growing population, growing buying and growing power in income. We also saw significant [interest] in emerging categories, which made this consumer segment that much more viable for us as a company. So we really began to rebuild our strategic focus and realign our organizational capabilities to go after this consumer more holistically.”

For how many fucking decades must research be presented to prove the Black consumer market has money and is a viable audience? Surely Ms. White isn’t implying the segment mysteriously vanished for a few years, suddenly becoming poor and unworthy of Coke’s interest.

Additionally, every “insight” Ms. White presented on Black consumers was originally delivered to Coke by advertising agencies like Burrell and FUSE—as long ago as the 1970s.

The revelation that “a plethora of other agencies” handles Black-targeted assignments is particularly disturbing.

First, it continues the corporate crimes of allowing White agencies to win minority billings while non-White agencies are never permitted to even pitch for mass market spoils.

Second, it contributes to the perpetuation of exclusivity and discrimination in the industry. The White agencies admit they are doing a lousy job of embracing diversity. As previously mentioned, the head of Coke’s lead agency—Dan Wieden of Wieden + Kennedy—proclaimed things are “fucked up.” The Coca-Cola Company officially brags about its commitment to supplier diversity. Yet it awards work to agencies that appear adverse to diversity, while its minority shops must beg for scraps. This deliberate bullshit is driving minority shops out of business, further compounding the global problem.

MultiCultClassics hopes Ms. White’s answers were rooted in supporting and promoting the Black consumer market—as well as representing her bosses. Again, it’s not fair to call the woman culturally clueless. But if Ms. White really believes her own words, one has to wonder if she’s just plain clueless.

6896: Rising Rates And Weights.

2009-07-02T13:40:00.002-05:00

Examining the figures in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Bosses cut 467,000 jobs in June, raising the unemployment rate to 9.5 percent. Does that figure include all the celebrities that have dropped dead in recent weeks?

• Mickey D’s is stimulating the economy with it new Angus Burger, debuting nationwide today. “Customers are looking for great tasting burgers at a value that only McDonald’s can offer,” said a McDonald’s spokeswoman. “These premium burgers are a tremendous value compared to similar fast-casual and midscale offers.” Fast-casual? Are there fast-formal restaurants out there?

• Obesity rates are rising like unemployment, with 23 states reporting citizens are heavier now versus last year. Two-thirds of U.S. adults are obese or overweight. And probably thrilled to hear about Mickey D’s new Angus Burger.

6895: Fayette Pinkney (1948-2009).

2009-07-02T00:39:00.000-05:00

From The New York Times…

Fayette Pinkney, Soulful Singer With the Three Degrees, Dies at 61

By William Grimes

Fayette Pinkney, an original member of the Three Degrees who lent her strong, soulful voice to the 1970s hits “When Will I See You Again?” and “T.S.O.P. (The Sound of Philadelphia),” the theme song of the television show “Soul Train,” died Saturday in Lansdale, Pa. She was 61.

The death was confirmed by Abington Health Lansdale Hospital. The cause was acute respiratory failure, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The Three Degrees formed in the early 1960s when Ms. Pinkney, who was still going to Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, joined with Shirley Porter and Linda Turner under the management of Richard Barrett, the record producer behind the Chantels and Little Anthony and the Imperials.

For more than a decade, Ms. Pinkney was the one constant in a group whose members came and went. She sang on the group’s first single, “Gee Baby (I’m Sorry),” on its 1970 hit “Maybe” and on the hits for Philadelphia International Records in the 1970s that helped the define the Philadelphia sound.

In a statement, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, the label’s founders, called the Three Degrees “our Philly sound version of Motown’s Supremes, but bigger and stronger and melodic.”

The group’s first two singles for Philadelphia International, “Dirty Ol’ Man” and “I Didn’t Know,” were modest successes, but “T.S.O.P.,” a mostly instrumental piece featuring the studio band MFSB, reached No. 1 on both the R&B and pop charts in 1974. “When Will I See You Again?,” which sold more than two million records, reached No. 2 on the pop charts that year.

Their close-harmony singing made the Three Degrees a popular nightclub act. The group performed with Engelbert Humperdinck at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas; a performance at the Copacabana in Manhattan ended up in the 1975 film “The French Connection.”

After leaving the Three Degrees and recording a solo album, “One Degree,” in 1979, Ms. Pinkney studied psychology at Temple University and earned a master’s in human services at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1985. She began working as an administrative assistant for the Medical College of Pennsylvania and rose to become an education coordinator there. She later counseled incoming patients at United Behavioral Health in Philadelphia.

She is survived by a brother, Nathaniel.

Ms. Pinkney continued to sing. “I travel with a unique group called the Intermezzo Choir Ministry,” she told the Web site thethreedegrees.com. “Yes, I do still love people and I love to make them smile.”

6894: White Talk.

2009-07-01T23:49:00.004-05:00

The story below appeared at AdAge.com. Scan it quickly, then read the brief MultiCultClassics comments immediately following…

How Coke Is Targeting Black Consumers
Q&A With Yolanda White, Assistant VP of African-American Marketing

By Natalie Zmuda

Coca-Cola re-established a dedicated African-American marketing group in 2006. The beverage giant has spent the past few years testing programs and conducting market research. And in the first half of this year, those efforts have come to fruition, with four new campaigns for the Dasani and Coca-Cola brands.

“Three years ago, we began to see new evidence of growing population, growing buying and growing power in income,” said Yolanda White, assistant VP of African-American marketing. “We also saw significant [interest] in emerging categories, which made this consumer segment that much more viable for us as a company. So we really began to rebuild our strategic focus and realign our organizational capabilities to go after this consumer more holistically.”

Ms. White’s dedicated group of five people—three additional employees are shared with the Hispanic-marketing division—has a seemingly herculean task, working across the company’s numerous billion-dollar brands. But Ms. White says the arrangement has its advantages. The group has a deep understanding of the demographic and is able to measure the total impact of African-American marketing efforts. Here, Ms. White also talks more about that, the impact President Barack Obama is having and why general-market agencies are ceasing to exist.

Ad Age: The four campaigns you’ve done so far this year focus on moms and teens. Why?

Ms. White: Among African-American consumers, African-American moms are the gatekeeper to the household. We over-index in single-family households, and so reaching Mom is critical. Teens really are the future of America, and African-American teens, in particular, have proven to be trendsetters in the U.S. Their ability to shape culture is really critical.

Ad Age: What sorts of results are you seeing from those campaigns?
Ms. White: We’re really focused on building loyalty and building share. And our numbers are showing that we’re doing both. We are the beverage leader among African-American consumers. And if you look at how we’re performing vs. our competition, we are outperforming them on both volume and value. We’re seeing our equity numbers grow. One of the things that’s not as measurable but is really important is we’re also seeing really strong organic integration of our brands in relevant African-American spaces.

Ad Age: What trends do you see in the African-American market?
Ms. White: All consumers right now are experiencing some struggles and strife. We are seeing some of that accelerating with the African-American consumer, in terms of the way that they have to manage time and how they have to manage their family, given that they’re maintaining more jobs and balancing at home issues. …The Obama effect is another trend we’re seeing in the marketplace. That’s helping African-Americans feel more in tune with Americans and more a part of American society. Another general trend that we are seeing is the fact that multicultural consumers are sharing more of their culture with the total population.

Ad Age: What agencies do you work with?
Ms. White: We work with several agencies. There’s no dedicated agency, due to the complexity of managing multiple brands. We have African-American agencies, but we also have a plethora of other agencies that work on the business.

Ad Age: Do you think general-market shops can adequately speak to this demographic?
Ms. White: What is interesting is that, if you look at society today, there really is no general market. The market is really multicultural. It’s really important for all agencies to have a pulse on the total population as it exists and on what’s happening. If they don’t, it really prohibits the agency’s ability to be at the forefront of pop culture and to tap into relevant trends, which could have an impact on the long-term growth of a company.

Ad Age: Do you feel that African-American or multicultural shops bring something unique to the table?
Ms. White: Absolutely; we use them. All of our agencies bring something unique.

Ad Age: Are marketers taking the lead in encouraging agencies to diversify?
Ms. White: Diversity as a whole is important for the Coca-Cola Co. And as a company we’re in full support of where the advertising-industry efforts are moving, in order to increase their diversity.

Ms. White said: “We work with several agencies. There’s no dedicated agency, due to the complexity of managing multiple brands. We have African-American agencies, but we also have a plethora of other agencies that work on the business.” Um, Coke saw fit to re-establish “a dedicated African-American marketing group,” yet doesn’t see the need for a dedicated agency. Okey-doke. And does “a plethora of other agencies” working on Black-targeted assignments mean Coke is yet another major corporation handing minority projects to White shops?

Some ground-breaking insights from Ms. White:

“Teens really are the future of America, and African-American teens, in particular, have proven to be trendsetters in the U.S. Their ability to shape culture is really critical.” Um, this has been common knowledge since at least 1971.

“Another general trend that we are seeing is the fact that multicultural consumers are sharing more of their culture with the total population.” Um, ditto. And some folks insist the sharing has not been voluntary.

Ms. White said: “Diversity as a whole is important for the Coca-Cola Co. And as a company we’re in full support of where the advertising-industry efforts are moving, in order to increase their diversity.” Um, better check with the head of Coke’s leading White shop, Dan Wieden of Wieden + Kennedy. He said the industry’s diversity record is fucked up.

6893: Talent Seeker Wanted. No Talent Required.

2009-07-01T23:01:00.002-05:00

This actual craigslist ad might explain the quality of creative work coming from Draftfcb. The place is seeking a Recruiting Manager to identify, court and sign up wunderkinds for The Agency of the Future. The prerequisites? A whopping 4-5 years as a “professional,” and at least two years in the HR department. Plus, recruiting experience is not mandatory. The ideal candidate “[d]evelops a pipeline of star talent for future needs.” Sounds more like a pipe dream.

Draftfcb Chicago — Recruiting Manager
Reply to: job-ccekn-1248956828@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-07-01, 1:41PM CDT

The Talent Hound. The Attentive Listener. The Problem-Solver.

The Draftfcb Recruiting Manager
Partnering with hiring managers and human resources generalists to define staffing needs, the Draftfcb Recruiting Manager creates effective strategies for hiring high-quality talent. Responsible for the entire recruiting cycle — from sourcing candidates to making offers — this person must have the persistence and patience to find the needle in the haystack.

The Personality
• Enjoys the challenge of managing competing demands in a high-pressure environment
• Knows the value of creativity, flexibility, and a sense of humor when problem-solving
• Possesses excellent project management. Strong communication skills a must.
• Has the ability to anticipate needs before they arise and acts accordingly
• Shows solid judgment when handling sensitive and confidential information
• Is capable of weathering long lines, flight delays and lost luggage from time to time

The Position
• Must have 4-5 years of professional experience
• Minimum 2 years in HR, preferably Recruiting
• Works with teams to identify both short- and long-term staffing needs
• Sources and interviews all candidates presented to hiring teams
• Contributes ideas toward the continued improvement of our recruiting process including creative and cost-effective sourcing strategies, interview procedures, candidate assessment tools, and branding materials
• Develops a pipeline of star talent for future needs
• Builds and maintains excellent relations with hiring teams and candidates

6892: Another One Bites The Dust.

2009-07-01T16:47:00.002-05:00

“Do you know me? I’m moonwalking with Jacko right now.”

6891: Advertising 101.

2009-06-30T16:12:00.003-05:00

It’s not a good idea to boast about the power of your advertising with bad advertising.

6890: Celebrity Corpse Cavalcade.

2009-06-30T15:51:00.002-05:00

From David Carradine to Michael Jackson to Billy Mays—and various bodies in between—we’ve recently witnessed more autopsies than Quincy, M.E.

6889: Vibe Magazine (1992-2009).

2009-06-30T14:06:00.002-05:00

From The New York Times…

Vibe Magazine To Close Down Immediately

By Richard Perez-Pena

Vibe, one of the nation’s leading popular music magazines, is closing immediately, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Word was broken early this afternoon by the Web site dailyfinance.com and spread to other music and media news sites. The spokeswoman, Tracy Nguyen, said the Vibe staff would be formally notified in a meeting at 2 p.m. She said she did not know how many people would be laid off as a result of the closure.

Vibe’s closure leaves just one large-circulation magazine, The Source, focusing on hip-hop and R&B. The Source has had its own troubles, going through a bankruptcy and emerging under new ownership last year. A rock-focused magazine, Blender, folded last year.

In a memo to the staff announcing the closure, Steve Aaron, CEO of Vibe Media Group, wrote that for months, the company tried in vain to either find new investors or “to restructure the huge debt on our small company.”

“The print advertising collapse hit Vibe hard, especially as key ad categories like automotive and fashion, which represented the bulk of our top 10 advertisers, have stopped advertising or gone out of business,” he wrote.

The musician Quincy Jones and the company then called Time Warner created Vibe in 1992. The Wicks Group, a private equity firm, bought it in 2006. Vibe reported circulation of 818,000 in the second half of last year, a healthy figure, but like most magazines it suffered from falling advertising. It announced in February that in July, it would cut its rate base — the circulation promised to advertisers — from 800,000 to 600,000.

6888: Running On Empty.

2009-06-30T10:44:00.001-05:00

Voluntarily separating with a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Nothing runs like a Deere—except Deere employees presented with voluntary separation packages. About 800 salaried employees agreed to leave with the program, which will apparently save the company $75 million.

• Restaurant chain Benihana reported its net income dropped in the fiscal 4Q, citing charges related to the retirement of its CEO. Somebody should have called the Deere accountants for advice.

• Sears will introduce a buyer’s protection program to help customers who lose their jobs. The program applies to sales of appliances that exceed $399, purchased with a Sears credit card. Not sure if it includes Deere lawn mowers.

6887: Passing The Implicit Association Test.

2009-06-30T09:21:00.001-05:00

From Newsweek, July 13, 2009.

6886: Racial Rules.

2009-06-29T14:23:00.004-05:00

Court jesting in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• France recorded a first: A huge corporation has received a guilty verdict for systematic race discrimination. L’Oréal was found guilty of racial discrimination for recruiting White women only during a shampoo promotion in 2000. The ruling included a monetary fine and a three-month suspended jail sentence for company officials. Three-month suspended jail sentence? Damn, rap artists and supermodels have done more time for throwing cell phones. And it took nine years to decide the beauty company showed bias? However, let’s not be too quick to connect this ruling to the Beyoncé ”whitewashing” ad. That one probably belongs to the culturally clueless advertising agency versus the client.

• The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of White firefighters in Connecticut who qualified for promotions by receiving good grades on a test that the city later tossed out because Black firefighters did not do well. The case had added significance because Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor originally ruled against the firefighters, and critics are using that fact to question her qualifications. “In reviewing the [firefighters] case, I am concerned that Judge Sotomayor may have lost sight of [the distinction between personal views and the law],” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. “As we consider this nomination, I will continue to examine her record to see if personal or political views have influenced her judgment.” Hey, douchebag, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4. Will you be examining the existing Supreme Court Justices too?

6885: “Michael Is Family…”

2009-06-29T09:06:00.002-05:00

From The New York Times…

In Jackson’s Death, Black Ambivalence Fades

By Marcus Mabry

Jamie Foxx, the host of the Black Entertainment Television music awards, was unequivocal on Sunday night.

“We want to celebrate this black man,” Mr. Foxx said of Michael Jackson. “He belongs to us and we shared him with everybody else.”

Around the world, Mr. Jackson was celebrated Sunday, but there was a special fervor in black neighborhoods and churches.

At the First African Methodist Episcopal church in South Los Angeles, the 10 a.m. service opened with the strains of “I’ll be There” by the Jackson 5, over a video tribute to Mr. Jackson. The congregation clapped and cheered.

“He may not be the king of kings,” the Rev. Carolyn Herron said, “but he’s the King of Pop.” He was, Ms. Herron said, “a gift from God.”

Mr. Jackson was to music what Michael Jordan was to sports and Barack Obama to politics — a towering figure with crossover appeal, even if in life some of Mr. Jackson’s black fans wondered if he was as proud of his race as his race was of him.

But since his death on Thursday, many African-Americans have embraced Mr. Jackson without ambivalence. In scores of interviews across the country over the weekend, few expressed the kind of resentment some once had for his strangeness, his changing appearance, his distance from the cherubic Michael of the Jackson 5.

Darrell Smith, 40, a filmmaker in Brooklyn, recalled that “when his skin started getting lighter,” many black people said Mr. Jackson did not want to be black.

Now, he said: “I honestly feel like I lost a brother. It’s a pain inside me.”

Some African-Americans said those most determined to discuss Mr. Jackson’s failings were white.

“The system likes to take black men down,” said Stan Jamison, a 61-year-old house painter, leaning against a fence on Sunday outside the old Jackson home in Gary, Ind. “They did it to Ali. They did it to Tyson.”

When Mr. Jackson was accused of child molesting, many African-Americans leaped to his defense because they felt he was being persecuted.

But even some blacks acknowledged that Mr. Jackson, like many African-Americans, had issues with his identity.

Gerald L. Early, a professor of African-American studies at Washington University in St. Louis, pointed to Mr. Jackson’s self-image as an adolescent who hated the fact that he had a broad nose. In some reports, his father was said to have told Mr. Jackson he was ugly.

“If blacks were not, in some degree, emotionally and psychologically scarred from their oppression,” Professor Early said in an e-mail message, “they would hardly have needed the Black Power and the Black is Beautiful movements of the 1960s, efforts to restore their mental health.”

“Jackson reminds me of Sammy Davis, Jr.,” he added. “Davis was a singer and dancer, like Jackson, and a man who felt inferior about his looks and who wanted to fit in with the white Hollywood environment in which he found himself.”

Still, it was Mr. Jackson’s changeability that, in part, allowed him to resonate with millions of people around the world.

“His race was very blurry,” said Ning Liu, 28, an electrical engineer who moved to the Chicago suburbs from China four years ago.

Mr. Liu, who went to Gary to place flowers outside Mr. Jackson’s childhood home, said: “His voice, his look, the way he did things — it didn’t fit the stereotype people had of black people. People were not afraid of him.”

Amy Whitlock, 38, and her husband, Dave, 42, who are white, drove 100 miles to Gary to pay their respects to the pop star. They described how a young Mr. Jackson had transformed the way white children saw race.

“I was from a small town in Illinois where there weren’t any black people,” Ms. Whitlock said, tears splashing down her cheeks. “There was prejudice in our town.

“The older people, they saw just some black guy dancing. But we saw someone who was extraordinary, someone who made us want to dance. Michael was for unity. And he made people my age want to be for unity.”

Meighan Maheffey, 27, who is white and grew up in North Carolina, said the Jackson 5 was the only black group her grandmother allowed her mother to listen to. “It was very nonthreatening to her,” Ms. Maheffey said.

But Mr. Jackson also staked out new terrain for black performers.

“He dubbed himself the King of Pop, which was a pretty daring act,” Professor Early said. “Previously in our culture, the King of Jazz was Paul Whiteman and the King of Swing Benny Goodman and the King of Rock and Roll was Elvis Presley, all white men.

“This, in a way, radically redefined the black performer’s relation to music, made Jackson an auteur. In this way, Jackson may have paved the way for Obama in the sense of black man as auteur and self-mythmaker.”

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has been acting as a family spokesman in the past few days, said Mr. Jackson — like Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, James Brown and Josephine Baker — had redrawn the boundaries of black possibility by showing whites, and blacks, that the race was capable of more than had been previously acknowledged.

“The light cast by these luminaries was great and shined on the whole race, even when they did not intend to be ‘political,’ ” Mr. Jackson said.

The Black Entertainment Television music awards were not originally intended to be a tribute to Michael Jackson, whose hits dried up long ago. But plans were rushed through to change the program once he died. Over the course of the evening, Mr. Foxx wore different costumes from Mr. Jackson’s long career.

On Saturday, at the Malcolm X Blvd Pizzeria in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of New York, an impromptu dance party and memorial service for Mr. Jackson was set up. Just steps away from the oven, two dozen or so people danced to the blaring Michael Jackson marathon on the sidewalk outside, holding black, white and red balloons, some clutching candles and wiping away tears. Some wore T-shirts with Mr. Jackson’s face.

Eric Smith, 50, a social worker, snapped his fingers and stepped back and forth to the beat. “He was more than a musician,” Mr. Smith said. “He was a worldwide ambassador for love and peace.”

But Mr. Jackson may have helped bring about a world of multiracial acceptance that no longer understands his own obsession with his skin color.

The night that news of Mr. Jackson’s death came, Ingrid Deabreu, 49, a patient care and dialysis technician from Guyana who lives in Brooklyn, stayed up watching a marathon of his videos with her 7-year-old daughter Kimberly.

When the video of Mr. Jackson’s “Black and White” came on, her daughter turned to Ms. Deabreu and asked: “Mommy, he said it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white. So why’s he trying to make his skin white?”

Reporting was contributed by Ana Facio Contreras from Los Angeles; Jon Caramanica and Karen Zraick from New York; Malcolm Gay from St. Louis; Dirk Johnson from Gary, Ind.; and Janie Lorber and Ariel Sabar from Washington.

6884: Silos & Towers Create Long Garbage Chutes.

2009-06-29T00:11:00.002-05:00

Others have likely made this comparison before, but MultiCultClassics will present it anyway.

Integrated Marketing is the new Tower of Babel.

Contrary to the ~~lies~~ hype generated by BDAs boasting integration, there simply isn’t much evidence to prove it. The key issue involves the forced combination of players speaking different languages and operating different business models. Oh, and the disciplines are making money in different ways too. The end result is chaos and failure to build anything. The vision of erecting the grand edifice is never realized.

In this case, however, the confounding confusion cannot be attributed to God. Rather, it’s solely the responsibility—or irresponsibility—of men unwilling to listen, learn and collaborate.

The 2009 Cannes International Advertising Festival, it should be noted, handed the Titanium & Integrated Lions to the Obama/Biden Presidential Campaign. There were no BDAs listed in the creative credits for the winning entry.

Not surprisingly, the advertising industry’s inability to integrate practices mirrors the inability to integrate people. It’s yet another diversity dream deferred.

6883: Billy Mays (1958-2009).

2009-06-28T21:43:00.004-05:00

From FOX News…

‘Infomercial King’ Billy Mays Found Dead in Home

FOX News

Television pitchman Billy Mays — who built his fame by appearing on commercials and infomercials promoting household products and gadgets — died Sunday.

Mays, 50, was found unresponsive by his wife inside his Tampa, Fla., home at 7:45 a.m. on Sunday, according to the Tampa Police Department.

Police said there were no signs of forced entry to Mays’ residence and foul play is not suspected. Authorities said an autopsy should be complete by Monday afternoon.

“Although Billy lived a public life, we don’t anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days. Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times,” Mays wife, Deborah, said in a statement on Sunday.

Mays was well known for his numerous television promotions of such products as Orange Glo and OxiClean. He was also featured on the reality TV show “Pitchmen” on the Discovery Channel, which followed Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs.

Born William Mays in McKees Rocks, Pa., on July 20, 1958, Mays developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other “as seen on TV” gadgets on Atlantic City’s boardwalk. For years he worked as a hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.

After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s, Mays was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of cleaning products on the St. Petersburg-based Home Shopping Network.

Commercials and infomercials followed, anchored by the high-energy Mays showing how it’s done while tossing out kitschy phrases like, “Long live your laundry!”

Recently he’s been seen on commercials for a wide variety of products and is featured on the reality TV show “Pitchmen” on the Discovery Channel, which follows Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs. He’s also been seen in ESPN ads.

His ubiquitousness and thumbs-up, in-your-face pitches won Mays plenty of fans. People line up at his personal appearances for autographed color glossies, and strangers stop him in airports to chat about the products.

“I enjoy what I do,” Mays told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview. “I think it shows.”

Mays was on board a US Airways flight that blew out its front tires as it landed at a Tampa airport on Saturday, MyFOXTampa.com reported.

US Airways spokesman Jim Olson said that none of the 138 passengers and five crew members were injured in the incident, but several passengers reported having bumps and bruises, according to the station.

Authorities have not said whether Mays’ death was related to the incident.

Discovery Channel spokeswoman Elizabeth Hillman released a statement Sunday extending sympathy to the Mays family.

“Everyone that knows him was aware of his larger-than-life personality, generosity and warmth,” Hillman’s statement said. “Billy was a pioneer in his field and helped many people fulfill their dreams. He will be greatly missed as a loyal and compassionate friend.”