Well Sis Elizabeth, having a graduate degree in public relations, unfortunately ads are designed to evoke emotional response. Color also evokes emotional response. The real problem is sin.

I invite anyone to go to the library and check out "Eyes on the Prize" or any US Civil Rights history. Then watch Spike Lee's documentary "When the Levees Broke." It was proven that in the mid 1920s to avert a major hurricane (it was either 1925 or 1927. . .sorry I'm not that old. . .yet) that levees in New Orleans were purposely blown with dynamite to flood the all black lower 9th ward to save the wealthier homes owned by those who had class, money and power. This time, Katrina just about took out an entire city effecting EVERYONE!

The only problem is that if we forget the past, we are destined to relive it again. Never grow weary of well doing. Even if color were not a factor, we still know there are hate groups who love to see the kind of ad displayed here. And yes, I agree it's the people who have not the heart of God. As a black woman who remembers the colored only water fountains and the fact I could not eat in white-only restaurants as a child. . . it was a matter of fact. But now, we're all swirled together. . .isn't that lovely?

No my sister Taylor, an advertisement is a symbol of power, persuasion, and subliminal behavioral change. If ads didn't matter why does Walmart have all those blasted TVs in the stores brainwashing people subliminally? When a nation starts ignoring things that appear to be non-threatening to them individually, without caring what the cause and effect is on another population, we may as well give up our God given right to make our own decisions.
(Hey, we've already got that in Washington, don't we?)
blessin's
cynth'ya

You know, this is ridiculous. Sometimes and ad is just and ad. It is POV, however, and if you want to read racist crap into it, than that is the real problem. Why would anyone do that? They are the problem.

My POV...I get so tired of this stuff.
Elizabeth

10/10
Since you want to make this a public forum, Cynthia, rather than a private email, I will answer you here as well.

The first thing I did after reading your article is I substituted a black woman in a black dress, and changed the caption to read black. It’s called stepping out of your own comfort zone, looking at other angles of the prejudice. On doing that, I couldn’t read into the advert an Archie Bunker mentality, nor was I threatened by the word Black. If you can do a reverse Archie Bunker, then you live in a sad world. I also substituted the color red, and could find no terrorist inferences, nor any subliminal inferences with the color yellow.

Having taught “How To Recognize Subliminal Advertising” on a college level for 18 years, I felt confident that if there were any subliminals threatening white supremacy, I think I would have caught it. I certainly didn’t feel threatened by the Black substitution, but rather thought it would make a clever ad. What I read into the White ad was that “white” as a color has faded as a fashion statement. The ad said to me that, yes indeed, the color white was respectable again. Playing the racist card over a Sony ad just doesn’t work for me.

I don’t mean to trivialize your childhood experiences, but when you’ve seen an adult coping with horrendous abuse, cigarette burn scars on arms and legs from abusive parents, or a woman crippled for life because her mother preferred her cigarettes and drugs to buying food for her children, and then threw a crying hungry child across the room and broke so many bones nothing will straighten them out…or a child that has been sexually abused by a mother’s boyfriend and gives birth to baby at age ten from that rape, then you have real abuse, then you have a "real" load to carry and overcome. Being denied service at a lunch counter is low on the scale of things to complain about. There are 6+ billion people in the world. They all have a story to tell and some would shame the average person to think these kinds of abuses still continue. Some rise above the adversity, others live and wallow in it.

There are three ways people respond to abuse or any adversity in their life, no matter the age the memory is taken on. They can rise above it and soar like an eagle, being the best they can be in spite of their formative years, or they can allow themselves to be completely crushed and emotional misfits over everything, even the latest hangnail, or they use it as a crutch to prod everyone who crosses their path.

My best to you, but this racist card is tiresome. Racism will never die out as long as we have people looking for every opportunity to resurrect it.

You've always appeared to me to be a thinking, rational person and not afraid of dialog pro or con, and I assume that when one posts an article they want honest feedback, not necessarily a cheering section to rubber stamp their POV.

My apologies for misreading.