You know that military recruitment poster with Uncle Sam pointing outward accompanied by the tagline, “I Want You?” Well, a slight modification to that might put and end to the fuckery the ad industry can’t seem to remove itself from of when it comes to diversity. Perhaps an image of Don King or Al Sharpton above the tagline, “We Want Your Black Ass!”
It’s getting seriously tiresome to discuss diversity in advertising over and over and over again ad nauseam without the industry making even one tiny step toward a solution. All that’s occurred is endless meeting after meeting after meeting at which all parties, for the most part, pay lip service to the issue.
Back in the days of Total Quality Management and other lame ass methods of seemingly boosting corporate morale and productivity, the phrase, “Just do your fucking job” was shared among those who realized all this process bullshit was simply that: bullshit. And it’s the same with diversity efforts.
Want more African Americans in the agency business? Seek them out and hire them. It’s that simple. That said, color is irrelevant. Talent is what matters and is all that should matter. Trouble is, even with talent, breaking into the lily white boys club that is the agency world is not an easy task. And many people of color, once they realize who low paying and demoralizing the business can be, stay away in droves. So when it comes to diversity in advertising, who’s smarter? The black person or the white person?
There are no easy answers to this issue aside from the oft-cited phrase Warren Beatty uttered in the movie Bulworth: “If we all fucked each other, we’d eventually end up the same color.”
