So, what do you think:  Is this Gap ad featuring Black people dancing and singing about the “hood” using stereotypes to appeal to black people?  Or white people?  In the latter case, would you consider this a form of objectification?  (Unfortunately, I don’t know when or where it aired.)

For more, see my series of posts about how and why people of color are included in advertising aimed mainly at white people.

Via The Feminist Agenda.

In the U.S., many little girls and boys are told that, if they don’t behave, they won’t get any presents on Christmas.  Sound like a significant threat?

Some cultures–parts of Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, and Italy–have an anti-Santa Claus, Krampus.  Krampus is Santa’s sidekick; he’s his evil twin, if you will.  He stalks the streets hitting people with switches.  If a child is bad, Krampus will take the child’s gifts away.  If the child is awake Christmas Eve night, Krampus will take the child away!

Krampus:

More images found here, here, here, here, here, and here, via.

Cassidy P., Kailey V., Adèle G., and Allie L. sent in a gift guide put together by the New York Times specifically for people “Of Color” (center bottom):

The guide lumps together all non-white groups, suggests that they are interested in race- and culture-specific products and implies that white people would NOT be interested in these things.  Some examples:

The guide illustrates something we’ve discussed several times on this blog: the fact that there “needs” to be a guide specifically for people of color reveals that all the other products and guides, ostensibly for “people,” are really for white people.  Things that are marketed to non-white people are, supposedly, inherently uninteresting or irrelevant to white people.

Ultimately, this reinforces the idea that people of color are always outsiders in a white world.

Following up on a previous post about gendered gift giving guides at Lego and Toys R Us, I discovered something interesting.

I was intrigued by the Toys R Us guide because it asked the buyer to specify the gender of the child, but then tended to have more or less the same “personality” and “interests” options.  For example, below are the choices for girls and boys.  You’ll see that they are very similar.

Girl personalities:

Boy personalities (same, sans “Glamour Girl”):

Girl interests:

Boy interests:

So, why even ask about gender, I wondered?  I did a test.  For both boys and girls ages 12-14, I checked “techie” and “building” to see what I would get.

What I got was rather fascinating.  I can’t remember where I originally heard it, but someone somewhere observed that when it came to technology, there was a stereotype that men were  the engineers and designers and women were the consumers and users.  That is, both men and women might like technology, but men were active in producing technology and women just got to benefit from men’s hard, brainy work.

Well, that’s essentially what Toys R Us told me.  Remember, for both boys and girls, I checked “techie” and “building.”  Here is the top 24 gift suggestions for boys:

So that’s 13 building/engineering games (like Lego and KNEX), 3 ipod accessories, 4 portable DVD players, 2 MP3 players, and a few other things.

What do girls get?  Seven ipod accessories, 5 portable DVD players, 4 MP3 players, 3 laptop computers, 3 cameras, and one building/engineering game.  One.

Sure enough, Toys R Us confirms that girls may like technology, but boys build it.

This 1959 ad for an airplane toy throws in girls as an afterthought in the final seconds (“Every boy wants a RemCo toy… and so do girls”). It’s easy to dismiss the ad as quaint and representative of a different time, but today’s advertising seems equally gendered, with girls thrown in as an afterthought (like in this dinosaur toy website) or neatly segregated (see here, here, and here).

Found at Vintage Ads.

The ad below, sent in by Corinne C., expresses nostalgia for “classic” beers and classic women:

(From TimeOut Chicago.)

Chris Uggen, fellow sociologist and editor of Contexts magazine, put together a graphic for Public Criminology comparing the current age of death row inmates in the US with their age at arrest (in the title, I assumed they were mostly men, but I don’t know):

So the median age at arrest is 27 and the median current age is 43.  This illustrates the lag time between arrest, conviction, sentencing, and  execution.  It also creates the conditions for what Uggen calls the “graying of prison populations.”   We are executing mostly middle-aged men and older, even as the young are disproportionately convicted for committing violent crimes.

I suppose whether or not we support executing a 50-year-old man for a crime he committed half a lifetime ago depends on what you think the death penalty is for.   Is it to satisfy the family of the victims?  Is it for revenge?  Is it for deterrence?  Is it to make the world outside the prison a safer place?

Executing people in their 40s, 50s, and beyond makes more sense if your goal is something like revenge, less sense if your goal is a safer world with less violent crime.  So, how we frame the death penalty (that is, how we answer the questions “what is it?” and “what is it for?”) shapes whether the graph above looks like social justice or social tragedy.

Kirsti McG. sent us her correspondence with the manufacturer of these:

Kirsti, who saw these on the grocery store shelves in Scotland, wrote to complain that the company mascot, Mr. Wasabi, “pack[s] together practically every stereotype about East Asians possible, from wooden toe sandals to buck teeth to samurai swords to kung fu…” (check out the website to see him animated).

Kirsti got a letter back castigating her for daring to be offended by the character.  They told her that hers was the only complaint they’d ever received (implying that she was crazy or over-sensitive) and that she was trying to make them into an “enemy.”

They also used the “some of my friends are Asian” response, explaining:

…we have been cooperating with the Asian manufacturing company for 4 years, we have a registered company in Thailand and Japan in a different line of business, and everybody is delighted with Mr. Wasabi and the branding. It goes so far that the manufacturer has asked us permission to use the branding in their own markets in Cambodia and, hold your breath, Japan.

Then they accused her of ignorance and racist paternalism:

Maybe you should deepen your knowledge of Asia and the Asian psyche, beyond your rather activist style “I-am-going-to-protect-the-poor-asians-from-these-ruthless-snack-tycoons.”

This is a great example of the backlash that frequently occurs when power is threatened.  The company representative didn’t say “Gee, I’d hate to be racist, let me think about this” or even “I’m sorry you’re offended, but this is just what the logo is.”  He said, “You are the crazy person here. There is nothing wrong with our logo and how dare you even suggest that it is racist!  We are innocent and perfect with our Asian friends and you are totally out-of-line.  If anyone is racist, it is you.”  This is a common response when someone’s privilege is exposed: Everything goes along just fine until you ask for power relations to be reconfigured, and then you see the resistance.  For another example, see our post showing vandalized anti-rape posters.

Kirsti wrote back explaining calmly that their ties to Asian companies does not necessarily mean that their branding isn’t racist and that to suggest that there was a single “Asian psyche” (that is 100% behind their product) is, itself, kinda racist.

She said that the next letter was less accusatory and that he promised to bring the issue up with the board.

Sometimes, even in the face of backlash, collective action can work.

You can contact the peeps at Mr. Wasabi here.