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hat’s the definition of a split second? The amount of time it takes advertisers to malfeasantly flood their commercials with women, folks of colour, et al. Don’t get me wrong, it’s about time all of us were represented by people who looked like us, but the rapidity with which these mercantile appeals appeared makes one’s head spin. I grew up in a time where Murray Westgate sold gas for Esso, and Florence Henderson sold whatever it was Florence Henderson sold; but the demographic landscape has shifted and I welcome the attendant awakening of overall consciousness.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s about time all of us were represented by people who looked like us, but the rapidity with which these mercantile appeals appeared makes one’s head spin.
Black folks selling dog food! Imagine that! Could one ever envisage a time when people of colour owned dogs? Times have changed.
But what I want to see is greater change: where lilting, sing-song females are shilling for Ram trucks, telling us how ballsy the 19 inch tires are and how many J.D. Power and Associate awards (who the hell are these associates and why are they nameless?) they have won (bought)?
It would also do my heart good to see a man extolling the virtues of Nivea Cream and how it relieved underwear band wrinkles after a hard day at the office. On a similar but probably unrelated vein, I would be impressed to see a commercial for casinos and lottery concerns where no Asians were in evidence. Perhaps they could be replaced with black folks? After all, if they are now allowed to own dogs, I think we can trust them to gamble along with the rest of us.
