According to Barbara Ellen of the Observer Newspaper in London, published today, June 26, 2011, Naomi Campbell was right to file a complaint at the Advertrising Standars Authority about the above ad by Cadbury. The Observer columnist was astonished that the Advertising Standards Authority did not uphold Naomi Campbell’s complaint.
“In fairness”, Barbara Ellen writes, “Cadbury’s has already withdrawn the ad – but not racist? Really? I would say it was racist, in a blundering Love Thy Neighbour kind of way. How else could you describe a black model being rendered synonymous with a chocolate bar? Were no white “divas” available that day?
Anyway, if Campbell’s temper is the point, surely a mobile phone advert would make more sense, seeing as she’s always supposed to be tossing them at staff. Chocolate bars? Nah, Naomi hasn’t thrown them around so much. In my opinion, Campbell’s complaint was sound.
Elsewhere the accusations of racism against Chris Evans appear to have subsided, and quite right, too.
Blurting “I can barely see you” as the The One Show ’s studio lights bizarrely faded, isn’t “racist”, just because a black woman happens to be sitting on the interview couch.
Nice to see that a bogus furore didn’t engulf Evans, but are we sure that the ASA findings were fair on Naomi?”
Vodafone Ghana has hinted that it will soon introduce mobile money services in the country. The service allows subscribers to do money transfer through their mobile phones.
MTN and Airtel are the only two out of the five telecoms companies operating in the country that offer the service.
According to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, Mr Kyle Whitehill, they want to want add more value to their products.
Mr Whitehill told Citi FM’s Breakfast Show host Bernard Avle last week, that even though they have not seen the huge demand from Ghanaians for the service yet, however the company is planning to launch the service. “Oh yes we have plans for that because money transfer mobile payment will really be big when people trust the mobile operator and know that they can move their money safely and securely.”
Once again, Queens is a mecca for Asian immigrants - but this time with a twist.
Along with the traditional influx of Chinese and Korean immigrants, South Asians - people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh - are a growing presence in the city’s most diverse borough.
Part of a wave of Asians moving to Queens, they are flocking to neighborhoods like Jamaica, Bellerose and Ozone Park, bringing their traditions, religions and even sports with them.
The public library branch in Jamaica now offers a Bengali story hour for kids, while groups of Indian cricket fans gather in Richmond Hill bars to watch the cricket World Cup.
It’s all part of the dramatic growth of Queens’ Asian community, which numbers more than 500,000 from Douglaston to Long Island City. The community has grown a stunning 30.6% in just 10 years.
That growth has taken place in Queens’ traditional Asian home base of Flushing, but it’s also transformed neighborhoods like Auburndale, Bellerose and Douglaston, where the white population has begun to shrink.
Udai Tambar’s story mirrors the path of many such immigrants. He arrived from India with his family when he was in second grade and settled in Queens. He and his wife still live in the borough with their two young sons.
Not so long ago, if you wanted to issue a 13-year-old girl with a blood-curdling death threat, you had to scrawl it on a sheet of paper, wrap it round a brick, hurl it through her bedroom window, and scarper before her dad ran out of the front door to beat you insensible with a dustbuster. Now, thanks to Twitter, hundreds of thousands of people can simultaneously surround her online screaming abuse until she bursts into tears. Hooray for civilisation.
That’s in effect what happened the other week in the Rebecca Black “Friday” affair. In case you’re not aware of it, the trail of events runs as follows:
1) Parents of 13-year-old Rebecca pay $2,000 for her to record a song (and video) called Friday with a company called ARK Music Factory, a kind of vanity-publishing record label specialising in creepy tweenie pop songs. 2) The song turns out to be excruciatingly vapid, albeit weirdly catchy. 3) It quickly racks up 40m views on YouTube, mainly from people marvelling at its compelling awfulness. 4) Rebecca is targeted on Twitter by thousands of abusive idiots calling her a “bitch” and a “whore” and urging her to commit suicide. 5) She gets very, very upset. 6) Thanks to all the attention, the single becomes a hit. 7) Rebecca becomes an overnight celebrity, goes on The Tonight Show, and donates the proceeds from Friday to the Japan relief effort. So the story had a happy ending, at least for now. But it marks a watershed moment in the history of online discourse: the point where the wave of bile and snark finally broke and rolled back.
When Shanna Bukhari decided she wanted to be the first Muslim to represent Britain in a global beauty pageant, she suspected the road ahead might not be smooth, but nothing could have prepared her for the abuse she received.
“I have felt in fear for my life,” said the 24-year-old Miss Universe contestant. The attacks escalated last week when Bukhari received her first death threat.
The censure has come from various quarters, ranging from Muslims who claim that she is denigrating the name of Islam, to white supremacists who say that an Asian cannot represent the UK, and to women who condemn beauty pageants as an affront to feminism.
Bukhari, born in Blackburn, grew up in Lancashire and is no stranger to intolerance. When she was nine, she ended up in hospital after a man screaming racist abuse had thrown a brick at her, causing so much damage to her stomach that she suffered a blood clot and had to undergo surgery.
But even she has been surprised by the furore that her participation in the British heats of Miss Universe has prompted. Rather than confirming her hopes that society had progressed since her childhood, the controversy has made her question the state of multiculturalism in modern Britain. “It has highlighted the divisions that exist, a lack of social integration, a lack of adhesion between white and coloured people, and this needs to be addressed,” she said. “I thought my participation might be something that people did not agree with, but I never thought I’d get abused.”
Afghanistan, Tunisia, Sudan, Iraq, Kyrgystan, Senegal, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, are predominantly Muslim countries. Yet all of these countries have a higher percentage of female Members of Parliament than, for example, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, France, Israel, Greece, Ireland, and the USA.
In the past, Muslim countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, have seen democratically elected female heads of Government, while European countries such as France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, and of course the USA, to name but a few, never had a democratically elected woman as the highest person in office.
British prime minister David Cameron was much criticized today in his home country for the speech he held this morning in Munich, Germany. In itself, there is really not much one can disagree with, when listening to David Cameron. They are not the facts in his speech to disagree with, it is probably the tone he has used, his singling out of Muslims, and his suggestion that multiculturalism is a major problem in Britain today.
David Cameron emphasized the importance of western values such as rejection of extremism, and, for example, gender equality. However, by suggesting that they are Muslims who reject these values, he is neglecting the fact that problems like gender inequality are universal problems, rather than only a problem in Islamic societies and within Muslim communities. Why does Mr. Cameron suggest that people with Islamic backgrounds do not want to share western values such as gender equality, freedom of speech, non-violence, and democracy, to name but a few values, while non-Muslims do want to share these values. It is not that he is saying this, but it really feels as the essence of his vision.
And how comes Mr. David Cameron suggests that the rejection of these kind of values by some Muslim “leaders” in the UK and other Muslim organisations and individuals, result in a “failure” of multicultural Britain.
Again, one can’t really disagree with the facts in Mr. Cameron’s speech. But the question is: why singling out Muslims, and why suggesting that multiculturalism has failed due to intolerance by a minority of Muslims. Can Mr. Cameron explain why multiculturalism can fail? Is multiculturalism a concept that can fail, or not fail? Whether we like it or not, many societies in Europe and around the world have become multicultural societies. Multiculturalism is not something one can aspire, or not aspire. Multiculturalism simply exists, and does not go away.
So questioning the concept of multiculturalism is irrelevant. The issue Mr. Cameron should address is: how do we create a society with equal opportunities for all of our citizens, irrelevant of race, ethnicity, cultural or religious backgrounds, gender, age, or sexual preferences.
Fighting (religious) extremism, terrorism, gender inequality, are values shared by most individuals around the globe, not just David Cameron.
“Europe just doesn’t get it. It does not get how irrelevant it is becoming to the rest of the world. And it does not get how relevant the rest of the world is becoming to its future. The world is changing rapidly. Europe continues to drift.” A quote in Time Magazine of Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, a couple of months ago. The latest GDP growth forecasts, published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, underlines his observation.
The cost of insuring Ireland’s debt against default, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, is now higher than insuring Argentina’s. Five-year Argentinean credit-default swaps (CDS) have been tightening, whilst Ireland’s have widened to 609 basis points, the third highest in the world, after Greece and Venezuela. GDP growth forecasts for 2011 are not much more optimistic for these European countries.
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company of The Economist, Ireland’s and Greece’s GDP will decline by 0.9% and 3.6% respectively. The PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), find themselves among the slowest growers this year. In contrast, after avoiding recession in 2008 and 2009, and enjoying the global recovery in 2010, Qatar is set to grow by 15.8% this year. Strong growth is largely due to its liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects and an expansionary fiscal policy focused on infrastructure. China and India are also projected another year of strong growth, 8.9% and 8.6%, respectively.
MediaBizBloggers.Com, January 4, 2011, by Fernando Rodriguez
2010 was a year of Multicultural resurgence. Post recession advertisers realized that in line with most pre-census forecasts, the 2010 Census was going to point out something many have been hearing for quite some time – America is increasingly Multicultural. That being said, several advertisers were already delving steadfast into the market. However, those on the verge of defining a strategy need to step it up…and quickly. With what could perhaps be considered the perfect storm for players in the Hispanic Digital space, there has been a significant shift with advertisers moving more dollars to digital, to reach this coveted consumer.
Our new Terra Ad Value Research Study conducted by comScore this fall reveals some stunning insights into the Hispanic online consumer. Not only are Hispanics fully engaged in the digital world but they are also more receptive to advertising and new marketing experiences than non-Hispanics. While non-Hispanics may tend to look at interactive advertising as intrusive, Hispanics seem to be appreciative of the brands that are trying to reach out to them.
Remaking the Marley image. That’s what the descendants of the legendary reggae singer are telling fans as they launch a new coffee brand along with a host of other licensed products, including clothing, sporting goods and electronics.
Marley’s children have banded together to form Marley & Co., a burgeoning licensing empire that’s putting an emphasis on products that are environmentally conscious.
For example, a pair of in-ear headphones slated to launch next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will be made not from plastic, but from reusable materials including hemp, soybeans and aluminum.
Likewise, Marley & Co. has ordered licensees for new apparel lines to avoid the use of synthetic materials. A new “relaxation drink” called “Marley Mellow Moods” uses all-natural ingredients.
That’s just the way dad would have wanted it, says his eldest son, Rohan.
Long before she became an ’80s funk-pop infanta, or Rick James’ protégé and lover, Teena Marie was a Motown-enamored schoolgirl in one of L.A.’s last historic black enclaves.
The singer-songwriter, who died Sunday at her Pasadena home at age 54, grew up in Oakwood, a working-class wedge of Venice sandwiched between the 405 and the tonier beach areas. With an African American population that peaked at 45% in 1970, a substantial Latino presence and a small white minority, Oakwood was a “stable, close-knit community” where different ethnic groups lived side by side and the barriers between private homes and public spaces (parks, churches) were blurred, said Darnell Hunt, a UCLA sociology professor who has studied the neighborhood.
