Intel’s "slave ship" in Indian harbor

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This print advertisement by Intel has been causing quite a stir of late [via Huffington Post]. It seems to convey the idea that owning an Intel chip will help you tackle the same amount of work as you could with a ship of slaves (while making you feel powerful):

I almost fell out of my seat when I saw Intel’s new advertising campaign. It shows six bowing African American athletes before a chino-clad, oxford-shirted white manager with the slug: “Maximize the power of your employees.” This ad reminds me of a slave-ship, and it’s hard to imagine the same imagery did not come to mind for the savvy ad exec that created it…

Intel is not just promoting insensitive images, it’s also leading a signature drive for a California ballot measure that would eliminate class action lawsuits over civil rights issues. Intel’s board of directors have been sent 25,000 faxes calling upon the company to withdraw that pending ballot measure. [Link]

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p>There is also a YouTube clip capturing some people’s reaction to this ad:

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Here is the even more interesting part. When the ad was printed in Indian print media they replaced the white dude with a very light skinned Indian “massa'”:

It should be noted that Intel has apologized for and withdrawn these ads, but seeing the same ad in two different cultural contexts does reiterate just how much the idea of “white” putting black to work was a central part of the perceived “effectiveness” of this campaign. It’s rare that you are able to so completely unmask the subtle bigotry of many advertising campaigns.

277 thoughts on “Intel’s "slave ship" in Indian harbor”

  5. i cannot believe this even got to the printing stage – was there nobody involved in this marketing campaign (white, black, or otherwise) that at least pointed out the racial overtones? or did those in a managerial position just not care? honestly, it should not take 25,000 faxes for intel to think to pull this ad. and any apology is basically bullshit. though i am not at all surprised by the desi version…

  6. Intel do tend to shoot themselves in the foot.

    That being said, I just want to play devil’s advocate, here: Are they bowing, or getting ready to sprint? To be fair, my first thought was the latter.

  7. But Abhi, why are you calling Intel, Dell? Are they the same?

    Woops! Thanks Amitabh, that was a total mistake on my part. It is fixed now.

  9. I almost fell out of my seat when I saw Intel’s new advertising campaign. It shows six bowing African American athletes before a chino-clad, oxford-shirted white manager with the slug: “Maximize the power of your employees.” This ad reminds me of a slave-ship, and it’s hard to imagine the same imagery did not come to mind for the savvy ad exec that created it…

    Bowing? They’re sprinters.. that’s a sprinter’s starting pose.

    They should’ve seen how it would be misread though.

    Or is the real racism is that Intel thinks white or brown or east asian people can’t be sprinters.. 🙂

  10. they do actually seem to be set for running, but the racial implications should have been obvious before it went to print. in fact, the very choice of a white manager with all-black runners (if that’s what they are) plays out certain stereotypes. why not just make the manager black as well? or the runners of mixed races?

  11. i cannot believe this even got to the printing stage – was there nobody involved in this marketing campaign (white, black, or otherwise) that at least pointed out the racial overtones?

    Is it naive of me to ask the same question? I mean, really, REALLY, there was not a single soul who realized what that image suggests?

    Sometimes I think (and have been told by others) that I go overboard when I express frustration at the portrayal of brown-skinned people in the evil (joke) media. But maybe not.

  12. Wow, the number of companies whose products I avoid is drastically increasing….no Intel, Apple (which’ll be tough since I’m an OSX fan), AT&T, Verizon, ….

  13. I wonder how or why these things get out. I’m sure this must have gone through several hands before its release. I guess it proves marketing people can be really out of touch.

  14. ak, I agree. This is clearly a case of being brain dead and insensitive. Is it just me or do all the runners seem like the same guy photoshopped over? I wish I had a high res image.

    Here is the even more interesting part. When the ad was printed in Indian print media they replaced the white dude with a very light skinned Indian “massa’”:

    Very light skinned? He’s the same shade as the sprinter’s back. Besides, that image is black and white. Would be interesting to see what they did in other markets.

    Check this out:

    http://blogs.intel.com/views/2007/07/sprinter_ad.html

    I honestly winced when I saw the last name.. 🙂

    I saw this comment on the same blog:

    Aug 09 | M Waverly said: As an African American male who works in the public sector I do not find the ad racist, but it is extremelly insensitive to the well documented struggle of Af-Am’s in the US. It makes me wonder if any black men or women are assigned to the Integrated Marketing Division of the company. For me, this is the type of unintentional, but still painful, stereotypical advertising that is produced when ther are no Black people in the room to say “Wait a minute…”

  15. I thought it was a joke…you know, some kind of spoof a la Adbusters.

    Let me not even get into the contrast between those dark, half-nude bent bodies and Mr. Corporate America with his khakis and benign smile. Man, who would have thought khakis could look so bad…

  17. I don’t care if they “apologized.” This ad has institutionalized racism written aaaaaalll over it. here was have perceptions of class and identity in full swing. Take a good look at the “sprinters”- they are all the same person. So what gives here? All x’s look alike? That you, as a manager, don’t need to be able to see your work force as people? And why does the manager have on more clothing than the “sprinters?” The “sprinter” has a typical “Black” athlete look. And the manager? Silicon Valley… This ad bothers me to no end.

  18. Bowing? They’re sprinters.. that’s a sprinter’s starting pose.

    that is what it looks like to me as well. i can’t imagine how it looks like a rower. it is the american psyche and history playing i guess.

    i don’t think asian markets will even get the reference—maybe the ad was outsourced?

  20. My god, there is nothing covert about this. I mean, there’s tons of subliminal racist imagery that is in advertising, but this is so openly awful. I can’t believe they did that.

    Jean Kilbourne has a great body of work on advertising and images of women, but does anyone know of similar works on race and marketing?

  21. Or is the real racism is that Intel thinks white or brown or east asian people can’t be sprinters.. 🙂

    Thats the stereotype right? African American athletes, white guy – some ivy league khaki clad MBA grad, and the brown guy.. well I am just glad, they did not show apu with a new computer with an intel chip!

  22. Thats the stereotype right? African American athletes…

    well, how do you know they are african american? 🙂

    little threadjack but depending on who you ask, there is potentially no stereotype here. among athletes, when it comes to running, east africans runners are the gold standard today in grace, speed and endurance. every big marathon today seems to be won by someone from that region—despite that region being impoverished. it is a tribute to these amazing athletes that every runner aspires to be like the big names (many many of them) from this region.

  23. My god, there is nothing covert about this. I mean, there’s tons of subliminal racist imagery that is in advertising, but this is so openly awful. I can’t believe they did that.

    We are talking about a company that is in business to make money, not a socially conservative politician who decides to throw African-Americans under the bus in favor of the racist vote. This was stupid and is more of an example of an ad agency skimping on cost (by not procuring images of other sprinters) than racism

  24. i am NOT PC, but wtf?!?! get a brain, or at least go quad-core in the marketing dept.

    btw,

    I honestly winced when I saw the last name.. 🙂

    sheez white yo. she just likes to get “hit” by the brown-hard core.

  25. Though the races that the east african runners participate in (long distance, marathon) do not have them starting the race with them bent over, as shown in the picture. That’s for short-distance races.

  26. Wow.

    Even if that wasn’t intentionally designed someone missed how it would read across diverse population.

  27. Here is a non-racist way the ad may have come about:

    The athletes are black because, to the general public, black athletes represent speed, agility, stamina, etc. more than do athletes of other colors. That the manager is white is just how managers are represented in tech ads, and the guy who put together the image was on auto-pilot. So no racism would have been intended, but one can see how the result has offended some people.

  28. “the guy who put together the image was on auto-pilot. So no racism would have been intended,”

    Oh, please. It doesn’t have to be intended. It is all the more insidious for being unconscious. Think about Friends, for example- just how realistic is it for the groups to have almost no friends of any other race? In New York? Media creators have a social responsibility to be aware of how their visuals read. Period.

  29. It doesn’t have to be intended. It is all the more insidious for being unconscious.

    Agreed. This is a clear example of the way systemic racism operates — ascribed racial characteristics and power-laden interracial relationships become naturalized, i.e., they appear so natural that they’re not seen, at least by those in the privileged position.

  30. There is so much racism that is “unintended” — I mean how many times has someone genuinely, honestly used the phrase “I’m not racist, I have [insert group X] friends, but [insert crappy generalization about group X here].” I mean that person genuinely thinks they’re not being racist, but they often are.

    The black people in the advertisement were not deliberately positioned as slaves – I agree that they are, in fact, depicted as runners – nevertheless the imagery is so close to that of a slave ship it’s difficult to imagine some people WOULDN’T make that association. That is just so stupidly, openly, unnecessarily nasty I’m really kind of blown away.

    Also, was the first ad supposed to appeal to white people? Because this whitey is distinctly embarrassed…

  31. was there nobody involved in this marketing campaign (white, black, or otherwise)

    I’m sure there were, but no one probably said anything out of fear of looking ‘too sensitive’ in particular when it could have repercussions on their job. Especially if a minority manager said something like, “Yea some people might find it offensive, but they’re just being too sensitive” – the people in charge of course have made the mistake by regarding this minority manager as a proxy for their entire racial opinion (as if the racial opinion is monolithic in the first place). (Sort of like, when Rosie O’Donnel asked her asian makeup artist if the ‘ching chong’ thing was offensive, do you think the makeup artist will be completely honest?)

    As for white people who may have been in charge, I agree they have a responsibility as well, but it’s a pretty tall expectation for most white persons to have an active knowledge of what may or may not be offensive or have undertones/imagery that clearly is rooted in racist history (from my experience, the only way most whites believe other whites are ‘racist’ is when they burn a cross, and wearing a pointy white hat). It’s a history they don’t share, so it’s not surprising for them to be somewhat oblivious to it, even for something this egregious.

  32. “Think about Friends, for example- just how realistic is it for the groups to have almost no friends of any other race? In New York?”

    I dunno about this, I think it actually is quite realistic, that white people have mostly (or almost exclusively) white friends, what’s unrealistic is you’d think NY has like 3 black people after watching the show.

  33. I saw this ad a while ago and was just shocked. It’s interesting that they changed the body posture of the “Indian” overseer — he looks less authoritative/smug and more hapless.

    as there nobody involved in this marketing campaign (white, black, or otherwise) that at least pointed out the racial overtones? Are they bowing, or getting ready to sprint? To be fair, my first thought was the latter.

    Adnan, they’re getting ready to sprint, but it’s the ad, without context, paired with the body language of the “white overseer” that effectively looks like black runners are bowed over in front of a white master. I think it was precisely this lack of attention to the overall “effect” of the graphic that led Intel to print it without realizing how truly racist it would come across.

    bytewords, butterchicken, there is no argument for this being “unintentionally racist” or “not racist because the stereotypes are true!” The first excuse is just that — an excuse. Intentional or not, a racist representation is a racist representation, and if Intel’s ad team has these ideas so deeply embedded in their psyche, then I think they should reinvest in sensitivity training. As for the “look at all those fast, shoe-less Kenyans — black people sure are fast!” stereotype — this is STILL a racist argument. The ad is stupid and offensive. One would wish they had some kind of diversity committee to help them avoid gaffes like this. I’m honestly surprised that both of your reactions are, “But that’s true!” If they wanted to use a sprinting metaphor, they should have made that more obvious and varied the ethnicities of participants, and they certainly should not have placed a clean-cut white guy front and center as “overseer” (which is what his position in the ad, and body language, suggest). Honestly, I think what might be helpful for both of you is to go through online archives of depictions and photographs of slavery and the post-slavery Jim Crow South (e.g. sharecropping, chain gangs) and then look at this image again. It is way too similar to those portraits/photos of oppression and struggle for it to be some benign, non racist ad.

  34. As for white people who may have been in charge, I agree they have a responsibility as well, but it’s a pretty tall expectation for most white persons to have an active knowledge of what may or may not be offensive or have undertones/imagery that clearly is rooted in racist history (from my experience, the only way most whites believe other whites are ‘racist’ is when they burn a cross, and wearing a pointy white hat). It’s a history they don’t share, so it’s not surprising for them to be somewhat oblivious to it, even for something this egregious.

    Not to be harsh, but it’s a history they DO share, they were just on the more powerful end of things. I’m not trying to pin the blame on all white people, and I agree that oftentimes people are blissfullly ignorant of the fallout of these kinds of images… but that is the result of racial privilege. This is a great time for Intel, and similar companies, to reevaluate how it runs things.

  35. One would wish they had some kind of diversity committee to help them avoid gaffes like this.

    But Camille, I would add that this committee should be an external, 3rd party. No one internal to the company could provide an honest appraisal, especially on ‘racial sensitivity’ lines, to sqwak about anything is to basically say to your boss ‘you’re a racist’ No one wants that kind of heat, especially if you’re a person of color.

  36. One would wish they had some kind of diversity committee to help them avoid gaffes like this. But Camille, I would add that this committee should be an external, 3rd party

    Agreed, particularly if they’re contracting out their advertising, etc., anyway.

  37. Not to be harsh, but it’s a history they DO share, they were just on the more powerful end of things

    True. but I meant share in the sense of a common experience.

  39. What would you guys have thought if the bossman had been black too? Would the racist overtones have gone entirely? It strikes me that much of the allusion to a slave ship might have been avoided if the sprinters were just orientated differently.

    Still, if this means less people buy Intel then it can only be a good thing

  40. It’s funny how in the original color version, the white “master” is crossing his arms and clearly relishing his power over the black subjects… while in the “Desi” version, the man standing in center looks kinda awkward, not at all like he was in charge.

    (Maybe the admen assumed that authority comes more naturally to “Whitey”? ;-))

    But seriously, it’s a very stupid ad…

  41. Wow…..too much coffee everyone? I mean, I am not for racism of any sort…but I don’t go trying to “pick it out” of anything I can find. First, most Americans think of folks with African origins when they think of “athlete,” it’s not racism…we do not require darker folks to play sports and make it one of their primary public persona…it just happened that way. What’s more, nearly every winner of any marathon or other “run” that I have ever seen is usually of African descent, if not a visitor from and African nation outright. Second, It appears that the “workers” in the shot are actually just 6 clones of one shot of a runner….perhaps if we did not have “photoshop” and the “miracle” of the digital photographic age, athletes of various races may have been present….but why hire 6 models when you can hire one and make 6 or more out of him with photoshop?

    I understand that the ad could be construed as being in poor taste…but on the other hand…the more sensitive (or over-sensitive) we become about such simple forms of communication, the more we box ourselves in, until the point that we will one day not even be able to make reference to anyone’s differences from each other without fear of a “Felony Racism” charge.

  42. First, most Americans think of folks with African origins when they think of “athlete,” it’s not racism…

    uhh. yes it is. because of how that image was cultivated, historically, professional sports and entertainment were the only real positions of any kind of power afforded to folks of African origins. Jesse owens competed for the US in the olympics in Berlin, as a big F.U. to German Nazism, only to come back and have as his only job a circus act, running against horses. Racism just doesn’t mean you burn a cross and make someone sit in the back of the bus.

    Second, It appears that the “workers” in the shot are actually just 6 clones of one shot of a runner….perhaps if we did not have “photoshop” and the “miracle” of the digital photographic age, athletes of various races may have been present….but why hire 6 models when you can hire one and make 6 or more out of him with photoshop?

    I dont’ get it, are you claiming photoshop called out to the graphic designer and said “duplicate the image, please!”

    the more sensitive (or over-sensitive) we become about such simple forms of communication, the more we box ourselves in

    box yourselves in? so wait, instead of pointing out clear racist imagery that funnels its way through despite that legalized discrimination is ended, we should harden ourselves to not be affected by such trivial things, right?

    Same logic could have been used for the civ. rights movement, blacks were no longer enslaved, sure they had to sit in the back of the bus and eat at different counters, but why box themselves in by saying they’re being treated unfairly?

  43. Firstly, we are not “picking out” racism from everything we see. This ad has been on blast on the blogosphere and among civil rights circuits for over a week. This isn’t some unique, Sepia Mutiny attempt to try to make everything all about race. It IS racism to think that black=Athlete. If you don’t think so, come over to UC Berkeley where a black student can’t go to class without someone asking them what team they play for or if they are there because of some athletic scholarship (the underlying assumption being that they could not have gotten into Cal on their academics). Things “didn’t just end up that way.” Do you seriously think that African Americans and people of African origin became powerhouse athletes in some vacuum because of some special, innate skill? And since when is “the glory of Photoshop and its cost-saving use of the model” an excuse for an offensive ad? Why don’t we just illustrate everything with Sambos, that would be cost saving because then we wouldn’t have to draw the original image! Ugh, I am ready to tear my hair out.

    It’s not a matter of being over-sensitive, and since when is sensitivity a bad thing? I seriously question when people argue that being sensitive to diversity somehow stifles communication. What communication? The racist kind? Minority communities do not exist so that people can make ridiculous, sweeping arguments about them and then hide behind the wall of “Oh, the PC-police are stifling my right to express my bigoted, racist stereotypes”?

    I’ll stop. I’m not trying to be overly combative, but the reason so much latent racism and racist representations continue to be perpetuated, in my opinion, is because we still live in a racist society. It’s not always active, pointed-hat wearing racism, and that is why it is so much more insidious.

  47. Oh, also, from Abhi’s link (via the picture):

    Intel is not just promoting insensitive images, it’s also leading a signature drive for a California ballot measure that would eliminate class action lawsuits over civil rights issues. Intel’s board of directors have been sent 25,000 faxes calling upon the company to withdraw that pending ballot measure. You can add your voice here.

    But this couldn’t be about race.

  48. I think people are overreacting. It seems racist once you interpret as blacks bowing to the white master, but they are not dressed as slaves or as butlers, aren’t they? When I first looked at the ad, it seemed like they wanted to say that your PC with a core 2 duo is like having several professional runners doing their thing (threads). I guess having white, chinese, hispanic runners would make it more politically correct, but the fact is that most professional runners are in fact black. Same thing would happen if they did an analogy with the NBA.

    With so much explicit racism going on, it is a pity that people get upset by racism stemmed from subjective interpretation. There is absolutely no motivation for a company like Intel to engage in racist ads, imaginary or otherwise.

  49. I guess you can interpret the ad as saying: look at the nerdy white/indian, and look at the cool black athletes. Still racist, uh? 🙂

  50. Intel is not just promoting insensitive images, it’s also leading a signature drive for a California ballot measure that would eliminate class action lawsuits over civil rights issues.

    can anybody from CA inform a bit more on this issue? it sounds very interesting, and is this because intel has had more than one such case filed against it? on the face of it, it seems like this would actually be illegal, but i’m not familiar with the area of class action suits…