Comments

1. Kaywil wrote:

   The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that this seems to be sending the message that not everyone in the world hates black people. Especially black hair. So much of black culture (yes, we have one!) is about hair – braiding, twisting, curling, etc. It has been for thousands of years.

   In a white dominated society (world) where we hear of people relaxing their hair so they can brush it like ‘them’ or getting their eye lids done so they can have eyes like ‘them’ or getting their noses done so they can have noses like ‘them’, it’s hard not to feel like your culture (and race) is sub-par.

   To have another culture (or race) ‘appear’ to embrace blackness and black hair can be perceived as a refreshing take on cross-culture influences. Yes, hip-hop has been sold – it use to be black music, but there’s a bigger market of potential consumers, so now it’s “hip-hop”, but the elements of blackness are still there. This is an attempt, it seems, to boost black esteem.

   It may not be the wisest thing to try and model the system that has oppressed you in order to feel less oppressed. It’s better to show how cultures influence and embrace each other, rather than dominate or imitate.

   I’m not too sure about this ad. I can see, however, what the advertisers are trying to do – emotionally connect the audience to the product (Nissan must like black people! I’ll buy Nissan – they understand me).

   Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 8:34 am ¶

2. Y. Carrington wrote:

   Honestly, these ads really disturb me, especially the one captioned “The Black Experience.” Right now I’m having trouble putting a reaction into words right now, but I’ll try again later.

   What I can say right now is this: these are corporate ads, which I’ll go out on a limb here and assume were put together by a white-owned US ad agency. So what we have here is hip-hop through the eyes of Corporate America, which is framed as “blackness” and sold around the world. But let’s be clear—hip-hop is not even a nanosecond of the Black experience.

   Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 8:47 am ¶

3. Rob wrote:

   The first reaction I got was:

   “They mean well but it’s very simplistic and naive.”

   Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 9:14 am ¶

4. Rachel wrote:

   When I used to teach ESL, a lot of my Japanese students were really into the hip-hop look and music. Some of them wore dark makeup and permed their hair. But the very same students would say really racist stuff about black people. Frankly I found it disturbing. It was a pose, a fetish, rather than a genuine attempt to understand.

   Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 9:14 am ¶

5. Gandalf Mantooth wrote:

   If anything, it will rekindle the old debates re: hip-hop culture and how it is interpreted in Japan, and you’ll have comments like the one above (are people still confusing ganguro w/ b-girls?). I’m bored with it.

   This can become useful if the discussion becomes specifically about the ad and it’s use of “The Black Experience” and whether we think it’s a legitimate thing to say, as this ad says in essence, that the hip-hop experience = the Black experience.

   Some of us act like that equation is true until we see an ad like this, and then we get a bit miffed, when we’re just getting back what we put out.

   I think the ad is actually a bit light on hip-hop and looks more neo-soul.

   Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 10:09 am ¶

6. Latoya Peterson wrote:

   Here’s where I first saw this ad: Black Enterprise.

   Talk about an eyebrow raise there. The ad makes sense in Vibe, but in Black Enterprise? I guess that speaks Y. Carrington’s comments: I guess it’s all black to advertisers.

   New Question: Can hairstyle and manner of dress define the black experience? If I take this ad literally, does that mean that a white kid with dreds is also experiencing the black experience?

   [Oh, btw, I agree with Gandalf - this ad feels more Neo Soul than Hip-Hop. ]

   Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 10:47 am ¶

7. Ananse wrote:

   The ad is part of a campaign that started back in 2004, launched by a minority ad agency called the True Agency. It’s headed up by a guy named Richard Wayner, and they focus on “transcultural marketing”, with Nissan as their major client. Overview here:

   http://www.02138mag.com/magazine/article/1087.html

   Wayner’s collective also publishes Trace urban style magazine.

   Provocative figure within the industry, not so much because he’s lately shown up at conferences blasting lack of people of color within creative and management roles, but more because Nissan gave his firm a plum contract over more experienced minority agencies amid charges that there may be more outside corporate involvement in his firm, thereby diluting the “true minority” structure in order to compete for bids.

   Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 11:09 am ¶

8. Dumi wrote:

   When I saw the had, my literal reaction as to turn to my friend ask, “You see this?” She looked at it, I then took the magazine and threw it on the ground and said, “this bullshit.” It would take more than a comment to express my disdain for the ad. Conflation of culture and race, confusion of aesthic of a segment of culture with entire culture, ignores consumption or as Bam would say “culture vulturing”, ugh!

   Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 11:41 am ¶

9. mr guy wrote:

   I’ll have to agree with Gandalf and Y. Carr.
   The black experience(s) isn’t just pain, struggle, and a ton of hip hop(there is music, life beyond hiphop!Stop making it seem like it’s so powerful!!). If it was I would hate myself lol.But the way some black people act you think all the above is…..

   Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 11:43 am ¶

10. LM wrote:

    Good looking ad… and thanks to Ananse for the article link… I have qualms only with the phrase “Black Experience”.

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 12:13 pm ¶

11. HighJive wrote:

    There’s a term we use in the ad game: borrowed interest. It essentially means you integrate irrelevant imagery to draw attention. This ad falls into the borrowed interest category for me. It’s also odd that in “mass market” messaging, Nissan almost seeks to avoid or ignore its Asian roots. Not sure what this ad is saying about Nissan. It’s a cool statement about global interest in hip-hop and Black culture. But anyone in the know already knew that.

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 12:48 pm ¶

12. Robin wrote:

    Agree with commenter “Y. Carrington”’s sentiment that “hip-hop is not even a nanosecond of the Black experience.”

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 1:10 pm ¶

13. bertie wrote:

    More than anything this ad conjures up how advertisers have mistakenly conflated “urban” with for all things Black.

    As a son of the south with folks in Tex, Louisiana, and Arkansas, the whole “urban chic/hipness” represented by these folks in this ad (and the majority of ads aimed at so-called “urban” market) never was our black experience.

    And I co-sign Gandalf and Ms. Peterson, there is def more a neo soul vibe than hip-hop. (all the earth tones, greens, browns, wood panels, old school bambo blinds, etc..give it that neo soulish vibe).

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 1:44 pm ¶

14. Janine wrote:

    I agree with Gandalf. The first thing that struck me is intent to equate the black experience with hip hop.
    Given the ongoing problems with representations of black people in most mainstream hip hop, I’m not sure I appreciate the equation.
    This ad is innocent enough, but I’m usually offended by the equation, especially when it takes advantage of some popular hip hop in reinforcing stereotypes and caricatures.
    Fascination with hip hop might not have anything to do with respect for/learning about the black experience.

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 1:59 pm ¶

15. Kohana wrote:

    Sorry to get stuck on the obvious, but what does this add have to do with cars? Nissan only sells cars right? Not hair salons or clothes?

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 3:31 pm ¶

16. Kimi wrote:

    Well here goes….I don’t like the 2nd ad, or other ads like it. Yes it is visually appealing, but the underlined message….”The Black Experience is everywhere” is not only false, but emotionally confusing. “Hip Hop is everywhere” – this is true. But Hip Hop Culture is a sub culture of what is – Black Culture. It is representative of a musical tradition which sprang from the struggles of Black people. The ad presents Hip Hop (or Neo Soul…Black Music overall) as representative of the entire struggle. Hip Hop is only one expression of the overall Black Struggle. A struggle that others (at home and abroad) would rather not share, and don’t fully understand. Why note say that “Hip Hop is everywhere” – That’s the question? In reality, I don’t feel the ad agency had “good intentions” they had the “intent to sale”. The Marketers are selling the “black experience” (or more specifically the urge of other ethnicities to experience ‘blackness’ or what it is to be black) via a Hip Hop aesthetic. I am more frustrated with the advertisers, not the people/culture who have come to embrace Hip Hop. The advertiser projects one image in the hopes that the consumer will buy the message within the image. There are several elements at work here, and I can go on and on about them. But for the most part these ads are a continuation of cultural exploitation which misinterprets and re-appropriates blackness – what it is to be (or in this case, “feel”) black.

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 5:34 pm ¶

17. TheBends wrote:

    My first thoughts are for the Black people who dont have anything to do with, or even like hip-hop. Unless this ad is anything to go by, which by the term “Black experience” I take it to mean hip-hop is a fundamental attribute of all Black people, and to enjoy it is to sample something all Black peoples “experience”. Yes hip-hop’s origins are from a Black community in the Bronx, but that doesn’t mean it represents an entire race does it?

    I suppose my first thoughts on this ad are that I find it presumptuous.

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 5:43 pm ¶

18. mike wrote:

    Speaking of altering physical appearances:

    I always assumed tanning salons, collagen injection, botox, and stairmasters were invented to give white women darker skin, fuller lips, smoother skin, and a little more meat on their ass to match ethnic stereotypes that many men find appealing these days.

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 6:30 pm ¶

19. kim wrote:

    I love the look and feel of these ads.

    HighJive nails it, and I think the ads feel good, and while they are both off-message and mistitled (per Kimi’s suggestion), they clearly say the demographic for whom they were made, and they’re light.

    Didn’t click through, but this may be the same company who released the horribly lambasted and misguided ‘Black History’ ad (a few years ago), with the word ‘history’ crossed out, and ‘future’ kinda white-markered in a simulated hand print above it. They’ll make mistakes until they get their footing.

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 9:14 pm ¶

20. kim wrote:

    One more thing: I love that the original post uses ‘irregardless’ in the first sentence. All the rest is apropo after that.

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 9:16 pm ¶

21. Ananse wrote:

    Kim: Good eyes, great memory.

    Here’s a good recap of the “Black Future” portion of the True Agency’s “Black Experience” campaign for Nissan – and the ensuing outcry from civil rights organizations:

    http://blackpressusa.com/news/Article.asp?SID=3&Title=National+News&NewsID=2767

    Note the two issues here: media buying tactics and messaging by a Black-owned firm. Just can’t win, no?…

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 11:48 pm ¶

22. Cynical wrote:

    I think it’s interesting how the background of both ads are positioned. The ads are clearly drawing a division between “traditional” Japanese culture and hip hop culture. Just the distinct separation of the two feels a little iffy. The message seems to be portraying people who are appropriating hip hop rather than embracing it because the ad suggests that hip hop doesn’t really belong in traditional Japan.

    Posted 23 Mar 2007 at 9:50 am ¶

23. kim wrote:

    Consider my surprise
    seeing two dreaded Asians
    while eating fried wontons

    About twenty years or so ago I wrote this, is a haiku in its original state, but I can’t find it, so I pulled it from memory.

    Things are being borrowed all the time, and there is no call for a new anything to be firmly placed as, or on, part of the continuum of the firmly established, ‘traditional’ practices and expressions.

    If the ‘newbie’ lasts long enough, there will be both its inclusion into the traditional idea of how things are done, as well as its acculturation.

    Posted 23 Mar 2007 at 10:26 am ¶

24. dex digital wrote:

    Yo, I’m going to copy+paste a comment that appeared on the original post on Michael’s site –

    Okay, I’ll give it a shot here and try not to write a book.

    So I’m gonna respectfully disagree with anyone that thinks for a second that this is anything but offensive, if laughably so. I’m not saying that’s purposefully offensive, because these cats ain’t know any better.

    This is beyond commodification, this is really that next level shit. I mean, this joint showed up in Vibe – sure, lots of different folks read that joint (I don’t), but this showed up in Black Enterprise. That mag is for Black people, period.

    Nah, this isn’t commodification. This is appropriation at its finest: a watered down version of a culture being repackaged and sold back to the originators. This is so bananas I am still tripping off this ad. That anyone would have the audacity to do this just fucks up my mindset. I’m not even mad, I’m just amazed.

    Short story: You go to Disney World and get the Disney Experience. You eat a Big Mac and get the McDonald’s Experience. You don’t get the Black Experience by getting your hair permed for $350+ in Tokyo – or to quote Murs backwards, being black is not in, my culture’s not a trend, and we’re not the same color when the police show up.

    Posted 23 Mar 2007 at 2:58 pm ¶

25. dex digital wrote:

    Cynical (see above) I think has it right here (aside from the fact that the two images are just one ad, not two separate ads, but it confused me too when I saw it)

    The decorations aren’t supposed to make us think “neo soul”, they’re supposed to make us think “traditional Japanese”.

    So what is really going on here, and I think the only reason that this “works”, is that we’re being encouraged to fetishize these Tokyo hipsters in their “natural environment” – if they were in a regular, non Japanesed up environment (I mean for real? Bamboo window covers? Calligraphy scrolls? the sake jug? 99% of Japanese salons don’t look like this), there wouldn’t be enough signifiers to let us know that yes, this is Japan, and yes, these are Japanese people.

    Only weird thing is, these people are fetishizing us. I mean, it’s self-acknowledged. (Check the “pa-ma”, “perm”, lettering on the barber pole. They’re advertising that they sell Blackness). Which is cool, because hey, everyone else does it, but I mean, picture it like this.

    If this was an image of a group of White people hanging around, wearing ridiculous-ass chains (check out homeboy in the pink shirt with the big watch, big fake diamond earring and the big chain, reminding us that yes, he is supposed to be Black) and braiding up their hair, this wouldn’t be “interesting”. People would be heated.

    I do take back my earlier comment saying that the agency didn’t know any better (I thought the people that did this were white). They should have. Any Black person knows that the Black experience is not hip-hop is not fun and games and cool clothing.

    But it is what it is. I don’t really look to ad agencies for progressiveness.

    Posted 23 Mar 2007 at 3:54 pm ¶

26. Koko wrote:

    The whole “black experience” ruined it for me.

    Posted 23 Mar 2007 at 7:41 pm ¶

27. Gandalf Mantooth wrote:

    dex, you appear to be making the assumption that places, barbershops, in Japan don’t actually have that kind of interior. 99%? You know this for sure? Is that a “sake jug” with sake in it? Is any shop that says they do perms advertising blackness?

    And my “neo-soul” comment was directed at the fashion rather than the decor.

    Perhaps that’s our interpretation of this as attempting to be “hip-hop” that’s most problematic. Aren’t we just riffing off the introductory paragraph in saying that they are trying to represent hip hop?

    Posted 23 Mar 2007 at 8:05 pm ¶

28. deb wrote:

    Reminds me of the time I went to see the Annual Double Dutch Holiday Classic at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, USA. The Japanese teams were not fakin’ the funk! They had the nuances down. The music was straight up old school, the fashions were hip-hop, and the hair…afros and locks. As for their double-dutch skills–there was no half-steppin’–their skills were TIGHT. I was secretly rooting for them to win. Shhhh…. (They did.)

    Posted 23 Mar 2007 at 9:16 pm ¶

29. dex digital wrote:

    Gandalf – I can’t verify the 99% comment, so perhaps I shouldn’t have said that – but I can say that I’ve been in a number of them. And neo-soul, hip-hop, etc – is sort of splitting hairs (I would say that the bling factor alone on the dude in the pink shirt sets the hip-hop tone, but the woman does have a slight boho thing going on). I first saw this in Black Enterprise and my first reaction – along with everyone else that I showed it to – was that this was a depiction of hip-hop. I think it’s pretty clear that this is what they were going for.

    As for the perms, I could dig up a few pictures of the fronts some real Tokyo/Shibuya salons, complete with perm ads and black faces. Granted, most of this isn’t really totally on topic. I’m pretty sure that the agency wants us to go “oh, look, traditional Japanese room, and some Japanese people that are funky fresh and want to be Black just like me. Damn. I want to buy a Nissan now.”

    To clarify, I’m not upset at what the ad is depicting, per se. I know that a lot of people in Japan, and elsewhere, like deb says, really do get down like the picture shows.

    What does bewilder me is the fact that somebody would try to sell our culture back to us, and equate the “Black Experience” with “having fun and being cool”. But, to be fair, I showed it to a couple of middle aged black people, and they seemed to be somewhat flattered. The ad inspires different reactions for different people, I guess.

    But, I mean –

    Shift_Respect? Word?

    Posted 24 Mar 2007 at 12:11 am ¶

30. Ananse wrote:

    Noted with interest:

    “Black Experience”: assumed to be American-centric. only/primarily. Hard to convey in words (i.e. easier to use than “African-American” so possibly more accurate?). Even harder to picture without legacy of pain, weight of history, burden of product placement.

    “Our” culture: must include hip-hop in collective depictions, esp. by those not born into it, or those who want to buy into it

    Influence: contributing a global social & cultural force that expands/benefits an idea/movement is cool, as long as no one outside the movement has anything to do with it

    Thin line: True Agency put a trademark on the very concept of “transculturalism” to legitimate active multiculti mashup marketing. So safe to assume that before them, there’s been absolutely no instance in which similar cultural appropriation and commodification to/by “us” from “others”, much less cannibalization from “within”, ever took place. Fair/free exchange might also be a canard…

    Posted 24 Mar 2007 at 8:01 am ¶

31. Gandalf Mantooth wrote:

    I was asking rhetorically, of course. I mean, to say that any shop that tells us they do perms is “selling blackness” is to twist an opinion from a fact. Yeah, I suppose charitably to your point, a shop that has an af for perms and black faces on their window could be said to invite people who want the “black look” to come to their shop. Or it could be they’re just doing what any other shop does.

    And even though you say it’s “pretty clear” they were going for a “hip hop” look because other people agree with you, that supports my point, not argues against it. I was saying that it’s our preconcieved notions playing here, not their intention. Like everyone here, I saw the word hip-hop in the introduction twice and made a reflexive reaction. Then I looked at it again and thought, what is hip hop about that place, or the people in it?

    Posted 24 Mar 2007 at 1:46 pm ¶

32. derek wrote:

    I am black. I don’t dress that way. Is that my Black experience?

    There is no such thing as the Black experience. This ad perpetuates “Black Folks as a Monolith” mindset so I don’t really like it.

    The intentions are good, I guess but..

    Posted 28 Mar 2007 at 5:47 pm ¶

33. Sabrina wrote:

    It’s not this Black person’s experience…

    Posted 05 Apr 2007 at 10:57 pm ¶

34. bdsista wrote:

    My girlfriend used to say, when Black women get over hair, then the revolution can begin.

    As a nearly 50 yr old sista, to say this is the Black experience wrenches my gut! There are so many of us who operate outside of hip hop and do not consider any of the clothing, hair styles or even the music to be representative of what we are about. The Black Experience to face racism daily, is to sit home and hope your teen son and grown husband and elderly father come home alive, is to respond without cursing to the years, decades of “you are too sensitive” when you challenge racism, sexism, ageism and weightism. Its knowing who all your Black heroes and sheroes are from Crispus Attucks to Barak Obama and making sure your children know who all of them are as well. Its registering to vote and showing up, when your Daddy and Momma and grandparents didn’t have that right until after they were adults!, Its, being financial and being involved in your public service organizations, Greek or non Greek, its volunteering to do SAT prep, or mentor or read, its having a library card and making sure the library orders books that children of color will see themselves in. Its going to school as far as your dreams will take you since education was illegal to us at one time, Its coalition building with our other brothers and sisters of color and not letting language, food, location or struggle for the pieces of the pie divide us, its weeping for Africa, its knowing why the word NIgger hurts so deeply, its being unwilling to let a small segment of popular culture define us as a whole, its knowing that we are not yet free, we are not fully respected and its knowing that unless you are ready to stand up for what you believe then your life is nothing.

    Posted 12 Apr 2007 at 2:49 pm ¶