Friday Chuckle: We Need More Accurate Reporting

by Guest Contributor Anonymous

“Are Americans Ready for a Black President?” is a one of those news headlines circulating on the web.

So people call Obama black and McCain white, but I just did an algorithmic test. I measured the color of a large rectangle of each person’s forehead based on Wikipedia’s photo of them. A photo editing application will tell you the average color of that area. I then opened the WhatColor program, which will tell you the approximate color name for any color you point your mouse over. Using a rectangle filled with the calculated base color of Obama’s and McCain’s foreheads, I was thus able to pick the correct color names for Obama and McCain, which are, in this order:

- Tan
- Dark-Salmon

As you can see, large parts of US campaign coverage may need to be rewritten now. People who think referring to a person’s color is important should now use phrasing like “tanned Obama” or “dark-salmoned McCain”. You may of course also use the terms
“African-American” (for Obama) and “European-American” (for McCain).

And now, I’d like to see some “Are Americans Ready for a Dark-Salmoned President?” headlines. I’ll provide you with my answer to that question, too: yes, they are.

Just not this dark-salmoned one, please.