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Microsoft Poland Photoshops Black Guy To White One
wanted writes "If you look at Microsoft's Poland business solutions Web site, you will probably not notice anything odd about the main picture. However, when you compare it with the original English version, you can see that someone decided that showing black people in Poland is probably not going to be convincing to business. They just Photoshopped the head of a white guy in for the black one, in an amateurish way, leaving his hand unchanged. (Here's a mirror in case something should happen to the original.)" We noted a few months back that the city of Toronto had done something similar.
Perhaps it was just a spray on tan?
is the white macbook in the picture......
The racism flag seems to get trotted out a little too often these days. Statistically speaking, are there a heck of a lot of black guys in Poland? Honest question, really. I dislike Microsoft for a lot of things, but the racism tag seems a little odd; I wasn't aware they had a reputation in that department.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
they already fixed it. BORING!
Is the white guy they shopped in a lookalike for mitt romney or is that my imagination?
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Maybe they just didn't have distribution rights for that models images outside of North America? Always possible that is what happened, and it didn't get caught until late enough that it was cheaper to photoshop then reshoot.
I know, I know, how dare I give them benefit of the doubt.
Now, if that makes sense to anyone, could you please explain it to me? I think I've confused myself.
If you're going to doctor it, at least have some fun with it....
That the guy had actually been "photo shopped" white, rather then just a different person!
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
Maybe it's Microsoft's way of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the writing of Black Like Me.
http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/
They changed a black guy into a white guy, but they used cropping.
A black man took a gun to an anti-Obamacare rally. MSNBC showed his picture, or at least a picture of his shirt and gun (no hands or head), claimed it was a white guy and that he was motivated by racism.
Link here: Instapundit and Afterburner video
I find this very rude and discriminatory. How do we know this guy wasn't Gimped?
And the racial overtones. When I was asked whether I could "do something" on a job, I've cut out the middle man of a standing trio because that was the image they wanted from that event so they could write about it. Would like to think I did a better job, and I've always figured I wasn't the first and only person doing it. Photographs just aren't a reliable chronicle of events anymore. At least not at a naive glance.
Let's assume for a moment that the darker guy is, in fact, the original, and that he wasn't shopped in for political correctness in the American market. The guy doesn't even look "black" to me - "black" meaning African for the most part. He looks more like someone of south Asian descent (India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc.).
If you want to be my(crosoft's) baby, it DOES matter if you're Black or White. :-)
You should see the real original picture before MS photoshopped in those two non-Busey guys.
(Yes, stolen from reddit.)
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
May be they were trying to save a few bucks and cheaply localizing the picture? Can't find anything racist in it.
Anyway, they have now changed it back which is actually funny. There are only about 4,500 African people in Poland whom wiki funnily enough calls African Americans . Reading the wiki text seems to indicate that 4,500 is indeed the total Black people count in Poland and not African Americans.
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
I watched George Pal's "When World Collide" as well as a bunch of other movies ("War of the Worlds", "The Time Machine") from the 1950's. It is funny how the world (now and in the future) is inhabited only by beautiful white women blonds and while Anglo Saxon men.
They had the obligatory white woman, the Asian man, and the black man in the original photo. Now you have a white woman, a white man, and an Asian man. The ethnicity is unbalanced! How will we know they treat all people equally? How will we feel safe in a world where we can't see diversity?!?! Real diversity comes from the colour of your skin, dammit!
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
If they Photoshopped in a white guy over the black guy, what about the Asian guy? I mean, how likely are you to see a Korean guy walking the streets of Poland? ( Or maybe I just don't know the streets of Poland).
--Bahamlabs
I literally was on the floor dieing when i saw this...
Both pictures are just the result of what a marketing department researched out that sells.
The black man in the US pictures DOES NOT mean that they're not racist, not at all. I'm not saying that they are racist either. He's there because he can help to sell more.
That's it.
We all have seen those TV adds, that, no matter what is being sold, show a Latin, an Asian and a black child just to appear that they have evolved into a society when stupid racism times are long gone.
Races are just resources to sell, from a marketing point of view.
Just in case I'm Latin and yes, I took already my diazepam pill ten minutes ago.
I see an ugly guy being photoshopped into a good looking one. What does race have to do with it?
Around 20 years ago someone arranged a 'living flag' ceremony on Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Invitations went out to any and all military people stationed in the area, an enormous number of potential attendees. People showed up, the event was held, photographers took pictures. After, the phone company wanted to use some of the photos for the covers of the phone book. Upon examination it turned out that very few non-white persons had attended. The phone company couldn't see their way clear to use pictures of reality, so they held a bogus living flag event with a mix of non-whites of much greater proportion that in real life, and even in the military. (I suppose that of real life makes you then it may do the same for the basic, well devised lie, so the best way to prevent this uncomfortable feeling is to lie real big.) Those pictures got used. People who attended the event found out and publicized the fact, but after the initial splash the matter remained known but non-newsworthy. Also after, I was told but can't confirm that some of the photos were altered to increase the female presence and to make some of the people more attractive.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Who cares, it was originally a white guy that got photoshopped into a black guy anyway. Yay forced diversity!
That has nothing to do with the digital world, it just got easier. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Che and Castro all had former "friends" who happened to fall out of grace removed from pictures in their times. But of course this is going back much more, way before the availability of photography. Media was never and will never be reliable in general.
And I would argue that using raw data to is the only reliable way to inform yourself, anything that has been selected, annotated or edited is the problem, bringing over a certain point of view which is not necessarily neutral. Of course, this will seldom be possible because you dont' have access to that raw data.
Whatever color your money wants it to be! There's no principle too low for your green backs baby! Everyone can be equally insulted !
You just have to admire the white guys' tan on his hand..It totally suits him!
so from a black guy, to a white guys with a hand tan!
Someday we'll hit the human carrying capacity. And the band will just play on.
The biggest question is.
Who gets offended by these marketing tricks?
Is it whites, blacks, or the target market?
In thi s example the black guy was replaced, in the previous example the white guy was replaced. Both times I couldn't care less.
Some people get so offended if there is the slightest bit of "racial" incorrectness. Either this or they want to take a stand on something, anything, and this is the most convenient, sensitive issue they can find.
Frankly I am offended most by advertising in general. Specifically those that try to promote something that is unrealistic. ie: Weight loss PILLS, Drug companies telling everyone they have restless leg syndrome or the like. Who cares that the actors in an ad get swapped for another. Again these are paid actors/models. The photo is the property of the ad company or product's company and they are free to do with it what they want. There is nothing politically incorrect about the swap.
"Stand up" for real issues or take the easy route and pop an Enzyte.
Microsoft has changed it back to the original! Now, go back to working on an OS that actually has some power.
Someday we'll hit the human carrying capacity. And the band will just play on.
Hopefully the original guy got paid for his hand modeling.
While, the black people in Poland most likely don't make up a large proportion in Poland to be targeted by ads, it was a stupid decision to photoshop that dude into oblivion.
Why not just use another picture?
Well, probably Microsoft wants to keep a global profile, which is why you also see an Asian too.
Not just the Turks, though. The "real" Greeks had been getting it on with Romans, Spaniards and those Caucusus-types like the Macedonians, who were ethnically Greek at all.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Look, I use Linux, and Microsoft is evil, etc.
I've also met some Poles who were... old-fashioned, let's say.
But let's not use this to make a cheap attack. The original photo was perhaps appropriate for politically-correct America, where it is normal to have ads in which 100% of the people in them belong to a minority. In Poland, that is pushing it too much. They modified the ad so that only 67% of the people were a minority (an Oriental guy, a white guy and a white girl). It's not as if they knocked it down to 33% or 0%. Do you realise that Poland has a population that is 96.7% ethnic Polish? Once you count other groups, that means that ~99% of the people are white. And you're whining that they only have 33% ethnic minorities in an advert, plus 33% female (in a male-dominated industry).
What the fuck? Is Poland on the fucking Moon or something?
"Oooh mommy, this ad scares me. What's the strange dark alien person doing there?"
Let's be blunt. Poland is a backwards place. Most Poles happily stood by as the Nazis pretty much emptied the country of its Jewry (despite the fact that the Nazis thought the Poles little better). Anti-semitism is rife, as is homophobia.
It's not a matter of being "scared". Do you not have even a layman's understanding of marketing, of localisation?
Races in Poland: Polish 96.7%, German 0.4%, Belorussian 0.1% Ukrainian 0.1%, other 2.7% (2002)
According to: this
They list races with 0.1%, but no black people. Seems more realistic to take the black man out. The Asian is pretty out of place too, and should be replaced with a sausage.
... I wouldn't be surprised if the photo was originally was white and the US side photoshopped in a black guy.
I heard a story from my mother where, when my grandmother from Poland first visited the United States, she saw a black guy and asked if he took his shirt off if there would be residue under his shirt.
I'm just guessing that since Poland is mostly just poor farmers and just poor people in general, they don't really have as many immigrants coming in compared to Western Europe. But I suppose it could be due to racism as well, since most of the people going to Microsoft's website are going to be Polish businessmen, anyways.
Trademarks help protect corporate and product identity, and Photoshop is one of Adobe's most valuable trademarks. By following the below guidelines, you can help Adobe protect the Photoshop brand name.
The Photoshop trademark must never be used as a common verb or as a noun. The Photoshop trademark should always be capitalized and should never be used in possessive form, or as a slang term. It should be used as an adjective to describe the product, and should never be used in abbreviated form. The following examples illustrate these rules:
Trademarks are not verbs.
CORRECT: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.
Trademarks are not nouns.
CORRECT: The image pokes fun at the Senator.
INCORRECT: The photoshop pokes fun at the Senator.
Always capitalize and use trademarks in their correct form.
CORRECT: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.
INCORRECT: The image was Photoshopped.
INCORRECT: The image was Adobe® Photoshopped.
Trademarks must never be used as slang terms.
CORRECT: Those who use Adobe® Photoshop® software to manipulate images as a hobby see their work as an art form.
INCORRECT: A photoshopper sees his hobby as an art form. INCORRECT: My hobby is photoshopping.
Trademarks must never be used in possessive form.
CORRECT: The new features in Adobe® Photoshop® software are impressive.
INCORRECT: Photoshop's features are impressive.
Trademarks are proper adjectives and should be followed by the generic terms they describe.
CORRECT: The image was manipulated using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: The image was manipulated using Photoshop.
Trademarks must never be abbreviated.
CORRECT: Take a look at the new features in Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: Take a look at the new features in PS.
The trademark owner should be identified whenever possible.
Adobe and Photoshop are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.
I mean, it very well could be, but have we considered the possibility that some joker in MS Poland marketing dept thought it would be funny to stick his own face on something, and so he did a crappy job at it?
its just a tribute to michael jackson
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Everyone keeps saying they "photoshopped" it. This is Microsoft. Adobe makes Photoshop. Clearly from that quality editing, they used a Microsoft photo editor like Picture It. Actually that's exactly what you'd get if you used Picture It lol.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
A local pointed head boss (PHB) took the wrong decission.
He is surely being spanked right now by MS central office.
At the same time, without much of a hush hush, put back the original photo or change it for one completely (and all white?) different.
Another example of Microsoft evilness!
There are very few black people in Eastern Europe; this has little to do with ethnic cleansing or racism. If fact, where I live, a black guy is big shot TV star just because he's relative good looking and his skin color makes him look exotic. This part of Europe has its share of racism, but it's toward gypsies.
It makes sense to portray people that the viewers can relate to. It's something I tell my clients when they suggest stock photos. Just last week I had to do completely different sets of pics for a site that had US and UK versions.
Still, the team that handled localization screwed up. They should have replaced the whole photo, rather than "fix" it (badly). Stock photos are pretty cheap and even if you order from Getty or ask for extended rights or something, it's still peanuts for any sizable company.
Looking out there now, they changed it back to the black guy. Or maybe they didn't. Maybe it is a trick picture? Can anyone else see the sailboat?
What's really funny is that people are worried about the particulars of the lie they're being told about the product (what colour of happy family guy the product will magically transform you into) rather than the fact that it has become accepted practice in advertising.
Truth in advertising got steadily eroded over time and now it's a joke.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Who is more racist, the person who decided the black guy should be photoshopped out? Or the person who think a black guy must be included because of the color of his skin?
That was my first though, actually.
I don't know about these days, but my parents grew up in the Czech Republic, and, at that time there were no Black people there, well maybe two in the whole country. Television was a rare novelty and a portable radio weight around 200 lbs, so there certainly wasn't even news coverage that Black people even existed.
Racism?
Maybe, but perhaps it's just that, still, Blacks "just don't exist" as far as the average Pole knows, and to depict one, in an ad would cause cries of WTF?
In Liberty, Rene
[citationneeded]. We agree on Stalin, but all the others did not use damnatio memoriæ. In particular, Che Guevara was never head of any country, so he could not have done it even if he had wanted it. Counterexamples welcome.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Since when's Microsoft using red-orange-yellow? Never mind their photoshopping black people into white, now they're totally stealing Ubuntu's color scheme!
Many Polish peoples are also racists.
By a strict definition, I'm also racist. Australians that I have encountered (without exception) in international airports have been unfailingly polite, helpful and friendly. Clearly a superior group of people.
My next international vacation is definitely going to be in Australia.
I find it very interesting that there seems to be no proof anymore that this ever took place.
Reply to this post if you saw the original.
I'll retract Che, as I couldn't find an example, but for the rest:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/
I don't want to google more, but I remember seeing many more examples over the years.
You don't need to be a head of state to have photos edited, btw. It just need some devoted followers in the press or something like that.
White people are victims of racism too.
Everyone has been looking at the black/white issue. The real issue is that the model 'appears' to be using a white Macbook. Also, the logo in the original image has been shoddily cloned out (ie: you can JUST see where it was). After the Photoshop/Gimp-job, the cloning is less obvious due to artifacting. This raises questions: 1) why didn't MS replace the laptop with a generic Wintel? 2) should the laptop have been changed to black in compensation? (ok, ok, I'm kidding on that last one!) ps: who cares about proper use of the photoshop trademark?
just to clarify that they aren't kidding
I just love all the tokens in all IT marketing pictures. Token Asian male, token hottie female (with glasses), token white man (with that christian look), token black man. I especially like the ones where one of the tokens is standing over the shoulder and pointing something out to another token (normally a female), who is sitting down looking at a computer screen. A pity it does not reflect real society...especially the token hottie female (with glasses.....because that makes her a serious business women it IT!!)
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eh...
Sad, considering all the money they throw at advertising. But they would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for you meddling kids!
Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Is that like the local rubbish dump?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Well if Michael Jackson could do it...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You don't need to be a head of state to have photos edited, btw. It just need some devoted followers in the press or something like that.
Or you could upload it to 4chan and let the /b/tards loose on it.
Squirrel!
Where the mirror of polish original? Looks like it got lost. :)
hany
Um, no.
I am a white American living in Japan. I've been here about 10 years. People say racist things to me all the time. No, they don't mean any offense (usually), but that doesn't mean that I don't get offended. But I didn't used to.
When I first got here, little comments like "Oh! You can use chopsticks!" and "Wow, you can write kanji just like a Japanese person!" and "everyone move over; Klein needs space" (even though I am a very little guy), I thought it was quaint.
Now when those comments are made, it makes me feel excluded. As if I can never be treated normally, just because of my brown hair and blue eyes. The novelty has worn off.
A woman complemented me on my amazing Japanese a few months ago when I used a word I literally learned in my first semester of Japanese study. It bummed me out the rest of the day.
Then there's the "special" treatment you get from cops. And drunks.
Maybe at one point I thought minorities in the US were being oversensitive, but I think that after 10 years, I finally get it. Finding hateful racist people is getting harder every day, thank god, but when you're a minority, everything is just a little racist. You're treated differently, and it doesn't have anything to do with how you act or what you can or can't do. It just comes down to your physical attributes, and you can't change those. It just gets... tiring.
But I have it better than minorities in the US or Canada or wherever. This is not my home country. If I ever get totally sick of it (and I'll be honest, there are some things happening these days that are really making me question if it's worth being here--the cops' treatment is getting more special by the day), I can go home to the US where I'll be just another regular white guy. But a regular black guy in the US can't go anywhere. It's his home, and his life is one of being treated differently every single day. I understand why some people get touchy. I'm getting touchy, and I don't have it anywhere near as bad as black people in the US.
So there's the perspective of a white guy who has figured it out without any brainwashing.
Watch your mouth, people. It sucks when the main thing people remember about you is your race.
that every company feels that every time they show a group of customers it has to be "diverse". For example the pic from the article: asian man, black man, white woman. Wow I guess MS doesn't have any white men using their products, and here I thought that was the majority in IT. Who knew. Anyways seems stupid to go out of your way to create artificial diversity.
...he is very strange-looking and foreign. Me no like! Me only like polish white dudes. Me not buy from you!
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7308/microsoftlocalisation.jpg
So if you both hate and distrust other groups, you're not xenophobic?
Well, actually your definition is wrong anyway: Xenophobia is by definition the fear of other groups (phobia = fear).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Hey - what if it was the other way around? This is silly. The original could have been a European picture with 3 white guys and it order to fit American political correctness a black had to be edited into the picture. Sigh!
Simple fact is - while America have a considerable black population in central or Northern Europe they do NOT, so seeing a black guy at a business meeting is rare. That is not racism but a simple result of very few black people living there.
That's what she said.
I don't remember the last time I worked on a team with more than five people who were all US born. "Nativisim" and Xenophobia make you dramatically less useful if you are hiring or working with skilled workers. If you need the best in the world, sometimes you have to look outside your back yard.
Usually you find this racism and xenophobia amongst the lower classes. Sure, if you are hiring for a job making burgers, where one guy is about as good as the next you can hire a bunch of guys who talk like you and do fine. But if you are hiring skilled workers, and you turn away people who come from a different background, you will get your lunch eaten. Your competition? they will hire the best people they can get, and eat your lunch.
...is the fact that big corporations find it necessary to put absurd numbers of minorities into their marketing photos. If you were to believe the marketing literature, the logical conclusion would be that white males are rapidly becoming extinct.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
...mongoloid, you insensitive clod!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I'm just totally amazed that marketing hasn't realised that no-one swallows this 'we're all at work and we're totally loving it' utter bullshit that every file photo they have exudes. Just look at them in that photo.. all sitting there with their brilliant teeth, perfectly pressed business suits not a hair out of place and those BIG CHEESEY SHIT-EATING GRINS. Is she showing them pictures of kittens ?? Kittens are nice. They make me smile. But no.. the inference is that it's a fucking Powerpoint presentation.
FUCK OFF WITH THAT ALREADY. Have you ever seen a scene like that in your office. Don't you normally have at most a neutral expression whilst you're concentrating. This ridiculous crap they try to feed us that using their product will make us taller, more attractive, whiten our teeth and let us get more sleep is just insulting. It's software. Sell it like bridges.
And HR can all fuck off too...
Money, marketing... tells more about what they think is appealing to people in Poland.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
Couldn't they have made the new guy the same color as his hands ?
-
score:5 interesting ????
davecb5620@gmail.com
Couldn't they have just made him 'whiter' ? White Obama Senator Obama
davecb5620@gmail.com
"I would also add that Poland is often seen in Europe as our Texas"
First off, there is no "Europe" to belong to that anyone here would identify with as compared to the United States. In fact we don't even give Poland a seconds thought. Are you sure you're really from "Europe" ???
they are fervently catholic, anti-gay, anti-abortion, and in favor of death penalty (despite it being abolished on all EU). Sorry AC, I know all Poles are not like that, but your leadership really doesn't make Poland the most sexy country to be in when you don't obey the Pope's commands.
--
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Come on people, pay attention to science, there is no basis in science for dividing humans into *race* - it was a cultural construct meant to suppress people who looked different. And you are perpetuating it if you keep referring to "race" as a valid concept.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
....And yet they left the Asian guy in
Nothing on netcraft.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Photoshop Disasters
Microsoft Photoshop Dance Remix
It's a park built on top of an old rubbish dump, actually.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
I'm wondering whether the black guy still gets his pay for being on the Polish box. Sure, his face isn't on the box. However, his chest and his hand are. I would hope, he would still get at least 75% of box model revenue. The face is a relatively small part of the entire human anatomy. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Wait. Microsoft have invaded Poland? I've got a bad feeling about this.
#exclude <ms/windows.h>
Sure, if by "done something similar," you mean "the exact opposite." Poland 'shopped a black guy out of the picture. Toronto 'shopped a black guy INTO the picture.
Main picture? There is a Silverlight banner ad. The Polish site does indeed have a picture of a single white guy in one of the ads, and is Photoshopped (although this is probabably just for the art - I do not see any evidence in "head changes"). The US site does not show picture of anyone in the banner ad on the main page - its all ads for server 2008, Virtualization and DirectX.
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7308/microsoftlocalisation.jpg
That's a much better way to do it. Not nearly as obviously photoshopped, and looks much more natural.
I'm sure the Polish Wookie population would also appreciate this.
MS Poland's site now shows the same photo as the US one.
Either MS have changed the photo to the original or the one on the link in TFS is a fake (e.g. not produced by MS).
It seems that microsoft is not the only company to photoshop people of colour in or out of their sites.
for instance, this polish university has a more "diverse" photo for the english version of their site than that of the polish counterpart.
polish - http://www.umlub.pl/index.html
english - http://www.umlub.pl/index2.html
but just like many people have already mentioned i would chalk this off to marketing demographics rather than any form of racism.
This kind of marketing strategy is not unique to Microsoft. Please compare the Polish and English website of the Medical University of Lublin - a city in south-eastern Poland. http://www.umlub.pl/ http://www.umlub.pl/index2.html
I used to work in a web shop which did this once. The site had a stock photo with three white people. The client wanted something more diverse. Rather than pay for a new stock photo the web designer just photoshopped one black and one asian. It came out convincing enough. Of course, he did the hands too and there wasn't another version of the page out there with an original copy of the stock photo. I bet that's more common than we know.
I was just in Poznan Poland for a math conference. We had a tour one day. Our first stop the tour guide says : "What is this place?" people answer "a synagogue". He says "Yes, it was a synagogue" but what is it now, nobody knows. He says "It's a swimming pool, so now you can swim where the Jews used to pray." I shit you not.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
you're saying "1. We're not... 2. We're owned... 3. We're either... 4. We're probably ... 5. We're not... 7. But we did run..."
I see 1 through 5 and I see 7, but what's number 6?
The white guy seems to be in a much more natural pose, and his head seems to be in better proportion to his body. My wife mentioned that she assumed the black guy was the fake, and I'm starting to believe she's right.
I like music
This is normal stuff in advertising. Smart advertising is tailored to the audience. Watch McDonald's commercials in LA, NY, and Atlanta. They are all very different. For example, the actors in the Atlanta commercial have southern accents. Racist? Hardly. The outrage over this is just more people looking for a reason to be offended.
No African-Americans in Poland doncha know so it is only natural. Imagine the funny looks of the poles when this face appears.
African-Americans are usually only found in... America !! As far as I know, there are no African-Europeans, and no African-Asians. There may be some African-Australians. but they call them something else down there, maybe Australian-Africans, seeing as how everything is upside down down there.
Are you trolling or have you just never left the states? There are most certainly lots of people of African descent in Europe. In Asia, not so much, but they do exist.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"...a picture with three different skin colors for three people will not be interpreted as affirmative action, but unwanted external cultural influence."
That is insightful. Americans often see every matter involving people of multiple races as a "racial" matter. But doesn't the decision to change the picture, so every one will look more "Polish", suggest that Microsoft thinks the Polish people are dumb enough to believe that Microsoft Poland is a Polish company that's not influenced by its international corporate masters?
But they're not African-American, now are they?
The history textbook my daughter was given in elementary school contained a statistic for the ethnic breakdown of New York state circa 1650. It listed the percentage of African-Americans. How there were African Americans before there was an America is still a mystery to me.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
There was an America in 1650 -- in fact, there were two of them (North and South). There just wasn't a United States of America.
Wow, that was the first thing that's actually made me laugh out loud in quite a while. Nicely done!
But I have it better than minorities in the US or Canada or wherever. This is not my home country. If I ever get totally sick of it (and I'll be honest, there are some things happening these days that are really making me question if it's worth being here--the cops' treatment is getting more special by the day), I can go home to the US where I'll be just another regular white guy. But a regular black guy in the US can't go anywhere. It's his home, and his life is one of being treated differently every single day. I understand why some people get touchy. I'm getting touchy, and I don't have it anywhere near as bad as black people in the US.
You really want to come back here to the USA? I personally find the current political situation so disheartening that I am wondering if I really want to stay here the rest of my life. And I've been born and raised here. When George W. Bush was president, some of the liberal nut bags wanted to kill him. Now that Obama is president, it's the right wing nut bags who want to do the same. There's no chance for any level headed discussion any more about opposing views. The political situation here is basically that nobody wants to listen to anybody who disagrees with them. I always considered myself a Republican, but now I'm an independent. I can't support a party (the Republicans) whose game plan seems to be pretty much "We hate the Democrats! We have no solutions for the problems, but we hate them! Vote for us! Also, we love stupid people! Stupid people, we are your party!" I can't be a Democrat because of too many fundamental differences of opinion. Libertarian? I think I'd rather be a Communist than that. So you really want to come home to this mess?
You know, if maybe you weren't so focused on being offended by everything, you could probably turn this situation around. I'm guessing that you have no sense of humor. Well, it sucks to be you. With regards to the chopstick comment, you could say something like "Yes, and I only lost one eye learning how to do it". As far as kanji goes, that's a pretty terrific accomplishment for a westerner. I'd have thought honestly that acquiring such skills would take so many years that it would be essentially impossible for most people. I think you're being praised here but taking it like an insult. As far as needing more space goes, I'd suggest saying "Yes, I do and I want you to know that I can be hired to give basketball lessons". Can't help with the cops as I have no idea what that is like. Your circumstances are pretty much what you make of them and I'd say that you might as well leave as it seems to me that you're pretty much in the "I'm SO tired of being here" mode and not likely to get out of it. America is no picnic these days with people threatening to "water the tree of liberty", but I will admit that you'll be spared the "racist" comments you are tired of in Japan.
that the picture looked fine and wouldn't cause a stir in America.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
with the "fngarrrgh"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'd doubt that textbook was written in 1650 - the wording would be modern.
At a guess, the original wording for that census would have been "Negro" or similar.
Your examples are of world-famous celebrities. They are popular cross-racially. People's knowledge of these celebrities and their identification with these celeberities is based on other things - not the skin color. In ads featuring unknown models in normal settings such as home and office, it is different.
I wonder how many Polish people it took to Photoshop that picture...
(Hey, I'm Polish. I can say that.)
So, the polish MS group decides to replace one of the images with a native polish image - they just chose one person at random to replace, or possible the central figure.
It is those who interpret this as being a racial slight that are in the wrong, it's just one guy being photo-swapped for another - the colour of the guys is not relevant.
If they'd swapped him for the asian character would everyone still assume it was racist. Would you be up in arms about Polish xenophobia if they'd swapped the pale skinned guy??
When doing an XP install and you get to the point where you give the computer a description, the following text is displayed:
"You can also give your computer a friendly description. Unlike the computer name, the computer description may contain spaces and other special characters. "David's game machine" and "The Chavez Family Computer" are examples of computer descriptions."
Hmmm... David (white sounding name) gets an expensive game machine all to himself, while the entire Chavez (Hispanic sounding name) family have to share one computer. No, nothing implied there.
Why has /. not updated the story to show that MS has apologized?
"We are looking into the details of this situation," Microsoft spokesperson Lou Gellos said in a statement Tuesday. "We apologize and are in the process of pulling down the image."
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
A polish man finds a lantern laying on the ground.
He takes it home and while cleaning it a genie appears.
The Genie says:
"For freeing me from the lantern, I shall grant you three wishes."
The polish man thinks for a second and says "I wish for a mongol invasion of Poland, please."
The Genie grants him his wish, the mongols invade, and then leave.
The Genie says "Name your second wish."
The man thinks for a moment and says "I wish for a mongol invasion of Poland, please."
The Genie looks at bit puzzled, but grants him his wish.
The Mongol invade, and then leave.
"Now name you third wish"
The man thinks for a bit and says "I wish for a mongol invasion of Poland, please."
The confused Genie says "I'll grant you your wish, but would you tell me why you keep wishing for this?"
The polish man says "Sure, each time the mongols invade Poland they have to go through Russia twice."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I've never been to Poland or Eastern Europe, only the UK, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and Greece. If I recall, the further east I went, the fewer people of (recent) African descent I saw.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
So they replaced the black guy with Michelle 0bama...what's the difference? :-)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
...this is a case of a Reverse Polish "Soul Man".
Oh yes he can. There's no law that what he says has to make any kind of logically coherent sense, which is lucky for him and for the inhabitants of our already crowded prisons.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
... with Black,. Asian and Caucasian attendants. I ma Mexican BTW.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I think this is a serious crime, it shows that they have total disregard people and all they care about is selling their crap. I think MSFT should pay for this, probably give donations to http://www.uncf.org/ . I think they committed a serious hate crime
Culture and ethnicity are NOT the same thing. Yes, often an ethnicity is considered to have an associated culture, but the implication does not go the other way.
Surfers, D&D nerds, Skateboarders, cheerleaders: all of these are sets of people often considered to have a shared "culture". This culture, whether it's people in wetsuits freezing their toes off in water, or a bunch of teens jumping and dancing in front of a stadium, are orthogonal to an ethnicity. It's unrelated.
We have black surfers, white surfers, and presumably could imagine Romani surfers. We have D&D nerds who are boys, some who are girls, some who are asian, some who are white, etc. If you go to a Rocky Horror Picture Show, you'll find a fairly diverse group (or, I did when I went), and it's hard to argue that the set of regular attendees are not part of a shared culture.
Thanks for clarifying your misinformed point of view ( for the record, I know many Polish people and I am sure they will be the most puzzled about somebody "needing" to do such image doctoring).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
> I still find it odd that they would portray it on TV.
I never found it odd, as I had always assumed that it was obvious that they were poking fun at bigotry in general by putting up Archie Bunker as a stereotypical uneducated bigot. It was also a meta-joke in a certain sense, in that it was stereotyped bigotry, so they were guilty of meta-bigotry while doing it.
"You are dead" is not a term of abuse.
Racism is when you think it is fine to joke about people with the clear intention to pander to stereotypes.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Doubleplusgood for MS the International Flavor. What a bunch of bozos in suits. The model defaced should sue in the Hague. Ironic, the advert speaks to empowerment of the people...must be that limited definition of "people" some folks in the EU have: Nazi Ethnicity Haters. Maybe that British Photoshop Law is needed after all:)
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
What about willing misinformation?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Somebody that actually gets it.
It is a shame that learning curve was so painful. Sorry dude :-(
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How it comes that there are people out there that think Polish people can't possibly stomach the thought of buying something advertised by a black person?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Or where do you think Warsaw Ghetto was?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Well, this is besides the point (the GP didn't say anyone is racist, only that the image doesn't match the target society), but my experience with Poland is short lived and hurtful. It basically involves being beaten at a club by a gang of muscleheads who thought dark haired Spaniards were not good enough to hang around their turf talking to "their" girls. And this wasn't in a rural village, mind you, it was in frigging Warsaw in a touristy park by the river. I know it's anecdotal, but I've heard many similar stories, often coming from other people from East Europe in general and some Polish. It's unfortunate, but racism still subsides.
To do list for Windows
The problem with people of your racist ilk, is that they mix and match terms without the sightliest regard for historical accuracy or even common sense.
The atrocities commited by the Nazi regime did not excuse in any manner the atrocities perpetrated by others, to even suggest so gives carte blanche to the most unimaginable type of barbarism.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"Is it okay to mistreat Germans now? No. Of course not. Anyone born after WWII in Germany has no moral culpability for what happened then. I'm not even saying it should have happened that way. What I'm saying is this: After WWII, anything contemporary Germans got, they had coming to them, in spades, and sounds more like justice, rather than an atrocity."
German descendants in today's Namibia were put in camps by the British (South West Africa, as it was known back then, was administered by them), they lost many family members during the war that had no allegation to the ideas of Nazism, they just went to fight for their country (German nationality has traditionally acquired by blood, irrespective of your birthplace).
Women of all ages were raped by the Russians when Berlin fell, if you are suggesting that such actions are justice, I frankly want nothing to do with your notions of what is fair or not.
Justice has to do with a civilized institution in which your alleged crimes are judged in accordance to fair laws.
What you are advocating is not justice, it is just a different form of fascism.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How do you think that the african-american/ black Microsoft employees feel? Would they view this as "business as usual" or do you think that they might be offended? I would surely think that the consensus is probably split right down the middle in that context... Personally, I don't think that I would be able to help but feel a bit awkward at this point whether I was white or black(I'm black)but something like this could in fact create a rift in their business culture, because now they may have potentially damaged or tainted at the very least, the foundation of cultural diversity in their company...so at this point the white employees could be burdened with "white guilt" and the black employees will be burdened with the ever prominent sense of passive racism against them. So basically if there wasn't a racial line in that company before, then there surely is now. Way to go MS...
... is a war crime.
Don't believe me please, check it out.
What is "logic", fair or legal often have nothing to do with each other....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I sometimes don't understand how the neurons of some people work ....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You aren't serious, are you?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Microsoft is not the only company that does this. For example, I keep seeing these Apple ads where they Photoshop out all of the normal people and replace them with a bunch of murse-toting douchebags.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
We had a team of 20 people, give or take.
A third of them were Irish, 2 or 3 women, my boss at some point, was an Irish lady.
As London is London, we had 1 Nigerian and 1 Caribbean guy, then it was the guy from Bangladesh, Hong Kong and Gujarat, in India.
We had some native English people as well of course.
I am Mexican.
So do you think we arranged our meetings in order not to offend the sensibilities of people that see "Political correctness" everywhere?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Do Vietnamese, Indian, Mexican, English, Bangladeshi-America would do it for you?
It really depends on the company and the field of expertise, what would surprise me nowadays is to enter a room with an homogeneous attendance.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That both people, speaking to the lack of diversity in Poland, felt they had to post those comments as ACs, I understand this is based on speculation, but it's sad.
Our PC world, or at least America's PC world, is killing thought...period
"This is the value of a summer spent and a winter earned"
So what is your point?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Equal before god? Depends on the god.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Did not think hard enough... Divine right to rule anyone? Does any god see believers equally?
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
this is a common practice. it's called advertising and marketing! see an example from 2003 here: http://bit.ly/MS-ad
Now all three heads are tilting in the same direction, finally.
Chances are, they hate your perceived wealth (or that of the country you come from) instead of (or at least more than) than your appearance. A huge portion of Central and Eastern Europe's wealth is held by Western European companies, and that's led to the perception that their land is being bought out from under them (and the economic turmoil in the region leaves no shortage of conspiracy theories that the West is economically undermining them to leave them unable to compete). That tends to generate a lot of ill will towards tourists from Western Europe, which is why the assorted racists get away with shit like that. When (well, if) the economy recovers most of that will vanish.
An anecdote to match yours: my mother and I went to visit Bulgaria, where our family is from, about a year ago. We hadn't been in the country for decades (my family fled the Communists) but she still speaks the language very well. She went into a store to buy some boza (a drink common in the Balkans) and all they had was some in bottles, which she didn't want since it wasn't fresh (boza goes bad very quickly after its made, the preservatives they used to make it fit to bottle left it tasting flat and stale) and she asked if there were any shops that still made it fresh. Apparently there weren't, and hadn't been for many years, and asking gave her away as a Bulgarian who'd been living in a richer country for many years. As soon as she did that the store owner's demeanor changed from friendly to absolutely frigid. That happened several times in several different places, all in big cities (the people in the two villages we visited were actually quite friendly, generally asking questions about life where we live).
Also common: seeing foreign (mostly British) tourists going on about how friendly the Bulgarian staff at hotels and restaurants is, completely oblivious to the subtle little slights and expressions of contempt (if not outright hostility) all around them (very subtle, you have to know the language very well to catch it). I've encountered that in several other places (I think snobby locals are to be expected as part of the tourist experience), but not even close to the degree I saw it there. A friend from Russia says the same is very common in his country, so I'm guessing the sentiment is fairly widespread.
Affirmative action might be justifiable racism but racism is remains.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You tell it to a Gypsy as an Italian joke.
That's how I first heard it 20 years ago.
The Gypsy will laugh his ass off (to distract you as his kids rob you blind).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Absolutely. Brilliant.
Best thing I've seen on slashdot in years.
I have no patience, tolerance or time for racists, bigots or fundamentalist tripe of any stripe. They can all crawl into to a hole laced with razors for all I care!
I clicked on the 'mirror' link and saw the two scenes, top with a black guy at the table, lower with a white guy's head. However, clicking on the link above the lower pic brought me to the polish site, and the pic there has not been altered. Maybe I'm wrong, but looks like the slashdotters have been hoodwinked, and ms really didn't do the dasterdly deed at all! Corrections humbly accepted if offered.... thanks for lis'nin' seekertom
http://imagonullius.com/nick/balls.jpg
Balls as in... well you can guess.
Doubt it, most of them can't read.
Seriously, some of the biggest tellers of Polack jokes I've known were had plenty of Zs and Ks in their names.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You mean kinda like the "Stupid Polock" jokes ...?
Is it really necessary to insult the retards ? Jeez..
Maybe so. That doesn't solve the mystery of why other groups are referred to as Dutch or English rather than Dutch-Americans or English-Americans.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
Technically, it would just be European-Americans (Africa is a continent, not a country). But I think that's what's implied by "American." Native American is the term for "American-Americans," and American is the term for "European-Americans." Society tends to simplify things for the majority. You don't have "Native Europeans" or "Native Asians" do you?
SIG FAULT: Post index out of bounds.