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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.
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.
That the guy had actually been "photo shopped" white, rather then just a different person!
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
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?
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']
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 see an ugly guy being photoshopped into a good looking one. What does race have to do with it?
Microsoft Poland doesn't like black people.
Notice that they fixed it so hastily they forgot to extend the orange bar for the text like they did the first time around.
The government can't save you.
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.
... I wouldn't be surprised if the photo was originally was white and the US side photoshopped in a black guy.
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Microsoft Poland doesn't like black people.
That's not necessarily true. In Central Europe, nationalism is alive and well (actually increasing due to the perceived cultural threat from the EU), and a picture with three different skin colors for three people will not be interpreted as affirmative action, but unwanted external cultural influence.
Particularly the black guy, as you don't expect to see black people every day.
In Hungary, at least, the original picture would cause outrage from the far-right and a measurable decrease in sales.
or to paraphrase, "market to your demographic". If our customer base is white, show white people in the advertising.
I've noticed that billboards in black neighbors show blacks. In Hispanic neighborhoods, they show Hispanics. etc, etc, etc.
This was just a poor attempt at getting something out the door to fit the job, rather than doing another shoot with fresh models.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
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'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.
just to clarify that they aren't kidding
it's so badly photoshopped that they probably used paint...
they fixed it... http://www.microsoft.com/poland/businessproductivity/default.mspx lol
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.
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7308/microsoftlocalisation.jpg
I don't think the issue is whether you are able to connect to a black man. The picture for a Pole just screams "foreign", since the picture is nonrepresentative for a Polish office setting, just like a picture of for instance a family in an American style kitchen wouldn't communicate "family" but again "foreign". To get the feeling you are trying to communicate across you need to localize.
I'm reminded of the original Mission Impossible series in the 60s. One agent, Barney, was black. He often was sent "undercover" to various (fictional) "Eastern Bloc" countries, and no one noticed, despite him being the only black guy in the whole city (well, we never saw any others).
...and they failed! Apparently they were in such a hurry that they now forgot to enlarge the orange box behind the text (as they did with the modified picture).
I wonder if nobody noticed that it looks totally awful.
That's not necessarily true. In Central Europe, nationalism is alive and well (actually increasing due to the perceived cultural threat from the EU), and a picture with three different skin colors for three people will not be interpreted as affirmative action, but unwanted external cultural influence.
Particularly the black guy, as you don't expect to see black people every day.
In Hungary, at least, the original picture would cause outrage from the far-right and a measurable decrease in sales.
In Holland we could not care less. Outrage over a picture like this? People in Hungary should get out more often. And i don't think that sales would suddenly drop because of this. The people who are dumb enough to get offended by this usually aren't the ones that make decisions that cause companies to buy the product or not.
I'm not sure I understand.. by
American style kitchen
..do you mean MacDonald's? Because I'm pretty sure most Europeans don't exactly consider MacDonald's foreign.
So there aren't any white males in your company?
Outrage over a picture like this? People in Hungary should get out more often.
Well, that's kind of the point. You walk outside in Poland, and you don't see any black people.
What would be the reaction if this were marketed in Europe, and all three people were Asian? "Is this a Japanese board room?" Or if all three people were very dark-skinned black: "Where's this taking place? Kenya?" It's sort of the same thing.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Actually we would care. There's no office in the Netherlands where the employees are this clean-cut and well dressed :-)
The original showed an Asian guy, a black guy and a white woman. How tediously politically correct. Also completely unrealistic for Poland. (Is it even realistic for the US?)
I'm reminded of the original Mission Impossible series in the 60s. One agent, Barney, was black. He often was sent "undercover" to various (fictional) "Eastern Bloc" countries, and no one noticed, despite him being the only black guy in the whole city (well, we never saw any others).
Which is why it was called Mission Impossible.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The original showed an Asian guy, a black guy and a white woman. How tediously politically correct. Also completely unrealistic for Poland. (Is it even realistic for the US?)
Is it even realistic for the US? Are you serious? I'm a black guy born on the African continent sitting in an office with a white woman and a jewish guy. In the office right next to mine there's an asian woman and a guy from the UK. Just walking down the hall yields people from every ethnicity. Sure there are obvious majorities and minorities, but it's almost impossible to snap a candid photo of this office and not have a pretty colorful palette of skin-tones. I'm not exactly a fan of political correctness, but I think this recent anti-PC movement smacks of a type of reactionary bigotry I'm even less comfortable with (probably because it always seems to be coming from the same 'demographic' of people).
The issue isn't that they felt having white guys in their ad would be more appropriate for their intended audience, the issue is that they whitewashed a black guy out of an existing image (poorly), suggesting that the black guy would be unacceptable (but the asian and woman were fine?). If they found the orriginal image inappropriate, then find, buy, or cast and shoot another photo that more suits your demographic. Slapping a black guy in white face is just stupid (look at the results), and I can't see how it's not insulting, if to no one else but your intended audience; suggesting they can't handle the sight of a black guy.
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