Is Microsoft Racist?

[300lb. Samoan]

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHA LOOK AT THAT FUCKING PICTURE

The Swedish translation probably reads "BLARGH OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY HAND???"
I'm guessing they just did this to make the scene in that board room seem a little more native to those in Poland. I don't really know how many old black men there are in Poland, and I'm guessing whoever made that awful shop doesn't know either.

Seriously! jesus christ how could they have fucked up that picture any worse (without putting a horse's head on it!!!) There's a shadow on the jacket connecting to the gleaming bright reflection on his cheek, and his face is dark and just a foot away from the woman's clearly lit visage - THIS IS PITIFUL

also:

No, because Microsoft is not a person, it is a collection of people, some of who may be racist.

Agreed.

Also, the thing at fault here is the modern day interpretation of racism. That picture? That's not racist. What is racist is brutally torturing then killing someone because of the fact that they are of a different ethnicity than you. And we say history taught us something... guess not.

this is all true

 

[Camoman]

no

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Ive been ninjad on this but never mind. What bugs me is the way that racism only works one way. If in an advert EVERY single white guy was replaced with a black guy, that wouldnt be classed by the general public as racist it would just be odd. Replace one black person with a white man and its racist. I never understood this. Can someone explain?

 

[hamster mk 4]

Microsoft is racist in that they don't think the Polish culture is ready to accept at a black man in a business suite.

 

[andrat]

Probably. Who cares?

 

[teutonicman]

I highly doubt they'd be stupid enough to be caught photshopping. I think I'll starting wondering if microsoft is racist when they pull out the stereotype in advertisements.

 

[AvsJoe]

I don't think they are racist.
Maybe it was altered to fit the Polish audience.

I agree. They were marketing to a predominantly white nation and they were just playing for the crowd. I'm not saying that it's ethically right, but demographics are inherently racist. Companies do this all the time if they can get away with it, and when they do get caught, "Deny, deny, deny". They'll fire the artist (who will be branded a racist for the rest of their life) and recover like they always do. As a bad guy would say in a bad dystopic-future movie, "It's just business".

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Your thoughts...

Mine are that people are making too big of a deal out of racism now days... I swear every time I hear the word it is something about white people doing something to black people... I never hear anything about Asians, Europeans, Australians... Maybe, rarely, something about Mexicans, but 99% of the time it is always about black people... I bet that they could make a game where you were a black guy going around killing all white people and nobody would say a thing about it...

 

[InifniteWit]

Actually they're capitalists. They only care about one color. Green.

Never mind. That's all a matter of the target market. I know nothing about marketing but I know that you advertise to who you're going to be selling a product to. If you're selling a product in the US where there is a large black population it makes sense to have black people in your advertising. If you're advertising to Poland, what an almost non-existent black population it would not be in your best interests to advertise for a market that doesn't exist.

It would also cost more money to do an entirely new photo shoot than to get your IT guy to shop in a guy who Polish folks will actually relate with.

 

[Chris^^]

corporattions arent racist, employees maybe, but tarring the whole lot with the same brush is just as bad as any other prejudice to be honest

maybe theyve made some stupid decisions that can lead to them presenting images which may appear racist, but that is not reason enough to black list the entire company

 

[The_Echo]

To be honest, both the white guy's head and the black guy's head look shopped onto that body. But that's just me.

EDIT: Could we all just shut the hell up about racism? Seriously? Anything that involves whites and blacks and ambiguous activity is considered racist anymore, and I'm fucking sick of it.

 

[AceDiamond]

So Microsoft does a bad photoshop. That's hardly racist. Many bad advertising moves by companies result in something like that happening. No, to make people truly wonder about your designs on racial purity, you gotta do something like this:

Spoiler: image

 

[Joos]

I suppose there aren't particularly many black people in Poland, and that the marketing department thought (probably correctly) that a polish crowd wouldn't be able to identify with the picture. This is to please the target audience, not to discriminate black people, since the advertisement was aimed at the polish.

No, I do not think MS is racist and the article reeks of the over-the-top PC that makes me disgusted with today's society.

 

[hazakura]

I doubt it's microsoft's doing,if it is. Then it's only the Marketing branch that's racist.

 

[Aardvark]

Microsoft, the Pope, Cigarette warnings, Standardised tests, the Moon, Bananas and Kittens are all racially biased, according to one crackpot or another.

 

[AceDiamond]

So Microsoft does a bad photoshop. That's hardly racist. Many bad advertising moves by companies result in something like that happening. No, to make people truly wonder about your designs on racial purity, you gotta do something like this:

Spoiler: image

The funny thing about that ad and racial purity is that it suggests interracial homosexual fetish sex. Not something 'racial purity' people are a big fan of.

Well I don't know about you but frankly I'm not that big into S&M so when I see one person holding the other by the chin and looking like they're about to scratch their eyes out, I don't think "hot sex is a comin'" XD

My point is that the vast majority of the Netherlands didn't think along your way either.

 

[AceDiamond]

I doubt it's microsoft's doing,if it is. Then it's only the Marketing branch that's racist.

Yeah, but it's not like the other branches of Microsoft don't want you to associate the efforts of the marketing branch with the rest of Microsoft. They have to take the bad with the good.

That's what it means to be a corporate entity--all your parts are 'you'. I don't see why all the people in this thread are saying stuff like this: a corporation is different from a country or a neighborhood or a city.

Well this is the Internet, the place where a company's various departments are not responsible for the company at a whole and vice-versa.