The Ethicist by Randy Cohen, is a column in the New York Times Magazine from the Sunday edition of the New York Times. A question was presented to him about the ethical thing to do in this situation:
' I am a consultant on the redesign of the Web site of a company with local franchises across the United States. A franchise in San Diego mentioned that posting a generic picture of an African-American customer could deter potential business. He has never had an African-American client nor does he anticipate one. His clientele is 79 percent white, 29 percent Hispanic and 1 percent Asian. Each local office will have a Web page and could have it's own generic customer photo. May race be a factor in choosing it?'
The question came from Terry Kavanaugh, Birmingham, Michigan. Quick, name a business that has franchises all across the United States that does not do business with African Americans and does not want to?
Regardless of whether the business has never had an African American customer in the past, how could picturing an African American in the ad possibly detract from future business? Would they expect their current clientele would be turned off by having an African American on the company's web site and shop elsewhere?
Are there a significant number of people who would make such a decision based on simply seeing a black person in an ad? Depending on the nature of the product, one could almost run an ad with blacks, whites, Hispanics and Orientals all enjoying whatever product together and boost sales.
Randy Cohen bluntly writes his reply to intentionally excluding African Americans from the website. 'To make it a salient feature in defining a generic customer is simply racist.' Cohen clearly explains. 'To decline to use a photo of an African American because it might put off potential customers is to yield to racism,' Cohen said.
That this is really a consideration is disappointing. Cohen suggests to the consultant that he uses city scapes, like the TransAmerica building for San Francisco or other landmarks instead of any people at all. Landmarks are safe from racism and not bad for business.
Comments
I agree with Cohen. A decision to exclude "Black" people from a picture on a web site for "business reasons" is actually for racist reasons. What they are really asking is are they on the wrong side of ethics to exclude images of people who LOOK Black. And they are. Not only are they playing on people's dark side, but they're playing on people's genetic ignorance. Who's Black or not is a superficial judgement call at best. The actor Wentworth Miller of Prison Break is as Black as Halle Barry because he's mixed like her. But because he's so light skinned he can pass for White. So someone who looks like him would be OK to feature on that web site. But someone who looks like Halle Barry wouldn't be OK. So the consultant's question is whether it's ethical to exclude images of people who LOOK Black from the web site in order to put Eurocentric clients at ease. Even in this case, it's still unethical, if only because the business doesn't state it's a no-Blacks business.
I thought this was so outrageous it shouldn't have even been published. If Cohen was going to give this moronic question a platform, then his answer should have just been: AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! SOOOOOOOOOOO RACIST!!!!!!!!!! I just sent him a heated email saying they should have demanded that person's resignation.
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