Race Baiting the Microsoft Way

See the Black Man in the top image?  Ooops!  Now you don’t see him in the same image below.  Both images are Microsoft advertising.  The grinning “Black Man” is for the American market, while the goofy “White Faced Dude with the Black Hand” is for advertising market in Poland. 

This sort of “Advertising By Race” is more than a “Gee, we’re so sorry” sort of mistake — and I’m surprised some computer magazines are forgiving MSFT for this “mistake” in advertising.  Perhaps they don’t want to lose their slice of the Microsoft advertising pie?

We cannot pretend this is a simple mistake.  It’s an on-purpose.

This sort of cruel marketing ploy cleverly knows Race is an important selling factor in some countries and so, instead of challenging the Bigot mind and its embedded memeing, you give in to it by erasing the Black Guy’s head so you can sell more software to unwitting redneck Racists.

The excellent site PhotoShop Disasters found this wild evidence of per-country Racial bias — the comments on that blog are always biting and hilarious — but the greater concern is what was Microsoft thinking and why were they thinking it in the equal balance of the world?

Microsoft have since apologized for their Racist mistake — but is that enough?

We need to know if there is a pattern of “Race Replacement” in any and all of Microsoft’s online and print advertising.

Is there more than Race Baiting?  Is there gender replacement, too?  Do different religious markets require changes in clothing or skin color to be effective? 

Those are hard and tough questions we must now ask — and demand an answer — because that’s what Microsoft gets when they try to sell software in Poland with a White Head and a Black Hand.