If I can't see it, it must not be

Reference the implications of the documentary, A Girl Like Me. . . I had lunch yesterday with a colleague. Her advertising campaigns class (capstone class in advertising) won the regional award for the American Advertising Federation's yearly student competition.

This year's client is Coca-Cola, and the company is looking to reach young people. It wants a multicultural approach. The Marshall team won regionals even though it barely addressed multicultural issues. My colleague is sure that the judges at the national competition next week will take a much closer look at this part of the campaign.

The students had the opportunity between the two competitions to beef up their presentation and to change the content of their print ads which, at this point, have only white people in them. My colleague and another have talked to them about the multicultural issue and urged them time and again to make some necessary changes.

But they won't. Their response: No one likes to see those ads -- I can't remember the term for them -- that have one white, one black, one Hispanic, one Asian. And they say there are NO multicultural issues. Their ads with only white faces are fine.

Oh, how I wish they could see that documentary, or even just the Oprah segment that highlighted it. Perhaps they would at least get a tiny bit of insight into the fact that America is not just white and that it is not a good thing to portray it as such.

But these kids are mostly from West Virginia, which is primarily white. They can not see beyond their own back yard. The world must be white, and there are no multicultural issues. At least that's the way they see it.