quietlyradical

As I write this essay in February 2025, I am shocked to discover that the year 1991 is now thirty-four years in the past! How is that even possible?

Now, you might be wondering why it is that I’m thinking specifically about the year 1991. As a Gen-Xer, I was a young working mother in 1991 and I remember my co-workers and I using the phrase, “That’s just something that makes you go, ‘Hmmm?’” when discussing some of the bureaucratic nonsense that plagued us as we toiled away on the cubicle farm of Corporate America. What I couldn’t remember was where that phrase came from. So I decided to ask my new best friend, ChatGPT, who provided me with this answer, “The phrase “Things that make you go, ‘hmm’ originates from the 1991 song “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” by the American dance group C+C Music Factory. The song, inspired by a segment on The Arsenio Hall Show, humorously explores situations that are puzzling or ironic, making someone stop and think.”

While some of the situations expressed in the song, might be considered a bit dark, the tune itself has a cheerful, more pop/hip-hop rather than hardcore Rap vibe. So, in an effort to give myself a break from the YouTube “doom scrolling” to which I seem to have become addicted ever since The Orange One was re-elected, I thought I’d reflect on something I noticed on Quora a while back, which I think would qualify as a “thing that made me go ‘hmmm’.”

Sadly, I’ve pretty much given up on Quora because I realized that all of the “alternative facts” being spouted there were gradually driving me insane. So, this discussion thread is probably more than a year old. However, with all of the recent talk of killing “DEI” programs and eliminating our ability to observe things like African-American and Women’s History Months, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific Islander Heritage Months, and Pride Month, I remembered a Quora discussion thread which seemed a little silly at the time, but which I now realize was probably a harbinger of all of the horrible things that were to come.

The question appeared more than once and was worded in slightly different ways, however, the underlying feeling seemed to be that there are too many black people and too many interracial families on TV commercials in the United States. What was really interesting were the varied theories as to why advertisers were doing this.

There were suggestions that it was all some sort of government plot to encourage race mixing in order to carry out the “Great Replacement Theory,” whereby white people would gradually go the way of the dinosaurs, leaving a world comprised only of people of color. Others thought it was the result of “DEI” in which advertising agencies were feeling pressure to hire more non-white actors. Others simply thought that television sponsors were too “woke.” Others blamed the Black Lives Matter Movement, the killing of George Floyd, Critical Race Theory, and an attempt to beat white people down with white guilt.

Some of the comments also took on a decidedly more bigoted tone. “Why don’t black people in those commercials talk like “real” black people?” one commenter asked. (Spoiler Alert: most African Americans don’t use “Ebonics” 24/7).

Another lamented, “The black people in those commercials are always living in nice neighborhoods with manicured lawns. It’s so unrealistic!” (Spoiler Alert #2 – 34% of African Americans in the U.S. today have college degrees. While there is still an income gap between black and white Americans, it is wrong to assume that the majority of black people live in the ghetto.)

Other comments showed how wildly people’s perceptions often differ from reality. Responders regularly stated, “Black people make up only 13% of the U.S. population, but they are in 70% (or more) of the TV ads.” However, an analytical study by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) indicates that only about 7.2% of TV ads feature all black actors. When one or more black actors are featured as part of a group in a TV ad, the percentage increases to about 14%, which is well in line with the U.S. African American population percentages.

Other Quora complainers expressed dismay at the number of interracial families depicted in TV commercials as being “unrealistic”, even though the US Census Bureau estimates that 10% of all married couples in the U.S. are either interracial or interethnic and that 20% of all newlyweds in a given year consist of partners who are of different races.

What I really think is going on here is that for decades, television shows and the advertising accompanying them were 100% white. When I was a child in the 1970s, it was rare to see any people of color in TV advertising. The first example I can recall is the 1971, “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” ad. Most of the other ads featured black celebrities: The Jackson 5 in a commercial for the breakfast cereal Alphabits; Sammy Davis, Jr. promoting Alka-Seltzer; Bill Cosby hawking everything from White Owl cigars, Crest toothpaste, and Jello Pudding Pops, and comedian Redd Foxx arguing with himself in an ad for Ball-Park Franks.

Sports broadcasts (remember the Mean Joe Green Coca-Cola commercial?) and shows that catered specifically to black audiences, such as Soul Train, which mainly marketed Afro Sheen haircare products and Schlitz Malt Liquor, were the only ads in which black actors dominated.

However, once TV commercials started showing “regular” black people in everyday situations, it was suddenly “too much”, “overkill,” and “shoving diversity down the throats” of white America. Even more interesting among the Quora responders were calls to boycott advertisers who featured “too many” black people in their commercials. This seems especially ironic when I suspect that any of these same people calling for product boycotts are probably the same people who deride what they refer to as “cancel culture.” Also, when I very gingerly chimed in on the discussion to say that if black people had called for boycotts of all the products that featured no people of color in the past, we wouldn’t have been able to buy anything at all, that observation was met with crickets.

I have to confess that as a black American Gen Xer with a white husband, I do enjoy seeing a greater number of positive representations of black people and interracial couples on TV, and contrary to the apparently popular belief by some in the Quora contingent, white people have definitely not been erased from TV commercials altogether. Not convinced? Why not check out the commercials from the 2025 Superbowl. Predictably, even though at least 2/3 of the commercials featured only white actors, Kendrick Lamarr’s half-time show received harsh criticism for being “too black.”

So, why are some white Americans so triggered by no longer having a 100% lock on popular culture? Like so many things happening today, I really don’t get it. I love being black, but I would definitely miss seeing non-black people in the world around me. Our differences keep life interesting, but not everyone feels that way. I guess its just one of the things that make you go, “Hmmm.”