Friday, June 11, 2010

#338. Regular Greeting Cards



Financially, if a company is "in the black", then that organization has positive cash flow and is fiscally sound - however many Black families are closer to "being in the red".

"Black Holes" represent an inescapable situation where all is absorbed into a pit of nothingness. Black people have as of yet found the former term derogatory, though the latter has been been deemed racially antagonistic - though it has astral origins in its etymology.

Not all Black people understand the physics behind this term, nor do Black people grasp that the term is racially neutral. Thus, the background story behind a greeting card fiasco that could have easily been avoided:
A graduation card sold at local stores has been pulled from shelves after a civil rights group raised concerns about the content. The group claims the card’s micro-speaker plays a greeting that’s racist.

It is a graduation greeting from Hallmark that says, “Hey world, we are officially putting you on notice.”

Members of the Los Angeles NAACP did take notice. As characters known as “Hoops” and “Yoyo” banter on, African American leaders hear offensive language.

“And you black holes, you are so ominous. Watch your back,” the card vocalizes.

“That was very demeaning to African American women. When it made reference to African American women as whores and at the end, it says ‘watch your back,’” said Leon Jenkins of the Los Angeles NAACP.

Though no clear cut evidence exists to link "Black holes" to "Black ho's" - save this story - some Black people found substantial acoustic proof to castigate this greeting card for being undeniably offensive to Black women:

When Hallmark was reached by phone, they said the card is all a misunderstanding. The card's theme is the solar system and emphasizes the power of the grad to take over the universe, even energy-absorbing black holes.

The card company says the card speaks about the power the grad will wield.

"The intent here is to say that this graduate is not afraid of anything," explained Hallmark spokesman Steve Doyal.

But that's not what some people heard.

"You hear the 'r' in there. 'Whores,' not, 'holes.' The 'r' is in there," said Minnie Hatley of the Los Angeles NAACP.

Hallmark sent Eyewitness News a transcript of what the card says, but Hatley says that the actual audio raises questions.

"It sounds like a group of children laughing and joking about blackness, again," said another NAACP member.

Hallmark is now notifying all of its stores to pull the card. Walgreens and CVS are doing the same.

The greeting card is an incredibly uplifting device used to brighten a relative, spouse or friends day usually marking an important anniversary, birthday, graduation or to show condolences for an unfortunate event in that persons life. A greeting card brings mirth to the receiver, for they become aware of how important they are to the sender.

Though Black people loath and fear registered mail, a greeting card is a welcome addition to their mailbox, preferably if it comes from the Mahogany line of Hallmark cards designed exclusively for Black people:

The Mahogany brand from Hallmark provides the most extensive offering of cards available for African-American consumers.
The top five markets for Mahogany card sales (in retail dollars) are: 1) Washington, DC, 2) New York, 3) Chicago, 4) Philadelphia, 5) Atlanta.
By 2013, African Americans will account for nearly 13 percent of the U.S. population and 9 percent of the U.S. buying power. (Sources: U.S. Census Bureau and University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth 2008 Multicultural Economy report)
Hallmark began offering cards relevant for African Americans in the 1960s and introduced the Mahogany line in 1987.

Product Features

  • Mahogany features nearly 1,000 everyday and seasonal cards to help African Americans honor their relationships in innovative, compelling and culturally-relevant ways. The line features cards appropriate for both adults and children.
  • Mahogany offers cards for several seasons – Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, graduation, Christmas and Kwanzaa – as well as a full range of everyday occasions, such as birthday, thinking of you, get well, wedding, anniversary, sympathy and more. The line also includes Christmas boxed cards.
  • Sentiments range from religious to humorous and poetic to casual.
  • Mahogany Cards with Sound play favorite songs by the original artists, such as "Rapper's Delight" by Sugar Hill Gang, "Shining Star" by Earth Wind and Fire, "I'm Every Woman" by Chaka Khan, and "Brick House" by the Commodores.
  • The line also includes 99-cent value cards for occasions such as thinking of you, get well, friendship and thank you.
  • A variety of Mahogany e-cards with animation and sound are available at Hallmark.com.

Product History

Hallmark has been creating cards that speak to African-American culture since the 1960s. The company first introduced the Mahogany name in 1987 as a 16-card promotion. Mahogany became a year-round brand offering both everyday and seasonal cards in 1991.

Through the years, Mahogany has collaborated with well-known African-American figures. The brand also partnered with the U.S. Postal Service in 1999 to celebrate the accomplishments of African Americans in history through the Legacy of Greatness cards that coordinated with the collectible postage stamps of the same name.

In 2007, the Mahogany team created a limited-edition, six-card collection celebrating 20 years of providing culturally rich product in the greeting card industry. In addition, the website www.mahoganyhallmark.com was launched in 2007.

In 2009, Mahogany introduced everyday Cards with Sound to the line. A new humor zone in stores with larger displays was also added.

Of course, the Mahogany line makes perfect fiscal sense as tailoring a greeting card to 13 percent of the population is sure to help any companies bottom line and keep it "in the Black". Hallmark is to be congratulated for this economically wise endeavor that no doubt brings positive results to the balance sheets of the company, and demeaned for daring to put out a greeting card that utilized the racial insensitive phrase "Black hole".

Sadly, sales of the Mahogany line fall exponentially around Father's Day.

Greeting cards are forbidden from using the visage of Mein Obama, lest they desire to be declared racially charged:

Presidents are fair game for satire. Lord knows George W. Bush inspired his share of vicious humor. So did Nixon and Clinton.

Most presidents are lampooned for what they’ve DONE. It’s rare to see them mocked for who they ARE. Roosevelt was in a wheelchair. Kennedy was a Catholic. Barack Obama is Black. Start making fun of something that’s integral to someone’s being, and you’re on shaky ground.

We’ve already seen our share of racist anti-Obama humor — the “can you really call it the White House” t-shirts, the over-the-line cartoons, the “Barack The Magic Negro” songs.

Enter Hoboken, New Jersey greeting card company “Noble Works,” who are selling their new line of Obama-themed greeting cards. The cards seem geared not towards Obama fans, but Obama haters. “St. Obama The Chosen One,” reads one card. “This is my Mount Rushmore Pose,” says another. And while some of these cards play on the tension between the existence of a sitting Black president and continued racism (like: “Sorry I’m Late. I Couldn’t Get A Cab”), others may be borderline: (”President: Now Available In Black”).

Some white Americans continue to struggle with how to properly conduct themselves in a multi-cultural society, which means that we’re going to continue to get humor like this for a while — not really all that funny, not really all that free of racism.

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes regular greeting cards, for cards not exclusively designed for Black people will axiomatically include racially insensitive pictures or parlance used exclusively by racists.

Black holes? Only a racist would conjure such a disparaging term, which sounds perniciously like Black ho's. And you planets, watch your back!

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

SBPDL: Words that sound as if they are derogatory. What utter fools. The astronomic term "black hole" has been around since the 1960s, but because a gaggle of thin skinned, uneducated nitwits think that the term sounds like "black 'hos" it is now politically incorrect to describe a collapsed star using the scientific term that was created solely to describe it: a black hole. INSANE AND ABSURD! It's reminiscent of the outraged black city councilors who stormed out of a meeting and demanded an apology from the white city councilman who innocently said the word "niggardly". The damn idiots had absolutely no idea, nor cared to learn, that the word simply means "stingy" or "miserly". You would think blacks would be embarrassed by their own ignorance, but they are too ignorant to recognize ignorance. Successfully navigating BRA means voluntarily shaving 35 points off of your IQ just to keep from going insane.
.45 XD

Babies Be Racist said...

Black fathers day cards LOL. What does Shaniqua use it for - an invitation to the maury povitch show. lemongelo are are not the father - 15 children and 90 potential fathers to go

Fayette White Guy said...

Are you friggin' kidding me? What a joke...this garbage has to stop.

Ugh...

Anonymous said...

"Though Black people loath and fear registered mail," But not more than process servers, SWAT teams, homicide detectives and snakes.

Anonymous said...

Wooooooooow. How can blacks possibly find the worlds black hole to be racist. If i was in charge of the greeting card company id be laughing my head off at a phone call about those cards.

Anonymous said...

Blacks appear to have no outrage whatsoever concerning their own abominable behavior, including but not limited to illegitimacy rate, violent crime rate, high school dropout rate, etc.

But as soon as there is any absurd perceived transgression committed by someone white...including "niggardly", "eeny meeny miney mo", and "black hole"...just like children who need their diaper changed, blacks begin screaming and whining.

Pathetic.

Fayette White Guy said...

The story sounds funny, but think of the money it cost Hallmark to produce this card. Now they have to pull it due to race-mongering blacks.

Blue Eyed Devil said...

This is what you can expect from a group of people who continually substistute the word axe for ask. Even worse......"Let me axes you a question." Lawdy.

CWN said...

How does a white person know that they have offended a black person? They opened their mouth.

How does a black person know that they have offended a white person? They don't care.

Anonymous said...

Why not just create your own greeting cards and make money doing it? It is simple. You create them online with your own handwriting and signatures and hit send and then yes...they arrive in the US Postal mail.
Plus, if you think you can make "more appropriate cards", you can make a line yourself and share it with others to use the cards as well. For more information, feel free to contact me. sendperfectcards@aol.com

Anonymous said...

Black people and their phony white "liberal" apologists always fail to realize crap like Mahogany line greeting cards and other "black themed" nonsense only add fuel to the fire.

The only time I ever purchased a Mahogany greeting card was when I waited the last minute and all of the regular ones were all gone. I'm black and I don't need Hallmarks help to "celebrate" that fact. Hell, thanks to all of those wonderful people at Apple, you can make your own greeting cards with the pictures of real friends and family, not models.

-Black guy

Anonymous said...

http://www.rippdemup.com/2010/06/los-angeles-naacp-chapter-finally.html

Check it out. The views will probably shock most of you.

-Black guy

Anonymous said...

It sounds like "black holes" to me, not "black whores".
Does melanin affect their hearing?

aside
Someone please research this. Who are the NAACP people shown? Do they have jobs? In the private sector?

Anonymous said...

What do they think "eeny meeny miney mo" means?
I missed thes perceived transgression.

Desiree said...

This is a funny post, the dig at Father's Day notwithstanding (like white girls never look for their white baby daddies!).

First time for everything, ain't it?

Anyway, although this NAACP chapter's reasoning for having an issue with the card has to do with 'racism', it is rather oblique.

But they are the NAACP; crying racism is their MO. This is simply a story of greed and fame-whoring.

And we all know those behaviors are not racially exclusive... I hope you get that?

Well, I guess this wouldn't be on the 'list' if you did.

Anonymous said...

OMG! You gotta see this one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMdG0DDpLcU

FICKLIN MEDIA OBAMA INITIATIVE LINCOLN BASSETT APRIL 14

Anonymous said...

Niggardly
Ghosts
Black Holes
Picnic
White people's wallets

Is there anything safe from blacks anymore?

Anonymous said...

"And we all know those behaviors are not racially exclusive... I hope you get that?"

Desiree, the point is NOT that any particular behavior is "racially exclusive". There is no such thing as behavior that is "racially exclusive", therefore your comment is meaningless.

The point is...whenever we stop and consider "bad behaviors"...immature, irresponsible, self-destructive, or criminal behaviors...

It almost always seems that blacks commit these acts at a vastly disproportionate rate. Certain bad behaviors, such as illegitimacy, are THE NORM among blacks.

70% of black children are born out-of-wedlock, and your mindless auto-response is "whites do it too!".

Pathetic.

CWN said...

Desiree,

"This is a funny post, the dig at Father's Day notwithstanding (like white girls never look for their white baby daddies!)."

More nonsense. You should do a little more research on the FACTS, and less on your assumptions. More black women have bastard children than do white women. This is what is called a fact, and you can look it up to see that I am correct. I am sure tho, that if a white woman is looking for her babies daddy, then most likely it is a black father that she hooked up with.

"And we all know those behaviors are not racially exclusive... I hope you get that?"

Some more b.s. Anybody with two brain cells to rub together, knows that blacks are perpetual race victims. There is no white NAACP, no white Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, no white caucus. No white history month, no WET, no million man marches for whites lead by racist speakers. No white only college funds, or hud housing. No media protecting whites.

Whites are not ignorant enough to complain over a greeting card talking about black holes. This is trivial,and ignorant behavior, that one can only see coming from the darker human being.

You really should take Stephen King's advice.

Desiree said...

@anonymous:

Maybe you should tell my good sis, CWN, about behaviors not being racially exclusive. He seems to think they are...

@CWN:

The behaviors I said that weren't racially exclusive were fame-whoring and greed, which is clearly what this NAACP chapter is doing. Or do your reading comprehension skills still need a tune-up?

Anonymous said...

This is just so stupid!!! Hallmark should NEVER have pulled this card. Whites have got to stop walking on eggshells around blacks! I for one am sick of it!!!

Blue Eyed Devil said...

No need to walk around on eggshells around blacks unless you suffer from white guilt over slavery. Thankfully, I don't and can look at issues such as this one with an open mind. The slaves that made it to this country were the spoils of tribal warfare. A tribal chief who was victorious in tribal warfare sold the prisoners down the river. Time to put away that notion of two southern males on a boat toting muskets as the reason for enslaving a whole race of people.

Anonymous said...

In the 1990's, a Florida federal court dismissed a school integration that had been pending for more than 30 years. It had reached the point where even liberal federal judges realized there was not much more they could do. In legal parlance, the way a case is closed permanently is to say it is "dismissed with prejudice." Of course, the court had to include an explanatory footnote so that the blacks would not take that the wrong way.