The photo and the criticism it is receiving reminds me of attending a DNC rally in DC some years ago, during the 90s when DC was still "chocolate", majority Black. A young group of aspiring "future" Democrats attended the rally to conduct a workshop. As their leader was speaking about "future" Democrats, her workers were mingling about the crowd disseminating the new organization's brochures. The cover was adorned with an overhead shot of a group of young people looking face up at the camera, ostensibly depicting the image of future Democrats...
Amongst this planned photo shoot depicting the face of "future" Democrats, was not one face of color! Recall that this group was speaking to a predominantly Black audience in DC, which was likely 70% Black at the time, about the future of the Democratic party, speaking to an audience of Black folks who tend to be blindly loyal to the Democratic party...
The group's leader, a young White woman, was horrified when I pointed out to her what a terrible blunder her organization had made. She apologized profusely, immediately stopped disseminating the brochures and tried to retrieve those already passed around. It was too late, the damage had been done. The message, although subliminal, perhaps unintentional, had already been transmitted...
A valuable lesson on why it is important to give MORE than lip service to one's commitment to diversity... Had there been people of color on her team, they would have immediately noticed and alerted leadership that they were not included in the organization's perception of "future" Democrats. The organization would likely have never published the photo and spared themselves public humiliation or even the perception of future exclusion of persons of color ... While the present photo depicts only a fraction of the Obama campaign staff in Chicago, perception is reality and there is still ample time to manage this image.
I'm Just Sayin'...
Here is link to Newsweek article: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/10/an-obama-campaign-photo-that-looks-like-a-young-republican-rally.html#comments
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