Driving home this evening an hour on our national broadcaster (SAFM) was dedicated to the controversy that this poster has created.
My wife and I are both members of the D.A. (Democratic Alliance.) I of course had no idea what the controversy was about but had to see what had caused all the fuss.
So, I’ll ask the question again, does this offend you?
Update Jan 25 – The ‘controversy’ made front page news in my daily today, I’ve reproduced the article for your further reading…
I can’t link you to the Herald web site because they haven’t updated their pages with today’s paper yet (8:42am!)
Boadicea's Chariot 
No, Soutie, it doesn’t. Pretty girl, good-looking lad – what does the skin colour matter?
All this about racism is purely adult. When my brother in law brought his new wife round for the first time my daughter was about 2, his wife is from Ghana and has a Ghanaian accent. The only thing my daughter asked after she had gone was “why does aunty Florence have a funny nose” which I have to say her nose is very wide at the nostrils, there was no mention of colour or accent.
Colour does not happen nor does racism until adults point it out.
In answer to your blog, no it does not offend other than she looks lovely and the bloke should be replaced by me, Ahh I can but dream.
It offends me for sure! They’ve plastered a big blue logo over what could be a perfectly formed pair of lady bumps. Harrumph. 😦
Well, somebody has to say something contentious, so here goes. The ad is designed to provoke. Race is a huge issue in this country, whether one likes it or not. All three comments above point out that the girl is good looking, thereby implying it does not matter. What if she were not good looking? Of course, looks are entirely subjective. I have often wondered, when it comes to beauty, to what extent the African ideal differs from the European ideal. The girl in question is slim, (I believe she was deliberately chosen to appeal to whites) a trait that white people seem to find attractive. Black people seem to prefer a lot more flesh, especially in the rear. Seriously, the indigenous women here grow to be enoooormous and it does not seem to deter their lovers.
In broad terms the definition of a subspecies is “A subdivision of a species of organisms, usually based on geographic distribution. The subspecies name is written in lowercase italics following the species name. For example, Gorilla gorilla gorilla is the western lowland gorilla, and Gorilla gorilla graueri is the eastern lowland gorilla.” One of the characteristics of subspecies is that while two subspecies may be able to interbreed, given the choice they will not. A domestic dog can breed with a wolf and vice versa, but given the choice of mate they will breed within their own subspecies.
This ad appears to be actively encouraging interracial breeding. While, such activity should certainly be left up to the participants to decide and should not be banned, as it was under the apartheid era, should it really be encouraged? What does it do for the mixed offspring who have a confused identity? Neither fish nor fowl. What does it do for the future of mankind, of this trend were continued, when we are all one homogeneous group lacking in any unique characteristics some of which might other wise be essential to preserve mankind in the face of a new disease? Is not racial diversity a better option for the survival of mankind?
I do not care enough to be insulted by the ad, but I do not like the idea of racial interbreeding; well, not without some level of discrimination. I would prefer it if my children chose someone of their own race to marry. But if they were to marry another race, I would prefer Indian, say, to African. There, you have it.
No the poster does not offend. It matters not to me that the girl is pretty. I have no problem with the mixed race marriage and off-spring thereof.
Personally there are some races which I find more physically attractive than others. However much I like a person their looks do affect sexual attraction – and I have a leaning towards taller people.
You say about your own children: “But if they were to marry another race, I would prefer Indian, say, to African. There, you have it”
Why?
I am gobsmacked that our South African Charioteers are so racist. My apologies to PNG on behalf of the Chariot.
It is high time that “white” South Africans dragged themselves into the 21st century.
Hello Soutie: Not offended here, there is lot of academic research here about interracial relationships in t he US. The approval among whites is about 60% not bad considering their history, the approval rate among blacks is over 80%, remarkable considering their history.
Just curious whether people have the same level of comfort with this image:
It’s an image from a black magazine, I think the white chocolate is an inspired touch.
There is a difference in the US research, to images like the latter. White male approval ratings drop quite sharply, white female ratings are unchanged. I guess someone feels threatened.
Neither of the pictures offend me, no, not at all.
I’m also a product of both a mixed-race and mixed-nationality marriage and
I didn’t come out a monster, mutant, or freak.
Sipu: one would hope that a happy, productive, contented marriage between a person of pallor and a person of colour would be supported without reservations. One would also hope that a miserable, unproductive, discontented marriage between two persons of pallor or colour would be considered rather less favourable a match.
The first thing that strikes me about this ad is the publicity that it’s generated. If this was the intention of the DA then full marks. For an opposition party to receive an hours publicity on our ANC controlled national broadcaster is most unusual. A further front page splash in my local newspaper (and others I assume) will obviously generate further interest.
I by the way agree that there is no reason whatsoever for people to be offended by the colour or race of individuals in any relationship.
Thanks for your contribution LW, some interesting stats there, love the picture!
Chacun à son goût……
Morning Janus, I think that most would agree with your sentiment.
However, I did find this…
Over and over again, I see this mistakenly written as “Chacun a son goût” by English speaking people, including a tattoo around Robbie Williams’ chest.
The correct expression is “à chacun son goût” — “to each his own (taste).”
It is most certainly not “Each has his taste,” which is the translation of that other formulation.
Europe forum and another explanation at Wiktionary
Sotie, can you explain the difference? Vive la différence!
Janus No 😦
😉
At least the couple are of opposite sexes. The bed-wetting fraternity in the UK would be objecting to the fact that they are not of the same sex!
I don’t have a problem with the advert at all.
LW re your pic #7 – yuk. White chocolate, horrible stuff!!
Soutie – no offence to me. It saddens me that it is even an issue.
If I may just add – an assumption is so often made in such debates that only whites can be racist. Unfortunately I get abused racially by Asians (the Indian sub-continent) and Afro-Caribbean and mixed heritage people more often than my English Black colleague gets abuse from ignorant Whiteys. I never report it, it doesn’t bother me, I just smile at them in a way that makes sure they realise I have the moral high ground.
Soutie – would it be fair to say that the debate wasn’t coming from only one side of your ethnic divide?
Cuprum, #15 , I agree, minimum 70% dark for me every time. 🙂
I tend to agree with sipu.
My main objection being that so many of the children seem to get ‘lost’ in the fish nor fowl debate. They either sink to the bottom or, if clever, fight to the top and can cause aggro either way!
What I find particularly interesting in the USA is the fact that very few successful blacks are not black but definitively cafe au lait. I note they take great care to marry people of the same skin tone. They virtually never marry whites or black blacks isn’t that just as racist?
The deep South is roughly 80% black. I shall never forget all the so called black (read cafe au lait) lawyers that descended on Memphis in the 70s from Chicago to fight the ‘good fight of civil rights’ for their ‘brothers’. Hysterically amusing as they proceeded to dominate the media and made a superior clique in town who never mixed socially with the real black blacks who they held in total contempt or the whites either, who wouldn’t have given them the time of day.
Too many whites are so busy falling over themselves being non judgemental and non racist but have seriously never really been put to the test. Just wait till your child/grandchild brings back a nice dark Congo basin type, the shiny blue variety, lets see you all make the same responses!!!
Frankly I think most of the answers here are bullshit!. Especially those from the safe white enclaves.
In all I suppose at the end of the day I think life can be hard enough just living, why go out of your way to make it harder for you and yours? Because it does and will.
CO: you mean like me, living just across the Bay from Oakland and Richmond and frequently having to go
through the black-dominated slum known as the Fillmore District or having a few degrees from a college with a large black ghetto population?
Since you ask chris, yes I suppose. At your own admission you are a wandering soul not quite sure where you want to fit in. I have no idea what you look like or whether you get racial crap but you have the gift of intelligence and as such will do just fine wherever you choose to fit in and whenever you choose to settle down..
It has always sounded like living in SF has caused you a great deal of irritation whether that is racially based is not clear. I would hate SF too from the basis that I would not care to live with quite so many louche creatures.
But can you imagine if you were trapped by a lower IQ into having to stay there ad nauseam?
None of us get to choose our IQ, but if we have it we at least get to choose of how to live our lives to ensure a degree of satisfaction.
I just hope you have a happier time up North you appear to have been wandering long enough.
CO: I’m very fair-skinned with brown hair and eyes, not atypical for someone of central Germanic stock.
I loathe San Francisco, actually. It’s such an arrogant, self-important, viciously racist city. All this covered up with a smug, self-satisfied smile and intellectual vagaries. I’ve been rebuked in front of class for my commentaries on South African history, though the professor had to admit that factually and historically everything I said was sound and she could not dispute that — only that my interpretation of events was not politically correct. Factually correct, but not politically correct. I was also criticised on a paper for being “too wrapped-up with facts, not enough with ideas”. Isn’t that the point of a history paper? To be correct factually and only use secondary sources to support the facts written? I’ve also grown used to being treated like a simple idiot by the local “Old Chinese” who seem to think that anyone not Chinese is easy to be fooled and swayed and be taken for a few quid. Yes, my appearance has put me into bad positions in this “city”, if it can be called that anymore, because I will not tow the PC line and refuse to immolate my dignity and decry Western heritage on the altar of “post-modern, post-colonial theory”.
Yup!
Betcha you go down like a lead balloon in SF!
Sooner you are out of there the better.
I have to say that I find Californians too difficult for words and endorse your views on their PC itis.
We have a fair few who retire up here as their money goes a lot further but they never really fit in this more agricultural environment. I have tried with several but have learnt to pass by gently on the other side!!!
I’ve found them very paranoid but then I suppose California will do that to you too.
You sound as if you look a bit like North Bavarian.in looks quite different from those up Hamburg way. How on earth does anyone know what race/mix etc you are? And why on earth should they take exception to you or is it only on the intellectual level, not the physical?
When are you going North?
PS it is very fashionable to decry the West in all the universities and media these days. At least in the USA and UK. Perhaps after this you should look for another environment in which to work, if you stay in academia you will end up giving yourself a stroke through the bloody aggravation of it all, not worth it!
Is Germany any different?
CO: it’s both, actually. Ethnic minorities can sling as much filth as they’d like. It’s seen as “repressed, unresolved historic grief”. I can’t even point out facts without getting jumped on. It is because of ethnic background, or at least the visible one. They hear my accent, see my fair skin and make their assumptions based on that. No, I don’t look Bavarian in any way — more Moselle Frank with a bit of Native American thrown in for good measure, the high cheekbones are a dead-give away. My father is primarily of Amerindian, black, and British ancestry.
The reason why they take exception to me is because I can actually get them with facts, not just emotions and “feelings”. I get in trouble here on occasion because my world-view is rooted in Western Judeo-Christian tradition with a strong Confucian influence, not the radicalism of 1968. Perhaps that’s why I get on so well with Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, and some of the “new Chinese”, the Mandarin and Wu-speakers of the central and north parts of the country who are keen on leaving the radicalism of the 1960s and 1970s in the past as they’ve seen just how bad it can get.
You know with that mixture you sound rather good looking!
Just thank your lucky stars that your papa was not a relative of our local Nooksack tribe. Poor souls are some of the ugliest dwarfish humans I have ever seen and they are all like it, they are a very small tribe. They could make a fortune hiring themselves out for Lord of the Rings type movies!
You ought to know by your age that very few actually want to hear the real truth of anything! People don’t like it at all. They much prefer their fairy tale constructions to assuage their induced guilts which rather takes us back to my #17. The great shriek of I’m not racist etc.
It has always been my contention that humanity is inherently prejudiced, I believe it is an inherent atavistic trait that comes with the human territory. Halfway civilised people repress the instinct unless faced with obvious malefactors who confirm the prejudice. I think that prejudice can take many forms it may be race, religion, nationality, sexuality, IQ. Differing people have ranking orders of what gets to them the most. But to deny it exists is rather silly to me and merely shows sheeple behaviour of the current bon mot.
I just adore your “repressed, unresolved historic grief” of minorities. laughed out loud. You should hear the Pakis, the Somalis and the Indians slagging each other off in Brum. Has to be heard to be believed. Several ethnic shopkeepers near the boy’s flat became good mates, being Welsh I’d stand and gossip with them cheerfully, amazing what you learn. Nobody would believe their language, exceptionally salty Anglo Saxon, in their descriptions of each other. Never once did I hear a white person there ever describe ethnic minorities in the same language, they would have been had for a hate crime on the instance!
Your comments on the New Chinese are very interesting, nothing like living through difficulties to make people realise that there are better ways to go. It will be interesting to see in your lifetime if the Westerners revise their opinion of untrammelled capitalism. Not doing too many people any favours at the moment is it?
Curious that any of your generation should even be attracted to the radicalism of the 1960s. Frankly really wasn’t what it was cracked up to be, I was at Uni at the time. It was mainly a cheap excuse for people not to wash, go to the hairdressers and screw as much/many as they could. The amount of VD that was passed around had to be seen to be believed! I’m sure that some actually bought it but most of them have made a very good living from it ever since! Look at all the pop stars of the day and some of the politicians!
Staggers me how people buy such drivel, but they do.
Christopher!
“You know with that mixture you sound rather good looking!”
Run boy, run like the wind while you still can. 🙂
Furry,
🙂
CO: Germany is not as bad, no. It’s not necessarily free of the PC virus, but it’s better than the USA or UK.
My father is of Cherokee, Choctaw, and Blackfoot heritage so no, none of them look like that although my father does look, and for that matter behave, like a Neanderthal.
The “New Chinese” have grown accustomed to a rising standard of living and increasing wealth. They know still what came before, they still see a lot of signs of poverty and recognise how far behind China still is and thus do not want anything too radical, anything too much like rocking the boat. They have a difficult time understanding why anyone would want a revolution or any sort of social chaos and the breakdown that inevitable ensues. One of them was taken aback when I explained to him what some signs up meant — ones which were advocating pressuring the Chinese and Vietnamese governments to backtrack on economic and social reforms in order to return to the Maoist/ Ho eras. He was flabbergasted and said “we don’t want that, we just want to move forward and have quiet lives”.
The problem with many of today’s youth is that the only experience they have with the 1960s is the romanticised version presented in documentaries made by burnt-out old hippies and hard-core lefties who haven’t yet come to accept the collapse of the USSR and the death of Mao. Heaven forbid that Fidel Castro dies, they’ll have a collective nervous breakdown.
Ferret: check your email. I have a small pile of cash waiting for you.
You are very fortunate to be of South Eastern USA heritage, I had a girlfriend whose daughter was a quarter Seminole (another of the five civilised tribes!) The most exquisite child I have ever seen. Perfect oval face, pale olive skin, cheekbones to die for and the most liquid doe like dark brown eyes, she was a teenager when I knew her.
Are you a registered tribal member?
I don’t know about down there, but up here the Indians give money out for scholarships to their members?
They seem to include everyone up to 1/32nd blood.
The poor old Nooksacks live in a tight valley that has no pass behind them over the mountains, just 300 miles of back country full of peaks so I expect they had no visitors of consequence to help out with new genetics! They are seriously the ugliest people I have ever set eyes on! Short, broad, Aleut looking features only worse.
One has a lot to be thankful for on the genetic front.
Thank you, Christina and Christopher, for one of the most erudite exchanges I have ever read on a blog.
(Slinks away, deeply impressed.)
OZ
OZ, balls, dahlink!!!