Opening question: What could possibly be wrong with the above picture? It shows a white girl and a black girl as friends, getting along in perfect harmony, "Ebony and Ivory"....
....it's everything about which Dr. Martin Luther King once dreamed.....
....isn't it?
Not according to black racists, it isn't. Because evidently, they have a different "dream":
Target department stores are under fire for having a white girl featured in some of its posters to advertise its new clothing line inspired by the upcoming movie adaptation of “Annie”–a movie with an all African American cast.
Some. Some of its posters. Not all of them. Some.
Now it probably seems a little odd that a remake of Annie with an all-black cast would produce related merchandise with some characters depicted as being white. Although I can think of at least one reason why that might be done: since the original "Annie" character was so white, complete with freckles and red, carroty hair, that she was practically albino, consumers might not have as readily recognized an African-American character in the red dress as being "Annie". And doing an Annie remake with an African-American cast is a different marketing task from when the same angle was applied to the Wizard of Oz (The Wiz) in 1978 with Diana Ross as the iconic Dorothy. Why? Because Diana Ross was already a star, as was most of the rest of the cast (Michael Jackson, Nipsy Russell, etc.) Perhaps Quvenzhané Wallis will be a star someday - hell, maybe this role will make her one - but she isn't one yet. Hence the potential merchandise marketing difficulty.
Of course, I don't think any moviegoer or stuff-shopper would give three leaves off the fig tree whether or not Target used white as well as black models for this clothing line. That's kind of the point of creating the colorblind society to which Dr. King was referring. But do you know why Target used some white models for their Annie ads? Some of the movie's black cast couldn't spare the time to pose for or participate in them:
Target says it tried to get the stars of the movie to make themselves available for the ad campaign, but it wasn’t to be. Target also notes that girls of several ethnicities are featured in its ad campaign, not just the one white girl model. Other posters (like the one above) features an African American girl along with the white girl as well as by herself. Target insists that the campaign was meant to appeal to all girls not solely to whites or blacks.
In other words, Target was being inclusive and embracing "diversity" because it wanted to appeal to everybody, regardless of "ethnic persuasion," while Target's black/leftwing racist critics want everybody who isn't African-American completely excluded. You could almost call their gripe "segregationist," couldn't you?
The irony is....well, this Annie poster:
I may not be a geneticist or an anthropologist, nor do I play either on TV, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I do see at least three white members of this "all-American-American cast," even if "Annie" isn't played by one of them.
Maybe the roles of Cameron Diaz and the others should have been recast to black actors - unless the white characters are playing the (racist, natch) villains. Which is a pity, since otherwise Village Roadshow Pictures and Overbrook Entertainment could have hung "Blacks Only" signs all over their lot. Nothing like celebrating "diversity," I always say.
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