Maximizing Power

This controversial ad was put out by Intel a few years ago. Although they claimed it was unintentional, the ad strongly suggests a division of races in a number of different ways. The only white, middle-class male centered in the ad is standing above six black employees “working” at their cubicles. The six black men are portrayed as world class athletes that are working like machines, which refers to the quote in the ad.

But when you really look at the picture, you can interpret so much more if you choose to look through a colored lens. You would be able to see the white male as a superior to the other black males bowing down around him. It even suggests slave imagery by the dominant body language of the “master” and the compliant body language of the “slaves.”

If you look even further past the color barrier you could see more inequalities that contribute to this debatable image. The employees appear to be the same, so does that mean that this is how Intel views their employees, as machines? Insignificant? Then again, if you were looking at this without the idea of color or race in mind, wouldn’t these create new arguments that have nothing to do with the black vs. white argument? You could say none of these employees have a face, so they aren’t important to the company? There isn’t one woman in the picture, so does that make this ad sexist now too?

In the world we live in it’s hard to be able to look at anything without any type of bias, but with images like these it makes it hard for people not to see the racist argument. I don’t think we can make progress in society without everybody being able to understand how important equality is across all spectrums, not just color.