As the self anointed destroyer of malignant myths and untoward untruths, yours truly is no stranger to stereotypes and both their necessity and risk. Most humans are built in such a way that they need to generalize in order to communicate with one another. The rest are engineers. By finding common themes, we create roadways for mass communication. The danger is that these wide paths tend to get overcrowded with sheep who walk readily over the cliff at the end of a discontinued road. So use stereotypes we must, but need to keep our heads up and your wits about us lest we take a dangerous fork in the road and tumble over the cliff of bigotry and hatred. Don’t do that. Yes my brothers, sisters, and brother/sisters, a sermon from The Captain’s pulpit, a dead giveaway that I’m completely sober as I write this on the commuter bus. But as I perused the ads on the bus, I noticed all the faces were some shade of brown save one and that they seemed to perpetuate certain racial stereotypes. You be the judge.
• Ad for baby making instructions with a little mocha colored baby in diapers looking both worried yet hopeful…or maybe he’s just about to make a poop, I can’t really tell. Bus riders learn that if you want to make a baby someday then both parents need to eat healthy, exercise, avoid drugs, cigarettes and alcohol, see your doctor and dentist regularly, take vitamins and folic acid (because battery acid just doesn’t cut it?), get tested for STDs and HIV, control blood pressure, diabetes, asthma and weight. That assumes A LOT. Damn, I didn’t know it was so difficult to conceive these days; back in my day, we just had sex with a fertile partner of the opposite sex. In truth, it asks the ridiculously unhealthy riders to live in such a way that the only fun activity left is sex, so it inadvertently encourages the behavior it seeks to discourage. Fail.
• Whteva ur style you don’t wnt to wear G. to find out if you wearin it (gonorrhea) get tested. Perhaps this language is designed to appeal to the young minority audience who ride the city bus because Dad is MIA and single parent Mom can’t afford to but them a car? Just askin’. One thing is for sure: I not eva callin myself G agin
• Another ad picturing a milk chocolate colored adolescent with a fro asks: Do you know a teen with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? Answer. F*&k yeah. Every teenager who ever walked the face of this earth. The remedy for this is obvious if not pleasant: patience. They will turn 18 some day if they live that long and then you can legally evict them. Waste of ad space.
• Get Carter and get peace of mind. Carter being an Aryan looking blonde male ambulance chasing personal injury lawyer messiah who has appeared among the poor to save them from their oppressors, the insurance companies. What Carter fails to tell you is that insurance companies have entire herds of blonde beasts (while male lawyers) at their disposal who are not paid by the hour, so they can afford to wait until injured plaintiffs are strapped for cash and settle for pennies on the dollar. Now that’s irony. The ad should really say “Get Screwed.” Come to think of it, so should the ad about making babies.
Believe The Captain when he says: I am really just a somewhat odd literary persona who pokes fun at the foibles and weaknesses of both myself and other flawed human beings using humor, irony, and occasionally provocative statements :)
Yours totally screwed,
The Captain
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