Travel Expense That Won't Yield New Biz

And Other Ramblings on Diversity

High Jive suggested the banner image at top a while back in honor of Black History Month. (Formerly known as "Negro History Week" when it first came about, so that's some progress.)

I was poking around at Getty Images and came across a nice little cartoon I couldn't resist messing with. Note the smiling execs listening patiently to the bright, clean and articulate Man of Color as he pitches a campaign. He is not likely to win the business.

This ties in nicely with the comments of South Carolina state senator Darrell Jackson, a sought-after man in that state for his supposed influence in the black community. Jackson claims that Senator Obama can't possibly win the presidency BECAUSE he is black. Senator Jackson, who has two more jobs, one as a pastor, the other as head of his own political consultancy, was recently hired by Hillary Clinton. He has not surprisingly come out in support of Mrs. Clinton, the whitest white woman in the history of whiteness, Margaret Thatcher included.

Blacks don't vote en masse, as far as I know, and to assume that one man's endorsement is going to sway the black vote sounds pretty damned racist if you ask me. As Obama told Steve Kroft: "I think that there is an assumption on the part of some commentators that somehow the black community is so unsophisticated that the minute you put an African-American face up on the screen, that they automatically say, "That's our guy.""

Same goes for political consultants and "influencers."