by Carmen Van Kerckhove

Hadji Williams has spent over 15 years in the advertising and marketing worlds at Chicago and New York agencies great and small, including BBDO and FootSteps Group. Williams is also an educator, having taught over 20 introductory and advanced advertising courses at Columbia College Chicago.

A recent Californian, Williams is also the author of the controversial Knock The Hustle: How to Save Your Job and Your Life From Corporate America (2006), KTH: VoL. 2 (Fall 2007) and C.R.E.A.M. (Winter 2007). Currently Williams has launched ProdigalPen, Inc. Publishing, which is dedicated to sharing the stories of multicultural life.

One of the most interesting chapters in your book is titled “Crop Circles and Alarm Clocks: Pride and Prejudice in Corporate America.” How do crop circles and alarm clocks relate to race in the workplace today?

While writing KTH I wanted to come with a way to explain the patterns of bigotry and bias that exist in corporate America to people who may not have had the experiences that I’ve had. So I settled on “crop circles” and “alarm clocks.”

As you know crop circles are these wildly bizarre geometric patterns that mysteriously appear in fields in rural America. The first time we see photos of ‘em or network coverage of them, we scream “hoax” or “fraud” because they’re just too blatant and specific to have been anything else, right?

That’s how instances of bigotry and bias go down in business—when someone shares an instance, it must be a hoax, a fraud, an exaggeration, or some sort of scheme to get money or sympathy. It can possibly be true. And since most of corporate life involves sophisticated liberal whites and not the so-called backwards thinking rural whites that we often blame racism on, any reported instances of mistreatment must be simple misunderstandings, right?

Alarm clocks are the result of believing said hype. They’re random wake up calls that remind you that the world isn’t as liberal or inclusive as you’ve been suckered into believing. For example, I’ve worked with numerous white colleagues and bosses who’ve told that because I can speak in complete sentences and don’t have an over-the-top swag, that I “wasn’t like the ‘regular black people’” they knew. Regular. Hmmm… Or some of the times I’ve been called N-word at work. Or have been paraded around a client’s offices because they couldn’t believe that a black guy was developing their campaigns.

Those are some of the random wake up calls that I’ve received over the years. Just reminders that bigotry exists in many places and many forms and the worst thing you can do is believe people who benefit from it when they say “oh no, we treat everyone equal.”

In your book you write “There’s always been profit in selling and consuming blackness; it still ranks as one of America’s greatest industries and probably its most lucrative export.” In what ways have you seen this played out in the advertising industry?

Too many to name here. Wrote a whole chapter on it in KTH; and it was the most frustrating chapter of the book. That chapter (“Universal Hustle”) was rewritten some 12 or 15 times because I saw so much of it from clients, consumers, etc. It just left me exhausted and sad and so tired of trying to fit this into the context of a book about larger issues.

But…

Culture is a talking point, a common ground for a collective to identify itself. But for marketers, culture is a vehicle for selling and for consumers, culture is a souvenir of experiences or a playground or a costume.

For blackness, we as marketers, consumers, etc. have reduced it to a series of things to be bought, sold, traded. Music, style of dress, way of talking… things that can be tangible and ownable. You only do this to people you don’t respect. Imagine telling Jews that “jewishness” or that their heritage is now “universal” and that everyone else now has the right to define jewishness as they see fit? Imagine doing this with any other ethnic group, telling them that every generation for perpetuity back thru the ages that the way they talk, dress, express themselves must be defined by marketers, consumers and segments of society who look nothing like them and don’t respet them enough to even live near them or put their kids in the same schools? And further more, if they don’t like it, then they’re whiners?

We only do this to one group of folks. As I try to answer this, I’m thinking that the question isn’t how is blackness so easily and so often commoditized, but rather why?

Over the years I’ve watch clients only cast light-skinned black women in commercials because their idea of black beauty was more important than what black women thought of themselves. I’ve watched clients attempt and succeed and “universalizing” every black experience of any value because it was an opportunity to sell rims, cars, chewing gum, chicken, burgers, etc. I’ve watched music forms from hiphop and R&B get reduced to something you “experience” and “talent” your way in and out of in the name of allowing others to buy and own it a seat at those tables. (Conversely, can you experience your way into polka? Celtic music? Country or Heavy Metal, even? No.)

We reduce blackness to dreadlocks, braids, baggy jeans and slang then we cats whites and non-blacks with braids and dreadlocks, etc. because instead casting actual black people. It sends the message that these things are ownable by all just as much if not more than the folks who created them.

When I interviewed you on my podcast, Addicted to Race, you said that there is “economic segregation” in the advertising industry. What do you mean by that?

Economic segregation occurs in several ways. For starters, corporations spend about $160 Billion annually on Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations for their brands. The companies charged with building their brands, promoting their products are devided into 2 categories: Mainstream and Targeted. Mainstream is code for White/Anglo as in white consumers. Targeted is code for ethnic consumers, specifically Black, Hispanic (Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, are all lumped together), Asian (Indian, Japanese, Chinese, etc.) consumers.

Mainstream consumers get upwards of 95% of a clients budget, no matter what consumer group actually buys that clients product. Targeted agencies get 4% no matter how much ethnic consumers support the client’s brand. And quite often, whether it’s Escalade, Wrigley’s, Nike or others, Black consumers carry these brands profit margins to heights they’re at.

When clients set their budgets and open up the bidding process, black, Hispanic and asian agencies are not allowed to bid for what we call the AOR slot. AOR or Agency Of Record is the primary/lead agency for the client’s budget. Whether it’s PR Marketing or Advertising, it’s the AOR who gets the 95% of the budget.

Conventional industry wisdom is that Black, Hispanic and Asian professionals/companies simply aren’t capable of building a brand unless they’re following a blueprint set forth by Whites. And there’s no way clients will give Black Hispanic agencies substantial budgets to work with. They just won’t and don’t.

Also, General Market shops have, on average, 95% White staffs. They simply don’t hire professionals of color with any regularity. There are plenty of White women at every level in our industries but Black women, Hispanic women, Asian women are so few and far between I can literally name all the VPs and execs at GM shops on both hands…

I could go on, but you get the idea. There’s more in KTH, too.

If you could give three pieces of advice to white people who are committed to working against racism and discrimination in the workplace, what would they be?

Sure.

Bit of advice #1—Stupid is not as stupid does. In other words, ethnic professionals are not as stupid or blind to issues of prejudice and race as most white professionals would like to believe. Simply because you don’t acknowledge it or don’t hear people of color ready to file suit doesn’t mean they’re not aware of it. It just means they’re picking their battles… but they still see the war and the enemy.

Nugget #2 – You didn’t know any better/didn’t grow up around [insert ethnic group here] is no longer an acceptable excuse for bias, discriminatory, hiring, etc. The “White=innocent” defense is a common rallying cry in race relations. People are getting tired of it. The notion that Whites are so inherently pure and liberal and inclusive that when instance of bias come up, that we can hide behind this almost child-like cluelessness needs to stop.

Nugget #3—You’ll change or you won’t. Until you do, it’ll hurt you as much as it hurts everyone else. Bias hurts business. It limits the flow of ideas, opportunities, income for all. It’s bad business. But when people are so comfortable with the status quo, then they problem isn’t on the receiver to fix, it’s on the doer and those benefit from the doing. With that said, you’ll change or you won’t.

But like my father said, a hard head makes a soft butt. Happy landings.

If you could give three pieces of advice to people of color who want to make it in Corporate America, what would they be?

Nugget #1—Being the champion/spokesperson for your race is a full-time job. And the pay always sucks. It’s impossible to go to work everyday and defend against every smart-mouth, stupid person, underestimation, etc. You can’t fight every battle. You’ll end up bitter, angry, tired and quite possibly fired. Pick Your Battles.

Nugget #2 — Acceptance doesn’t always equal success. Too many ethnic professionals fight for mainstream acceptance isn’t of striving for excellence. Why? Because we equate excellence with white approval or inclusion. Most of the most successful people of color have been those who struck out on their own or carved their own path simply because they weren’t accepted by the status quo.

Innovation is seldom accepted. Pioneers are rarely popular until long after they succeed. There are countless black business owners, pioneers who became such because whites wouldn’t hire them or support them.

Had I kept chasing white approval I would’ve never written a book, or an op-ed piece or a song or anything that I’ve done so far.

The best thing you can do for your career and yourself is to figure out what your meant to do and do it to the best of your abilities. And if mainstream America doesn’t accept you, well that’s their loss.

Nugget #3 — Trust God. God accepts everyone if not every action. Bigotry and Bias are symptoms of a god complex–people thinking the world revolves around them, or should. If you see first the kingdom of heaven, all things will be added unto you… including the strength to get over someone else’s weak-mindedness.

For more information

Click the play button below to hear Carmen’s interview with Hadji Williams on episode 63 (March 12, 2007) of New Demographic’s weekly podcast, Addicted to Race:

You can find more Race in the Workplace interviews in our archives.