"The Slide" on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

carpeaqua says:

Apparently no one told DB we are living in a Post-Imus world. :)
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

Christopher Humphries says:

Everyone should have revolted.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

schwatoo says:

there was much booing and gnashing of teeth. And then we bitched about it over pizza
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

djgraphite says:

Wow. Just wow. I don't even know how to respond to that.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

What that picture can't show is that after the slide went up, Drunkenbatman went on to say that "the only black people he's seen at MacWorld were outside begging for change." He says this with a black developer in the room and this was apparently not enough to stop this part of the conference.

It's a shame the Mac community is not really addressing this. If it was an attack on their platform, they'd be all over you. Yet you don't see too much about it, let alone DB's racist comment.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

schwatoo says:

@anonymous C4 attendee. Give it time. We've barely returned home from C4...

It didn't stop the conference, he was boo-ed by the audience for that comment. And talk at the table and on the twitter back channel mainly revolved around "WTF"... I don't think it should have been stopped, people did try and rebut DB - esp (shoot name failing me) the Nu guy.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

Kevin MacLeod says:

This sucks. This is the crap that gives us mac users a bad name.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

vinnyraffle says:

oh christ, it was a fucking joke. stfu with the bleeding heart white guilt bullshit. geeze, i'm a liberal, but i still have a sense of humor. get over it, because eventually, this zealous political correctness, that you people have some strange and unexplainable attachment to, is going to make it where no one can say anything.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

redhatnation says:

@c4attendee: Why should the Mac community have to respond to this clown and his antics? He wasn't speaking for the entire Mac community, was he? Was this guy an Apple employee or developer? (I don't know, am asking.)
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

stits says:

Frankly, while it could have been funny (as in stand up) it's not in anyway amusing and really disrespectful to the entire community. Because everyone was in shock it now could appear to some that the whole room was racist.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

heet_myser says:

@Kevin: Woah. Wait. I've never associated racism with being a Mac user. This is the crap that gives humans a bad name.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

level8online says:

vinnyraffle, you are an idiot
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

umiryu006 says:

Wait ... im black .... I use a Mac ... does that mean that my Mac is fake? ... OMG does using a Mac make me, not black? ... we seem to have a serious problem here.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

Christopher Humphries says:

A joke or not, it's still racist. Maybe should have been reviewed before presenting to the conference. Can always punch other people in the face that disagree with you though... right, DB?
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

Dspwhiz says:

Paint DB with black , which will remain on his skin till his end ... ... This is not at all humorous.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

skinjester [deleted] says:

haha - what a funny joke. Why I think that's just about the funniest joke I've ever heard. Even more so because "black rhymes with "mac". You see that's what makes it so funny. Wow - thats just so funny I can't wait to repeat it as a "humorous anecdote" at my next company meeting. What a laff riot. I really thought that sort of "humor" wasn't considered particularly interesting any more. Boy was I wrong.

btw: vinneraffle - consider growing up and looking around for a clue
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

kwazii8 says:

i'm black my wife is black our friends are black. We all use and own Macs. Where are people getting this information from?

P.S. umiryu006 comment makes me wonder. hmmmmm
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

bobdawaz says:

I don't believe the statement on the screen is necessarily racist, or even insensitive. Most everyone would agree that it is technically incorrect; there are blacks, and probably members of every ethnicity, who own macs. In fact I'm sure DB would agree that it is a false statement. But what was he really trying to say. Is there a much smaller percentage of blacks who own macs over PC's than in the general population? c4attendee reports that DB made the statement that "the only black people he's seen at MacWorld were outside begging for change." Now this is where DB shows both his insensitivity and his stupidity. I don't know this guy, and I wasn't at the conference, but it is safe to say that whatever he was trying to communicate was obscured by his ineptness. For me the real question is why does DB, or anyone else, care what color, religion or sexual orientation of people buy macs. Does he sell them? Is he trying to expand the mac market to certain target demographics. People who use macs - they are who they are. So what?
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

clala1220 says:

uncalled for and just really sad.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

thinkfuture says:

Imus just got $20M. Not bad for a racial slur, eh?
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

Kevin MacLeod says:

@ vinnyraffle

Believe me, I hate political correctness. There is a difference between making jokes and being racist. This wasn't meant as a joke; you kinda had to have heard what he said in order to understand the difference in the context it was presented in. Just because we're laughing at the after effects of the whole thing, that doesn't mean the guy was trying to be funny.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

c4attendee says:

@redhatnation: I thought something should have been done because it's wrong. The Mac community may not be racist, but when someone stands up in front of a crowd at a Mac-focused event with a microphone and says those things out loud, something needs to be done. I think the least that should be done is that DB shouldn't be allowed to head up a panel at next year's conference (he did last year at C4[0]).

I don't think he's an Apple employee (I hope not), and I don't know if he develops anything for the Mac. I only know him as a Mac-focused blogger.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

johnlunney says:

It could have been a joke.
It could have been a valid comment on the ethnic break-down of Mac users.
Who knows, who cares.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

cbowns says:

Hey, I can see the back of my shirt!

At least the pizza at Gino's was good. Everyone on Twitter and at the tables were pretty pissed that he was: a) being a douchebag, and b) wasting a lot of people's time, especially a panel with a lot of smart people on it.

Racist? Hardly. Just an idiot who tried too hard to be provocative with a slide.

Oh, and also, his font sucked.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

phreaked out says:

I laugh that this even made it into a discussion. Everything today seems to be racist if you skew it in the way that you want. If it said, old people don't use macs, or women don't use macs, this wouldn't even be an issue. Seriously, talking about this being racist is just feeding the fire for more racism....
Just drop it already!
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

Apocrypha2012 says:

vinnyraffle, no you do not have a sense of humor because this is just not funny. It's in very bad taste and very insensitive (not just the slide but the comments that went with). You are a bigot. Just because you are 'liberal' doesn't mean you aren't.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

schwatoo says:

The digg idiots are truly out of the woodwork now.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

StenK says:

He could have used a better presentation slide! I mean come on ;)
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

sober.robin says:

Ha! http://www.blackpeopledontusemacs.com/
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

indignari [deleted] says:

That's funny I am Black and have three macs and two iPods....
(Back to WinDoze PeeCees for me i guess....)
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

indranil says:

lol! This is really funny!! What did he propose? For every white guy that buys a Mac, Apple must force a black guy to get one too?

I'm neither white nor black. I'm Asian! w00t!
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

cioxx says:

Rich (middle-to-upper-middle class) black people all use macs. In fact, amongst rich African-Americans the usage of macs is disproportionately high compared to whites, latinos or asians in the same socio-economic stratum.

Apple products are considered by some to be status symbols. This works to the detriment of Apple in black urban areas. People generally don't want to advertise their laptops from a mile away with that shiny apple logo lit up like a christmas tree. Since media loves to project the image of poor-innercity black areas as areas ripe with criminal activity, this has been imprinted in people's heads as the unequivocal truth. It's hard to overcome such a perception.

Same is true for iPods. One of my black friends, who is a mac-fanatic like myself, disposed of the white headphones immediately when he purchased an iPod.

I hope people don't come to the wrong conclusions based on what I wrote.

As for Drunken Batman's idiotic slide, there are more non-controversial ways of talking about platform disparity in racial groups. For instance,

WRONG: "Black people don't use macs"
RIGHT: "How to better communicate the virtues of superior platforms to minorities"
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

MrModern says:

Ok, I'm not a developer, I didn't attend, but I'm wondering why everyone didn't just stand up and walk out? Shunning is very effective at curbing socially unacceptable behavior.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

Monochor says:

I was there, many of us were disgusted at that, but for some stupid reason we decided to be polite and not really say anything. Everyone I was with was ethnic, so we could all relate to how idiotic the statements were.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

HM2K says:

Can we safely assume they don't use Linux either?

Does this mean black people use windows?
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

eric.. says:

well i am black, and i've been using macs since the lisa, so to him i say, **** you ya c**t. joking or not, it was uncalled for
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

auteuil, encore plus fort says:

Actually, do you see any black people in the audience?

Dont get me wrong: I'm, uhm, "liberal", and I take the line as an (exaggerated) observation, without any "normative" racist value (though I havent been there and couldnt dig the context).

The whole thing reminds me of the Zeldman-induced discussion about women in tech/web/whatever, a couple of months ago.

Maybe the Mac community should be more aware with regards to race/gender/class, really.
Isnt it obvious that the whole iPhone-bonanza features a specific social profile?
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

crlake says:

@vinnyraffle
@c4attendee

Um... Excuse me, but I don't find this particularly funny at all. I find it completely inaccurate and rather offensive. I'm black -- I use a Mac, so does my Uncle who is a Unix programmer and my cousin is a Engineer. There are several other people of color who also use Mac.

Bleeding heart, guilt, and political correctness have NOTHING to do with being an assh*le who clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. This is how HATE starts! Miss information, lies and rumors. So why don't you both grow up, if the two of you don't see this a problem -- Then YOU'RE PART of the F*CKING PROBLEM.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

Exempt says:

It is not a racist comment, the "begging of change" is pushing towards racist, actually more like stereotyping, however, demographically and statistically speaking, looking at the US income levels by races, blacks and hispanics account for the lowest income levels, as well as lowest education levels, which is sad, however the statement, would prove to be true in a general discussion, "black people don't use macs"

It's a difference in opinions here really, it doesn't have to be racist. Change one word and the statement changes meaning to you.

"Abiponian people dont use macs" is that a racist comment? no not at all.

Educate yourselves and you'll spend less time being angry.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

ars3n says:

How could you not see a problem with this?!? I am a black IT profesional currently interning for a Fortune 500 (top 5) and during my first month I encountered "predjudice remarks" made by a respectable coworker. I was shocked! I can understand why the people in the room stayed, it is not something you deal with everyday and it definitely comes as a suprise when it occurs. I hope if they encountered the situation again, they would handle it differently.

In my situation, I endured the remarks for many weeks, not exactly understanding the basis for these "jokes". Was this person racist or too relaxed? Had I approached management with this issue, they would have been fired. Lucky for him I was able to handle it before it amounted to that. How did it make me feel? It made me feel like an outcast. C4 and the Mac community should be concerned about its image.

Pass by my cube, you'll see the Apple logo. You know what's really ashame, out of the 10 other non-black interns, I was the only Mac fan.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

Chenier Spencer says:

I'm black... and I definitely find that very insulting, and some of the comments in his defense even more insulting... that's life, I know people disagree, but we should all at least attempt to try to imagine how things feel from someone else's point of view... and trust me, years of stuff like this sucks... it would have been a really cool display of solidarity, empathy and guts if some of the people had walked out, but I can understand their (slight) dilemma. I would like to think that I would have walked out (especially being black), but that's easier to say not having been there. Luckily, this guy is not representative of most mac users, who I've always found to be quite cool, and relatively enlightened.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

Gabriel says:

I just don't even get how race is relevant to a computer.

There's a lot of hand-wringing here... some people are offended, others aren't. Mostly it's fueled by political correctness (and the backlash thereof) and racial tension, but the real problem is there's no substance. I mean what was he even trying to get at here? You make an obviously false and banal statement about race, and the only thing that's going to happen is everyone gets confused and uncomfortable.

FWIW, the original slide was just DB talking out his ass--the kind of thing that could be dismissed as an awkward comment if made in casual conversation. Putting it on a slide? Well that's pretty weird and inflammatory. But then to say the only black people he saw were panhandling... well that's some blatant racism right there.

And to those of you who don't think that's racism, you probably think of yourself as a very non-judging person who would never be racist, while at the same time subconsciously judging every black person you meet, and if interviewing them for a job, probably giving the job to someone else with equal qualifications.

You don't have to hate to be racist. And likewise, prejudice is an inevitable part of the human condition (it's necessary for survival). That is the real challenge of racism... using actual empathy to build real relationships and understanding. It doesn't help anyone to simply go through the politically correct motions, or to decry political correctness as being reflexive, fashionable posturing and thus throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

dogfaceboy says:

You don't see what it has to do with computers?

Let me say that I'm white, that I use a Mac, and that I didn't go to your conference.

Let me also say I have I have been in marketing and advertising for twenty years. Of course race is relevant to computer use. It's relevant to everything. Because it's all about marketing and audience.

And it's not really a racist comment. It could simply be an observation or a fact. It's no more racist, for example, than saying fewer women watch wrestling.

There are any number of good reasons that Macs might not be of use to a majority of the members of the black community (they are certainly not of use to the majority of the white community, either, remember!):

#1. Macs are not the computer of choice for anything but the design (any kind of design) industry, really. So if you're in a business in which the Mac isn't the preferred computer, you're less likely to have a reason to use it at home.

#2. Those with an income lower than middle class—and that would include blacks as well as whites, but minorities are typically poorer than non-minorities—are less likely to spend DOUBLE (sometimes triple) on a computer for home use. Duh. (On the other hand, the iPhone will probably appeal to those interested in status products; it's portable and can be seen by others, whereas a computer is mostly a stay-at-home product. Even laptops don't travel easily and visibly.)

#3. Macs have not been marketed to blacks. Look at television commercials, like the one in which the Dell (or whatever) is being passed from person to person—there's a punk rock bowling girl, a black man, an Asian woman, etc. The demographics are more mixed because the advertising appeals to a mix of races.

Macintosh does not specifically target market to blacks. It makes perfect sense for those reasons and more. And if you see racism in that comment or the ones above, you're just trying too hard.

And yes, racism is, by definition, the belief that someone is inferior because of his skin color. The comment doesn't imply inferiority. (Lots of whites don't use Macs, either!)
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

dogfaceboy says:

While the speaker's comment and slide are extreme (because it's obvious that some blacks do use Macs, and I know quite a few here in Baltimore!), I'm sure it was just an attempt to make the point I made above. Of course, I wasn't there, and I don't know the context. If the speaker was talking about marketing and Macintosh or demographics, what he said was perfectly appropriate.

I'm not sure why people would have walked out. Are people so sensitive that they can't tell the difference between an observation and racism? Racism is hatred of a group, or a feeling of superiority over that group, based on that group's skin color! Where is the hatred or superiority in that statement?!

[edited to add:] I'm a Mac user who finds it superior to other computers. Using one doesn't make me superior, even to those who use PCs, just like being white doesn't.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

mikeharper says:

I think it's inflammatory, not the polite way to bring it up, and probably more suited to a personal conversation, but does anyone believe that his motivation was to keep black people away from macs?

Let's put it in the context of the controversial Kanye West statement made post-Katrina, which I think is the point here, despite the fact the reasons aren't "black." The black population of the US is still disproportionately poor. Are Macs often seen in public libraries or schools in economically poor areas?

Or, assuming buying power isn't the point here, has Apple ever used music or movie creators in their advertisements or promotional material that are black? I'm looking through the iLife and iWork pages, recently added since they're the '08 edition, and I see a proportionately greater number of white faces than I do at work. And I'm in the middle of Des Moines, Iowa.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

steveyb says:

bad taste.
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

sintaks says:

I'm not condoning this bit of his presentation... but if it were a black man presenting in a comedic fashion, that joke would have went over swimmingly. Dave Chappelle does it all the time.

So is he the racist for presenting the slide without regard for his own race, or everyone else for taking offense when they wouldn't in a different setting?
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

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"The Slide"

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carpeaqua says:

Christopher Humphries says:

schwatoo says:

djgraphite says:

c4attendee says:

schwatoo says:

Kevin MacLeod says:

vinnyraffle says:

redhatnation says:

stits says:

heet_myser says:

level8online says:

umiryu006 says:

Christopher Humphries says:

Dspwhiz says:

skinjester [deleted] says:

kwazii8 says:

bobdawaz says:

clala1220 says:

thinkfuture says:

Kevin MacLeod says:

c4attendee says:

johnlunney says:

cbowns says:

phreaked out says:

Apocrypha2012 says:

schwatoo says:

StenK says:

sober.robin says:

indignari [deleted] says:

indranil says:

cioxx says:

MrModern says:

Monochor says:

HM2K says:

eric.. says:

auteuil, encore plus fort says:

crlake says:

Exempt says:

ars3n says:

Chenier Spencer says:

Gabriel says:

dogfaceboy says:

dogfaceboy says:

mikeharper says:

steveyb says:

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