I've seen misunderstandings in my day and then I've seen mega-misunderstandings. The most recent example is a case in which the Los Angeles NAACP has attacked Hallmark for releasing what they believe to be a racist greeting card. On the card, two characters called Hoops and Yo-Yo (two brightly colored, non-controversial and odd-looking animals) are celebrating their graduation. The theme of the card is "taking over the world," and one of the characters says, "Hey world, we are officially putting you on notice."

There is another part of the card's audio in which a character says, "And you black holes, you are so ominous. Watch your back." This statement was made relative to the fact that you shouldn't just take over the world, you might as well take over the universe.

The NAACP of Los Angeles took offense to the card, apparently unaware that the theme of the card is taking over the world/universe and that black holes are part of the universe. The organization thought that rather than saying "black holes," the characters were actually saying "black hoes," or "black whores." Either way, they were wrong. For some reason, this has not stopped the organization from holding press conferences about how the card is insulting to African American women.

Sorry to the NAACP in Los Angeles. This card was created by Hallmark, not the rapper Lil Wayne. With all due respect, I'm not sure why you would presume that Hallmark would ruin a multibillion-dollar corporate brand by referring to black women in a derogatory way. Perhaps a conversation with representatives at Hallmark can make this right, but I am hopeful that this issue can be squashed before you end up squashing your own credibility in the process.


As a business school professor, the best thought I can share with Hallmark is that they may want to take a note from a lesson I learned long ago from my brilliant dissertation adviser, Andrew Karolyi. Karolyi, an award-winning researcher at Cornell University, taught me that if your audience doesn't get your message the way you intended it, you may want to hold yourself accountable for not properly communicating the message. From what I've seen of Hallmark's card, there is nothing on the front or inside of it that sends a clear message that the card is making reference to space. Also, if you use names like Hoops and Yo-Yo, many people are going to think that you are targeting the card to an urban audience. When I hear those names, I think about Hoops, one of the girlfriends of Flavor Flav on VH-1. When I hear Yo-Yo, I think about the rapper who once rolled with the rapper Ice Cube on the West Coast. Hence, we have the formula: The card is targeted to black people who don't know you're making reference to space, and the term "black holes" gets turned into a 'Superfly' movie reference.

At the end of the day, this is all a big misunderstanding. Unless I am unaware of something else going on, I think that the Los Angeles NAACP needs to stand down and focus on more serious issues. I encourage its leadership to give me a call or send a friendly e-mail if they think otherwise. Their work is too important for them to spend their time attacking a company that doesn't appear to have done anything wrong. Hallmark might have some diversity issues to deal with, but this is clearly not one of them. At best, an African American focus group could have helped them to avoid the embarrassing PR of this debacle.



Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce's commentary delivered to your e-mail, please click here.