Tabularasa has a fine response to the controversial Intel Sprinter advert, which the company has turned into a virtue by apologising for it on their official blog.

Gizmodo, the technology blog which spotted the ad, said of the picture: “Lousy, barely subliminal, racist advertising, or just plain lousy advertising?” The Register, a technology news site, said in its analysis: “While the white man’s smug jubilation is apparently derived from choosing the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, there are some pretty sinister undertones in the advertisement.”

As Tabularasa pointed:

No such thing – it seems that the postmodern fetishisation of difference, with its deconstructive play of racial bodies, so prevalent in contemporary advertising (see ads for IPod and Nike for example), tells us how whiteness remains the master signifier of racial difference. This ad makes overt this logic of white supremacy in multiculturalism.

The pathetic apology and removal of ad by Intel confirms that racist ideology is so deeply taken for granted in the corporate imaginary that only after complaints did Intel realise that the ad was ‘insensitive and insulting’. Implying that it would have been alright if it did not cause offense. Intel’s concern, in line with dealing with the ‘image’ of the offense, is to highlight the fact that they have tried to remove the ad from circulating. Their only apology is really about their failure to do this.