But who even knew (at least, in with respect to shampoo), that “normal” was being used in any connection to racial, ethnic, gender characteristics, unless some people somehow decided that this must be the case? This almost seems like one of those cases where, supposedly, someone was just looking for something to be offended by.
Normal people don’t think that
“Normal” just seems like bad marketing, regardless of any social consciousness issues. If my hair has qualities X, Y, and Z, and I’m looking for a shampoo that treats those qualities, am I going to buy the one that specifically says, “for x, y, and z hair,” or do I buy the one that says “normal?” Obviously, the former, because how do I know what that particular shampoo maker considers “normal?” And if I’m not buying based on my hair type, “normal” is even more meaningless. Put “Lilac scented,” or a picture of Wolverine, or whatever you think would appeal to my market segment.
What are you talking about here? I recall nothing about real estate sales and rental advertising from back then having some sort of slippery slope controversy.
So you’re saying this is a non-issue that no one will have any memory of?
Seriously I have no idea what you are talking about. I tried Googling “real estate” “1990s” & “controversy” and did not see anything.
So, huh?
Boy-oh-boy if you don’t remember that, then you weren’t paying attention. It had to do with “steering” – the idea that the wording of ads tended to “steer” people towards or away from the product being advertised in discriminatory ways, which was illegal under the Unruh act.
It started with ads that depicted genteel upscale renters or buyers shown in upscale ads (big house surrounded by gardens) – White people of course – often including a Black doorman or gardener or such.
Then it got into controversy (what had once been controversial, I guess) about ads with words like “White only need apply” or “Irish or Italians need not apply”. Even then, anybody sensible understood that ads like that had to disappear.
Then there were state laws enabling anybody (not just an aggrieved would-be buyer) to file discrimination suits for ads like that on the grounds that they tended to “steer” people in discriminatory ways – either positively (towards a property) or negatively (away from a property). That is, laws that gave anybody in the general public standing to sue.
That in turn immediately generated a cottage industry of activists (who might either have been characterized as Social Justice Warriors or ambulance-chasing lawyers) who spent their days scouring real-estate and rental want-ads for language that tended to “steer” people.
For several years in the mid 1990s, hardly a day went by when someone didn’t come up with a new ever-more-absurd complaint. If you advertised a home with a “family room”, that tended to steer family people toward that ad, at the expense of “single” people. (Can’t discriminate on marital or family status!). Of course, advertising a home “near schools” was right out. If you advertised “walking distance to the beach” you discriminated against the disabled (specifically, against people who can’t walk). If you advertised “beautiful ocean views”, you discriminated in favor of the sighted and thus against the blind. Advertising “near churches” was right out. Nursing homes or similar community-care facilities didn’t dare advertise “Kosher food”. “Quiet neighborhood” was seen as a dog-whistle for “no children”.
I am NOT making this up. Real estate agents and rental agents compiled lengthy lists of words and phrases, color-coded green (acceptable), yellow (caution!) or red (verboten!) which they published on laminated plastic pocket-sized cards. (I had one of those cards once, which I obtained for a term paper that I ended up never writing.)
Alternative phrases were suggested. You can’t say “family room”. But you can say simply that there is a “20 ft. by 30 ft. living space” – just describe the property in ways that make no suggestion what the property or space is to be used for. See the parallel between that and “Just describe what this shampoo does”? I guess you simply couldn’t mention if it was near schools or near the beach or had beautiful views.
I went to the law library and read some of the earlier cases. It really did strike me as a slippery slope. It made perfect sense (to me) to forbid ads that consistently showed Blacks in service roles (doorman, gardener). And it made perfect sense to forbid language that explicit discriminatory language (Whites only!).
But the cottage industry lawyers didn’t stop, and the courts couldn’t figure out where to draw a line. Agents were really getting sued by people who didn’t even have stakes in the cases, and they were losing, over phrases like “walking distance to the beach” or “beautiful ocean views”.
It got totally out of hand. Eventually, HUD secretary (I think it was Donna Shalala at the time) decreed that it was okay for residence homes to provide Kosher meals, and to advertise so. That seemed to burst the whole bubble, and the whole thing faded away.
Hmm. The Unroh Act is a California thing, so I’m not sure why you thought all of us would know about it.
Also, it doesn’t seem to have caused much difficulty in RE listings; here’s one I just now randomly pulled off the internet from somewhere in California (Irvine, I think; I didn’t really pay much attention):
Lovely Seasons Woodbridge Community. Corner unit at the end of a cul-de-sac with an abundance of grassy area. Open and bright floor plan with vaulted ceilings, formal dining room, remodeled kitchen with newer countertops and cabinets. The living room has a fireplace and most of the downstairs flooring is newer laminate. Enjoy the amenities of Woodbridge including the Beach House, lagoon, fire pits, tennis / volleyball courts, pools and other recreational activities. Excellent Irvine schools. Similar models sold above $775, 000. You have found your new home!!!
Oh noes! The tennis courts and the schools discriminate! I’m sure the thought police will be after whatever RE agent posted this on line.
Methinks you are trying to convince us of a non-issue. Sure, maybe their was a brief period of overreaction, but common sense seems to have prevailed.
Also, if someone’s worst problem is that they can’t say “family room,” they don’t have much to worry about. Rec room, bonus room, TV room … take your pick, there are plenty of alternative phrases. As to the idea that you can’t mention schools, clearly that is not true as the listing above mentions it. And childless people might be interested to know about schools nearby anyway. Maybe they’re looking for quiet, maybe they’re a teacher looking for a job, maybe they think close to a school will be a selling point if it’s an investment property.
ETA:
And here is a link to the Wikipedia article on the Unroh Act. Seems pretty harmless to me.
You mean, “If you weren’t a real estate agent living in California in the 1990s.”
This was in the mid-1990s, before on-line archiving of the news was quite as pervasive as today. I’m looking now for some on-line history of the situation, and not finding too much that’s really relevant yet.
“Steering” was as issue since long before that, and remains so today, and there’s a lot you can find on that. Here’s a law review article from 1977: Real Estate Steering and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. But that refers to overt actions of real estate agents, not to the alleged “code-words” used in advertising. You can find a lot of stuff like that.
But this:
I don’t think that ad you cited was from the mid 1990’s, at which time it would have stirred up a stink. Yes, I agree with your characterization that it was “a brief period of overreaction” that lasted for several years, and that “common sense seems to have prevailed”.
The Unruh Act, in its earlier form, was nearly identical word-for-word, to a corresponding Federal law. But the Federal law was tested in Federal courts, and the state law was tested in state courts, and they came up with different interpretations. The Federal law was held to prohibit discrimination against exactly those protected groups named in the law. The State law was held, in state court, to protect other similarly discriminated groups and not just those mentioned explicitly in the law, as mentioned in the wiki:
Somewhere along the line, laws were passed (I guess in California mainly but maybe in other states too?) that gave the general public standing to sue in these kinds of cases, and I think that’s where the slippery-slope snowball really got rolling about code-words like “ocean views” in advertising.
I’m still looking for any news about that, from the time, that may have gotten preserved on-line. (This will not be the first time I’ve been called on this Board for discussing news from pre- or early-Internet days that somebody else couldn’t find on-line.)
I grew up in SoCal. I spent the 1990s living in Las Vegas & St Louis. I never heard of any such controversy.
Steering and redlining where real things. In the 1960s. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 included what’s now called the “Fair Housing Act” which outlawed such overt discrimination.
Did it continue for years even up unto today? Sure; in reduced forms in reduced places. If CA’s real estate industry had a moral panic in the 1990s over “family rooms”, the rest of the USA wasn’t paying attention.
The article I cited a post or two above (#50 I think), from 1977, discusses that in detail.
I don’t know to what extent this was only, or mostly, a California thing. I know it was at least somewhat national, as Donna Shalala, then Sec. of HUD, eventually weighed in on it.
I think @CairoCarol is right in suggesting it was a short(ish)-term passing fad, for a few years. I might not have understood at the time (and still don’t, really) if it was just a “California thing” because of the standing-to-sue rule that created the lawsuit cottage industry. That much, still exists today, and there are to this day still sleazebag law firms who go out of their way to find and sue over the most frivolous violations of the ADA. This, at least, has been in the news a lot in the last decade in Stanislaus County, a county near the SF Bay Area that has been hit hard by a lawsuit-happy sleazebag law firm somewhere in SoCal. That being more recent, I can probably find cites about that – although it’s not quite the kind of thing I was saying about “dog-whistle” and “code-word” advertising in the 90’s. For that, I’ll keep on searching a bit longer.
Okay, I found this: One version of that mid-1990’s cheat-sheet of code words, categorized as acceptable, caution, or forbidden:
Fair Housing Advertising Word and Phrase List
Note it lists “Quiet” and “Quiet Neighborhood” as acceptable, although these were listed under “Caution” in the version I remember – the argument being that these were “code-words” for “Children not welcome.”
I know what the actual word “normal” means. But that doesn’t tell me what it means in the context of shampoo or similar.
My point was that, even if you ignore the problematic meaning of the word “normal,” it’s also very ambiguous and doesn’t really tell you what the product is for.
Perhaps you could share with us three or four of the bolded words/phrases on that list that you think it is unreasonable to say are “not acceptable”? The ones I see are either outright offensive (of course you shouldn’t be able to say “no Mexicans”) or they are pretty clearly code words (“traditional neighborhood”).
@LSLGuy and @CairoCarol –
This wasn’t just in California. Here’s the substantially similar list, as revised in May 2009, from Miami.
The bold (forbidden) words mostly make sense – most of those are outrightly discminatory. But terms like “Bachelor Pad” are a bit weird – does anyone think it really means “Bachelors Only Need Apply”. Isn’t this widely understood to mean “most suitable for one person only”? Note that could be better phrases as simply “One person” – but even that’s on the Caution list.
What about “Churches, near” and “Synagogue, near” and “Temple, near”. Won’t these be especially attractive to people who are specifically interested in those facilities? Should this be interpreted as steering away anyone who isn’t interested in a church, synagogue, or temple? If these words aren’t allowed, then should religious people have to respond to as many ads as it takes, and ask about it, until they find one with a congregation nearby? (P.S.: Mosque too.)
Empty nesters – This clearly means adults only, no children. There certainly are rentals for seniors only. (I myself live in a 55+ apartment complex.) There are apartment buildings like this all over. Are they not allowed to advertise the fact? Notice that various phrases with “Senior” are allowed, but on the caution list. Phrases with “Mature” are forbidden.
Integrated is on the forbidden list? One would think that would be on the REQUIRED phrase list! All places are supposed to be integrated. If your rental is, you can’t advertise the fact?
A whole lot of the “Caution” words are weird. “Near” is on the caution list. Just “Near”. “Muslim” is on the caution list? “Mother-in-law” apartment is acceptable, but “Nanny room” is caution.
I notice that various phrases like “family room” and “families welcome” are allowed. (What? “families welcome” doesn’t steer single people away?) I recall clearly that those words really were forbidden, or at least much argued about, during some of that era. I guess they got decided to be okay. (Maybe all the “Family Values” politicians got on that case?)
“Men only” or “women only” are cautionary, allowed only for dormitories at educational institutions (per the footnotes). One controversy of the time was whether one could advertise for a preferred sex (nobody said “gender” in those days) when seeking a roommate. As far as I recall, that one was never settled, but of course people did it all the time.
ETA: It seemed that a lot of the words on the list (especially the “Caution” ones) got there because somebody somewhere sued somebody over them. Chronic offendees (and apparently, in particular, professional offendess) were scouring the want-ads for perceived coded words to be offended by, and real estate agents were gathering compendiums of those words.
SO: Back to the OP topic: Are we slipping into a situation like that again with words that can or can’t be used on product labeling?
Ok, let me try to field this one.
No.
Maybe. Maybe not.
First, they came for the “Old” Aunt Jemima, replacing her with a much younger Aunt Jemima. Well, okay. Them they came for the younger Aunt Jemima and got rid of her entirely. We all agreed that was looooong overdue, right?
Then they came for Uncle Ben too. Likewise, long overdue.
And they also came for the Land-O-Lakes Indian maiden, who was actually drawn by a Native American. I don’t know who thought there was anything perjorative about the drawing. It might have been a bit stereotyped, but nothing offensive.
Now it’s the word “normal”. When used in reference to hair oiliness? Okay, they’re removing it from 199 other beauty products too, so there’s that. But in these hysterical times, I see a new wave of hysteria a-brewing. (You’ll only prove it too, if you jump on me for using the word “hysteria”.)
Hair texture and other characteristics (as well, as course, as skin tone - not relevant to shampoo but certainly to cosmetics more widely) are well-known markers for race and ethnicity. I recall some broadcaster a few years back losing his job for describing a women’s sports team as “nappy-headed hos”. I don’t think “ho” was the only problematic term there.
So, yeah - this is a highly-charged area.
It’s going to be tough for you to have to make this adjustment. Maybe you could reach out to somebody who has had to deal with these same issues for their entire life because they don’t fall within the arbitrary definition of “normal” and ask them for advice.