Home for him was Hallmark, where in August 1999 he had become the first full-time African-American male writer on the company's payroll. (The company already employed a black editor and black freelance writers.)
Hallmark hired Barnes soon after he graduated from Jackson State University in Mississippi. And after only 6 months on the job, he earned a rare honor: A photo of Barnes was printed on the back of one of his cards. The design also featured Barnes' name on the inside, an accolade usually reserved for prominent poets.
Set against a blurry painting of a dreadlocked black man garbed in white, the words are proud, the tone stately: Don't ever let anyone tell you we're not beautiful ... with a set of lips as full as the moon ... full nose ... so many skin tones of brown, from high yellow to deep purple-black.... When we see other people of color we smile ... because we see ourselves.
But Barnes didn't see much of himself around the office.
When he arrived at Hallmark, Barnes had expected to find a staff of African-American designers and writers working on the Mahogany imprint, a line of cards tailored for black consumers. Instead, he found a white art director, a white editorial director and white writers.
"That was a huge shock to me," Barnes tells the Pitch. "When you make a line of cards specifically targeted to a certain demographic, there is a distinct voice that can only come from people who have themselves lived through the experience. That is not to say that my white coworkers weren't writing beautiful Mahogany pieces, but what I didn't see was an influx of African-American writers getting a chance to express their own experiences or to be writers, period. We would be in editorial meetings consisting of every writer, editor and editorial director in the company, about 100 strong, and each and every time, I was the only African-American man in the room."
Hallmark introduced its first greeting cards for black consumers in the 1960s, but it didn't launch a full-fledged line until 1987, when it unveiled Mahogany as a 16-card seasonal offering. Now, with more than 800 options, it's the largest card catalog marketed to African-Americans.
Alston Green, who now lives in New York City, worked at Hallmark from October 1990 to March 2002. As senior creative product designer, he oversaw Mahogany's expansion. Green says he struggled with Hallmark's management to establish an authoritative voice. He says many meetings consisted essentially of Green and then-editorial director Myron Spencer Davis, two African-Americans, trying to convince skeptical white coworkers that they knew what black consumers wanted.
According to Black Enterprise magazine, Mahogany's customer base is 80 percent black, and ethnic consumers purchase nearly 33 percent of all greeting cards, with African-Americans spending about $610 million annually.
Green put the Mahogany line in perspective at a Colgate-Palmolive convention in February 2000, where he debuted "Quest for the Best," an exhibit that depicted the evolution of African-American imagery on Hallmark products since the company's founding in 1910. He repeated the presentation at Hallmark in May of that year.
"Hallmark had been producing African imagery on social-expression products since it first opened," Green tells the Pitch. "They were very derogatory initially, and these images were intended for a white audience. I wanted to convey that Hallmark did that kind of product because it was relevant for its consumers at the time."
Green says his employers recognized that he was spinning negative images into a positive presentation. However, soon after "Quest for the Best," he was demoted several times; he eventually resigned.
Comments (0)