Did you notice this too? After Obama was elected President, I began to notice that more and more corporations were featuring photos in their marketing materials of beautiful smiling black people. Brochures, billboards, websites, catalogues. I remember being delighted by the changes. I only later learned that I was being duped. The capitalist system was merely shape-shifting, again. I came to understand, by reading the perspectives of black people, that the marketing phenomenon was a calculated move to profit from the perception of diversity and equality. Duh. Those photos of beautiful smiling black people subliminally led liberal white folks like me to believe that corporations (and universities, banks, medical institutions, etc.) were embracing our values. Those photos were intended to make us feel good, and imagine that systemic change had happened (when it hadn’t), and therefore be happy to spend our money on their products or support their institutions without questioning or investigating their policies and practices. Once I could see it, I couldn’t not see it.