The Power of Postage and "Mahogany"

--I went to the post office over lunch and while I was there, I observed their upcoming series of stamps, the "Stop Domestic Violence" collection. I'm all for stopping domestic violence, but aren't some causes just too big to be tackled with postage stamps?

--I also went to buy a greeting card and, for whatever reason, a certain type of card really stood out to me. I'm talking about the African-American cards. You've seen them, they're the cards with prominent drawings of African-Americans on them. I remember when I used to work at Hallmark the series was called "mahogany" which is another issue in and of itself. But anyway, why are these cards necessary when every other card-buying race is represented in one racially-unspecific pool of cards? Are the sentiments contained in greeting cards not universal? Do African-Americans say "Happy Birthday" differently than the rest of humanity? I gave three Father's Day cards this year and none of them featured a human figure on them at all much less a specific drawing of a Caucasian man. Was there a "Birch Wood" collection that I missed? I'm not sure if the technology is there yet, but I think the next revolution will allow us to buy cards where we can have the skin color added custom, right there at the point of sale. "Excuse me, this card is for my friend who is half Portuguese, one quarter Ugandan, and one quarter Taiwanese. Can you shade the skin color accordingly? Do you sell stamps?" I realize that these Afro-centric cards are just an option and that not all thoughtful, card-giving African-Americans are prone to buy these cards. It actually wouldn't surprise me if the sales demographics for African-American cards were similar to those of African-American-dominated rap music, i.e. mostly white kids trying to be cool or funny. Why were these created? Were Hallmark and American Greetings attempting to be sensitive and forward-thinking or was there a public outcry for these cards? Doesn't it seem like one of those times when the whole family is eating beef tenderloin but little Jimmy wants to be difficult and insists that Mom make him some Spaghetti-O's? Okay, let's assume for a second that the Mahogany Collection is not a little weird and is socially justified and loved by all races of this multi-cultural community. Why are the Mahogany cards always such shitty cards? They're never funny and rarely poignant. They're the cards that look they were thrown together in five minutes at the end of the day on a Friday before a holiday weekend. Is this not racism?