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American Society of Civil Engineers Public Communications I was appalled by your ad, "Civil Engineers Make The Difference--They build the quality of life." Most glaring is the obvious racist implication involved in juxtaposing the old photograph of the two black men ferrying one car (perhaps some white man's?) with the big modern bridge transporting hundreds of thousands of autos to their destination. Was it insensitivity or just plain stupidity that caused you to overlook this? Quality of life? Yeah, without a doubt engineers have made a difference, and not all has been bad. But not all has been good either. Perhaps a more accurate photo of your bridge would have included the pollution that hangs heavy over the hills behind the bridge, caused precisely because of all those automobiles. Your ad relies on the ignorance of the reader also. We are expected to overlook that engineers are responsible for killing living white-water rivers with hydro electric dams, paving the earth for highways, building faulty nuclear power plants and supporting the myth that technology is progress. It is not always so!
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April 20, 1988