• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, September 29, 2017

It’s really a sad commentary on the racial and political tensions still permeating our society when someone’s big idea is to create underpants with messages like “Please Don’t Shoot” and “I Am Not Armed.” Also, “My Life Matters,” and “I Have A Family.”

But that’s exactly what the group Saturday Morning unveiled during Advertising Week New York on Thursday.

The so-called “Peace Briefs” are designed to save lives. Particularly the lives of young African-American men who find themselves in confrontational situations with police. As we all tragically know, the odds are stacked heavily against civilians in such cases. The police have guns. The civilians don’t.

Saturday Morning was founded by a group of creatives, including Keith Cartwright, executive creative director Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners, Geoff Edwards, co-head creative at CAA, and Jayanta Jenkins, global creative director at Twitter.

The group has multiple goals, including raising awareness of injustice, reducing violence between police and the communities they serve, and trying to devise ways to create understanding between races.

Those are challenging but worthy causes to tackle.

I hope the briefs work. They’re being distributed free in the inner cities of Los Angles, Chicago and other areas.

“This is a simple but powerful idea,” said Cartwright. “We believe that a pair of underwear could potentially save lives, especially in a city like Chicago, where the concentration of dissidence between the police and the south side of the City is at an all-time high … Our hope is that the simple messages on the waist bands will help ease the tension and reduce the violence.”

I wonder what Trump would think of this idea. No wait, I take it back. I’m pretty sure whatever he had to say wouldn’t contribute much to the crisis Saturday Morning is trying to address. His past commentary makes that abundantly clear.

But Saturday Morning is pressing on with other initiatives, too. The group announced its work with the CEO Council on Diversity & Inclusion, a partnership with Proctor & Gamble, and new educational alliances with Syracuse University and VCU’s Brand Center.