Prada and other high-end fashion retailers are being forced to do “sensitivity training” after a series of super-racist blackface ads and products. Is it that hard to NOT be racist?
Well, it’s nothing new. Dehumanizing images of Black people have been used in ads forever.
We’ve been portrayed in ads for centuries as filthy, savage, simple-minded, ugly, and subservient in contrast to whites, who are portrayed as clean, civilized, and intelligent.
Advertisements like these represent the racism of our culture.
Soap ads have always been some of the worst offenders. We’re stereotyped as dirty, so Blackness in these ads is the negative contrast to clean, pure whiteness for lazy and racist ad executives.
Because we still live in a racist country, not much has changed! As though it was 100 years ago, Dove had a recent ad that implied clean = white.
And Ancestry.com got in trouble in 2019 for a commercial that told a “love story” … between an enslaved woman and her slaveowner!
When we see ads like this, we know that the decision makers at these companies are either racist or totally ignorant.
Either way, they don’t deserve our cash! No apology or “commitment to diversity” will actually change things as long as they keep making money. This is why it’s so important to support Black-owned businesses!