9 Racist Ads, Commercials That Promote Negative Images of Black People

In a 2008 television commercial for the Japanese cellphone company, Emobile, a monkey is shown in an election campaign with the slogan "Change," the same slogan widely used during the campaign of the first African-American president of the U.S., Barack Obama. Sony Corporation promoted a Black-against-white ad in their multi-vignette PlayStation Portable campaign in 2006. The ad featured a strong-looking white woman, dressed in all white, clawing and dominating a subordinate Black woman. The ad was constructed to promote their new ceramic white PSP. In 2010, a KFC Corp. commercial in Australia featured a young white Australian at a cricket match surrounded by loudly cheering Black fans. The Australian, known as Mick, remarks: "Need a tip when you're stuck in an awkward situation?" He then pulled out a big bucket of KFC's fried chicken, sharing it with the Black fans. He ends by telling the camera approvingly, "Too easy." In 2007, Intel Corporation launched a national advertising campaign that featured a white man dressed in business attire standing over six muscular Black runners bowing down in front of him in perfect symmetry. Earlier this year, Pepsi caused an uproar with a Mountain Dew campaign that seemingly endorsed the stereotype of the Black male criminal. In the internet commercial a white women is assaulted by a goat. Five Black men are shown in a police lineup beside the animal and the woman is asked, 'Who did it?' The commercial was created by rapper Tyler The Creator, who rejected claims the footage depicted Black men as criminals. "Not only is it messing up opportunities for me, but also maybe opportunities for another young Black male who maybe looks up to me and wants to do that in the future," he said. Nivea suggested Blacks needed to re-civilize themselves in a 2011 campaign for shaving cream. The promo showed a well-dressed and clean-shaven Black man throwing the head of a not-so clean-shaven Afro-wearing male. Burger King, which has had problematic ads in the past, came under fire in 2012 for a commercial with Mary J. Blige and fried chicken. To promote its new chicken wrap, the company showed R&B star Blige, singing about fried chicken in a very distasteful way. When asked why she did the campaign, Blige said Burger King portrayed the commercial differently from the concept that actually aired. Vogue magazine recreated a scene from the film "King Kong" on its cover photo of NBA star Lebron James and model Gisele Bundchen. The cover depicted James as King Kong and Bundchen as the "damsel in distress." In 2011, Dove released an ad with magnified images of clean and unclean skin as the backdrop to three women of different skin colors. In a timeline from the left to right, there is a Black women directly under the image of unclean skin, a biracial woman in the middle, and a white woman directly under the image of clean skin. Above the images are the words "Before" ————> "After."

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