In today's society a good majority of people believe that we live in a 'post-racial' society. It seems that many commercials nowadays don't fear pushing the boundaries in order to make that point. While the mass media is frequently accused of avoiding tough issues such as that of race, many commercials now seem to perpetuate racism through representing ethnic stereotypes. Multicultural media portrays racial and ethnic minorities more in commercials today due to the higher brand loyalty among minority groups and their growing buying power. While I don't acknowledge the existence of 'post-racial' advertising, as there is no way for us to ignore one's race within an interaction, these racialized commercials shared in a Huffington Post article last October seem to speak on the continuous racialization and racism occurring worldwide through the perpetuation of racial stereotypes:
Racist Stereotypes Huffington Post
Many commercials cast minority characters and play music representative of ethnic groups to portray diversity. Given this fact however, many commercials such as the six mentioned in the article posted above are perpetuating racist stereotypes such as the liquor commercials where Caucasian shoppers are shown speaking what is known as black vernacular English. Showing diversity does not provide a free pass to culturally appropriate or reinforce racial stereotypes that work to further marginalize people of color.
Below are a few magazine advertisements that show this 'post-racial' or rather racist means of trying to reach the multicultural buying group that has the highest brand loyalty: minorities.
Great examples! This just goes to show that we might not be in this post-racial era. There is a lot of this in advertising and it can sometimes be overlooked but when you are informed you begin to notice more.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree. Even if you look at all of the media coverage surrounding the Freddie Gray murder, it shows how racialization plays a role in perpetuating racial stereotypes. It's really hard to say that racism doesn't exist when you look at the differing sentiments towards these news bits and the further divide they create between racial communities.
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