If you make a search for something like "most racist ads", you'll find tons of YouTube video compilations and webpages of advertisements which are supposedly "racist", even though clearly the "racism" is unintentional.
There are tons and tons of examples, but one in particular comes to mind, given how clearly non-racist it is, with the "racism" being attached to it artificially by moral busybodies: A magazine ad, selling something I don't remember right now, but had something to do about the speed of some kind of technology, had a woman office worker standing, and a bunch of sprinters on the side in the typical ready-to-go position. What was the "problem"? Well, the woman happened to have light skin, while the sprinters were all black (in fact, if I remember correctly, just the same person copy-pasted over and over). And the ready-to-go position made it look like they were bowing to the woman.
Quite clearly the sprinters were representing the extreme speed of the thing that was being advertised, and putting black people there makes sense because the world's fastest sprinters are black. It's quite clear that absolutely no racist connotation was intended. Yet the moral crusaders still decided to interpret it as racist, and the company had to pull the ad.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that the exact opposite of racism happened with that ad: The people who made the ad were so far removed from any form of racist ideology and mentality that they were completely blind to any such connotations that the picture might have. They wanted to depict sprinters ready to go and run as fast as possible, so they used people resembling the fastest sprinters in the world. As the office worker they used a person who looked like a somewhat stereotypical (albeit perhaps a bit unusually beautiful) office worker woman. Slight stereotyping? Maybe. Racist? No! The exact opposite! Their mind was as far removed from racism as it possibly could.
Moreover, I would say that it's precisely the people who see racism in that ad who are the actual racists. They don't see people in the ad. They don't look at those people and think "ah, this is an office worker, and this is a professional sprinter". Instead, they look at those people and think "this is a black person, and this is a white person." They don't see people. They see skin color. They see race. And they judge the picture based on these racial profiles, and assign value and meaning to the picture based on these racial profiles, putting it above and beyond what the picture is actually trying to depict.
In other words, they are the racists here.
I have been saying for a long time, decades in fact, that this world will be completely ridden of racism only when for example advertisement companies can make these types of ads (and even the more "obnoxious" ones), and people don't get offended for something that was not the intent, nor start accusing something of "racism" even though it clearly isn't. When people see this kind of ad, and their thought is "an office worker and some sprinters", not "a white woman and some black men".
As long as there is controversy and furor for these kinds of things, you know that racism is still strong in this world. And not from the part of the advertisement company.
There are tons and tons of examples, but one in particular comes to mind, given how clearly non-racist it is, with the "racism" being attached to it artificially by moral busybodies: A magazine ad, selling something I don't remember right now, but had something to do about the speed of some kind of technology, had a woman office worker standing, and a bunch of sprinters on the side in the typical ready-to-go position. What was the "problem"? Well, the woman happened to have light skin, while the sprinters were all black (in fact, if I remember correctly, just the same person copy-pasted over and over). And the ready-to-go position made it look like they were bowing to the woman.
Quite clearly the sprinters were representing the extreme speed of the thing that was being advertised, and putting black people there makes sense because the world's fastest sprinters are black. It's quite clear that absolutely no racist connotation was intended. Yet the moral crusaders still decided to interpret it as racist, and the company had to pull the ad.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that the exact opposite of racism happened with that ad: The people who made the ad were so far removed from any form of racist ideology and mentality that they were completely blind to any such connotations that the picture might have. They wanted to depict sprinters ready to go and run as fast as possible, so they used people resembling the fastest sprinters in the world. As the office worker they used a person who looked like a somewhat stereotypical (albeit perhaps a bit unusually beautiful) office worker woman. Slight stereotyping? Maybe. Racist? No! The exact opposite! Their mind was as far removed from racism as it possibly could.
Moreover, I would say that it's precisely the people who see racism in that ad who are the actual racists. They don't see people in the ad. They don't look at those people and think "ah, this is an office worker, and this is a professional sprinter". Instead, they look at those people and think "this is a black person, and this is a white person." They don't see people. They see skin color. They see race. And they judge the picture based on these racial profiles, and assign value and meaning to the picture based on these racial profiles, putting it above and beyond what the picture is actually trying to depict.
In other words, they are the racists here.
I have been saying for a long time, decades in fact, that this world will be completely ridden of racism only when for example advertisement companies can make these types of ads (and even the more "obnoxious" ones), and people don't get offended for something that was not the intent, nor start accusing something of "racism" even though it clearly isn't. When people see this kind of ad, and their thought is "an office worker and some sprinters", not "a white woman and some black men".
As long as there is controversy and furor for these kinds of things, you know that racism is still strong in this world. And not from the part of the advertisement company.
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