Hunting Down Racism vs. Wanting to Find It

Does pointing out how any one thing is racist set an example or just create even more racism? It is not a new idea that there is racism in the world, but it is although an odd idea that people are actually looking for places to insert racism and increase it. There of course are numerous cases where forms of media are encouraging racism, but other times it seems as though people are making not racist forms of media be about racism on their own.

Sources:

• Student Resources in Context: “Blackface Dunkin' Donuts Ad in Thailand Brings Racism Accusation”
• Student Resources in Context: “The Fame”

While looking into racism in advertising I found that it usually comes down to interpretation. The article “Blackface Dunkin' Donuts Ad in Thailand Brings Racism Accusation” shows an example of this. The article discusses an ad where a white girl in a white room bites into a chocolate donut and the room and her skin both become brown. People found the ad’s message to reflecting “a prejudice often used to discriminate.” However, the creator of the ad questions, “What’s the big fuss?” He actually claims that his ad breaks “the obsessive preference for ‘white skin’ in Thailand.”

SOURCE: https://ionenewsone.files.wordpress.com

On a slightly different note, a Cherrios commercial aired recently that sparked some controversy. According to “The Fame,” the commercial showed a normal family bonding over the cereal. What angered some is that the mother was white and the dad was black. Viewers left comments on the ad making “references to crime, absentee fatherhood and other racist stereotypes.” The author of this article believes all of this hate was caused by the immense power that the television has over viewers. I think this can relate to my last blog post, discussing how media influences racial views so powerfully. People are made to think an ad like this is wrong because as I said earlier, the news shows black people as criminals and gangsters.

Multiracial family in Cheerios commercial mixednation.com 

The two situations disagree because the Dunkin’ Donuts ad actually did something that could have been found as racist, despite the director’s intentions. People were somehow able to make a valid point to how racist the advertisement was or could be. On the other hand, the Cheerios commercial was not racist at all. It actually had the intentions of breaking racial barriers. Yet, people somehow found a way to make it a racist siutuation by the way they responded.

Both of the views are very similar, but as to the idea that racism is prevalent in advertising, I agree. I think the Cheerios article is more convincing of this. The ad was not racist at all, in my opinion, yet people turned it into a racist situation. I think actually in both of these scenarios people were almost trying to find a way to make it racist as if they wanted it to be. The Cheerios article shows how racist ads of the past have shaped people to think in such a way that makes them dislike black people or interracial marriages. It shows the power media has and also the negative way it uses it.

Future Research Question: I plan to look into the influence social media alone has on racism. Obviously it will be more opinionated, but since it is a more personal and highly used form of media, it will be interesting to see the power it has.