The American diversity educator Jane Elliot perfectly defines racism in the quote above. Advertising has historically played a large role in the propagation of racism, most notably towards the beginning of the twentieth century (Maciejewski, 2021). This article discusses racism towards people of African descent in advertising from the late nineteenth century through 2016: Race in America: The Problem of Perpetually Racist Advertising – Media Ethics Report. However, racism in advertising has affected various minorities, as is demonstrated in two of the commercials below.
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This infographic by Jeffery Maciejewski highlights the evolution of racism in advertising from 1875 until 2016 (Maciejewski, 2021)
The United States has a long history of embracing racism towards Asians, going back to passage of The Chinese Exclusion Act in the late nineteenth century (DeLeon, 2020). While this Kool Aid commercial from 1960 was meant to be entertaining, it embraced multiple Asian stereotypes by over- emphasizing slanted eyes, exaggerating an Asian accent, and dressing the main Japanese character as a karate sensei.
Racism towards Hispanics in The United States began in 1848 (Blakemore, 2021). This article breaks down the brutal history of racism against Hispanics in The United States: The Brutal History of Anti-Latino Discrimination in America - HISTORY. This 1960s commercial by The Frito Lay Company helped propagate racist stereotypes against Hispanics in the United States by using a mascot that was deceptive, manipulative, and spoke poor English.
Racism against Africans is commonplace in Chinese media, where dark skin is represented as being primitive and unattractive (Sui, 2020). While the western world was outraged by this laundry detergent commercial for Qiaobi, the Chinese public saw nothing wrong with it (Folley, 2016). You can read more about the west's backlash to this commercial here: Racist Chinese Laundry Commercial Sparks Outrage (nbcnews.com)
This 2017 commercial by Apple demonstrates its commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility by embracing diversity in its workforce and advertising. Furthermore, this commercial exemplifies the move away from racism in advertising.
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