Racism Presented to You by the Following Company

One topic that will continually be controversial in society and media is the issue of racism. Ethnicity is something that unfortunately is imbedded into a lot of things in our world whether we acknowledge it or not. Advertising in society is a great example of this. In countless ads race is used as a part of it, but is it okay to do this? Especially when certain ethnics are portrayed with rather negative stereotypes?


 I certainly believe that some advertisements are quite vile with how openly racist they are, but ultimately advertisements are not meant to be seen as guides of morality. Advertisements are meant to get people to notice their product or their message and for that message to stick to the viewer like glue. From a business standpoint I would say that using whatever means necessary to get your product to sell is fair game. It is not a question of whether it is right and decent, the question for advertisers is what works.
 

This advertisement was used in the election between Republican party member Bob Corker and Democratic party member Harold Ford. Harold Ford was going to be the first black senator in Tennessee if he won that election. So the Republican party came out with this ad against him. It more or less played on some of the stereotypes people had of blacks. The ad can be said to have been pretty much successful since Corker got a boost in his points at the poll once this ad came out. The ad was certainly effective, but it certainly was not positive.

Unfortunately racism and the use of it in advertisements has been around for a very long time, most likely since the very beginning when ads were first being used. Today racism is alive in well in our world. As a world have made plenty of strides in the right direction, but the ultimate goal is still far away. This too applies to advertisements in our society, we have definitely gone far away from advertisements like:

But we still have advertisements like:

Racism in advertising today is not quite so blatantly obvious with words, but they certainly achieve the effect with images. Since it is not the words that are racist but the image, I imagine companies have an easier time denying the fact they meant to be racist. Subtlety and the ability to deny any claims to racism is the ability that comes from only using images to imply racism in advertising.

Advertisers have always had one job and one job only: to sell the product or idea. This is not to say though that they are heartless monsters who simply want money, they are just doing what is necessary sometimes for the job. I believe advertisers do not have ethical responsibilities, rather I believe it is our society that has the responsibility. Racism and stereotypes are practically embraced by many in the world, because of this advertisers see that these are methods in which people can be reached and pulled in by their advertisements. If we want advertisements to be more racially responsible, change has to be made within our society.