NAACP Racist Advertising Protest Summary

746 Words2 Pages

Jeffery Reid
10/27/2014
Intro to African American Studies
Dr. Woods

Analysis on the NAACP Racist Advertisement Protest

In the past, advertising was extremely racist and was almost accepted as the norm by the majority of Americans. Ads promoting everything from household cleaning products to breakfast cereal were laced with negative overtones that were targeted at the African American community. Although some ads were sneakily provocative, others were almost astonishingly shameless having the audacity to not only deface the image of the black man and women but also named their product after the very word that has tormented African Americans for generations. Products such as the infamous “Nigger liquid stove polish” and “Nigger Head Shrimp” …show more content…

Throughout this document are press releases letters that are exchanged by NAACP leaders such as former Southeast Regional Secretary Ruby Hurley and the Department of Public Relations. From these documents I have gathered that during this point in time mainstream America had still not accepted historical racism as apart of everyday life. If a company can simply sell a product called “Nigger Head Shrimp” to the general public without little resistance, attention, or moral hesitation, then evidently the public has yet to let go of their racist views towards African Americans. This acceptance has carried over to the present as well as products like Aunt Jemima’s Syrup and Uncle Ben’s Rice. I don’t know which screams racial equality more a product made in the image of an ex-slave, who lived on a Louisiana plantation making flapjacks or a “simple, cheerful, and ambition-free butler and cook.” Unknown to most of us today, these two still remain as some of America’s most beloved racist spoke-characters in ads all across the country. This reasoning can also be the cause of why it took the intervention of a national NAACP protest for mainstream America to become aware of this injustice.
After reading these documents I have come to the conclusion that these ads and products are not results of a simple misunderstanding they were conceived due to the fact that Africans haven’t fully been embraced into post slavery America. This in turn created an acceptance and justification of these actions allowing the general populous to become numb to these

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