About Their Eyes Were Watching ...
2010
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It's week one of the new year, but ye olde stereotyping won't drop as quickly as that ball did on midnight. It's a shame that my first TEWW post in 2010 has to be about ANOTHER ignorant ad. Apparently, KFC's execs didn't get my 2009 memo to text service company KGB: Minority consumers won't turn a blind eye to racist commercials!
I guess, racial sensitivity wasn't on KFC's resolution list. Check out a recent ad they released in Australia as a part of "KFC's Cricket Survival Guide:"
Why, oh why, did the fast-food giant feel compelled to go for the overdone -- and offensive -- connection between black folks and their bird. Oh, that's right, there's no racism in Australia. Responding to backlash that resulted from online reproductions of the ad in the United States, KFC has released a public statement emphasizing that the "culturally-based stereotype" of chicken-loving darkies is specific to the U.S. and that their "light-hearted reference to the West Indian cricket team" was misintepreted by American viewers.
Fair enough. But how much longer will the "I didn't know I couldn't do that" defense be used before we start conquering some stubborn social mores? A similarly offensive commercial floating around YouTube illustrates just how far the chicken-loving Negro has made it around the world.
So, unless Dave Chappelle was right about our predisposition for poultry, KFC should pull the commercial. Contact them here to tell them so. Corporations need to be conscious of their global consumers. Cultural ignorance is so 2009. And stereotyping? We off that.
-- SAARET E. YOSEPH
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