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From time to time, race issues pop up in advertising. Race is a tricky subject in advertising because common approaches tend to reinforce racial stereotypes and rub people the wrong way if not handled with care.

Sensibilities vary from city to city and from country to country. Since the United States went through the civil rights movement, many Americans are aware of race issues and may recognize on their own when people of color are depicted in an unfavorable light.

In 2010, a KFC ad ran in Australia depicting a lone white fan at a cricket game, surrounded by a rowdy bunch of black West Indians. To restore order, the white cricket fan placates the entire crowd with a bucket of fried chicken. I’ve read commentary from Australians rejecting claims that the ad perpetuates racial stereotypes, but the controversy raised enough public ire that KFC eventually pulled the ad.

In 2011, Nivea ran an ad depicting a preppy, groomed black man holding the head of his former self, who is sporting a beard, an Afro, and an angry expression. The ad clearly conveyed a message—the idea that natural hair on a black man is uncivilized, rather than simply being a style preference or a nod to Afrocentrism. The ad was pulled and the company issued an apology.

The main goal of some political ads is to spread fear and distrust of opposing candidates by focusing on differences that can be portrayed as “anti-American.” This ad for Pete Hoekstra’s Michigan Senate run was shown during the 2012 Super Bowl. The fact that this ad encouraged xenophobia caused such outrage against Pete Hoekstra that Hoekstra’s opponent Debbie Stabenow actually saw a rush of donations to her campaign as a direct result of the ad. The ad was pulled by the Hoekstra campaign soon after.

On the other hand, many ads that feature people of color are successful:

In the 1960s, Levy’s Jewish Rye ad campaign was an effort to expand the customer base of Levy’s Jewish Rye beyond the Jewish community. The ad campaign featured ordinary New Yorkers of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds and was groundbreaking for its inclusiveness.

In the 1980s, the clothing company United Colors of Benetton gained a reputation for pushing the envelope in areas of race and religion with some of the most memorable ad campaigns in advertising history. I’ve heard some people complain that some Benetton ads are racist, but provocative ads are designed to test the line of what is appropriate and to make people literally stop in their tracks and take notice.

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A centenarian, chief of his indigenous village on the South Pacific island of Vanuatu, speaks about culture, his life, dying, and changing times:

Contains traditional Vanuatu clothing—very revealing by Western standards.Via The Daily Dish

It’s great to see things like this video—or like our Vanishing Cultures books—that search out people in isolated areas and cultures and get their stories—while we still can. We hope this village can find a way to give its children opportunity and choice while retaining its traditional ways.

This week, we have a moving documentary about the distinction made based on skin color, even within a single culture or ethnic group. It’s long, but it’s worth watching the whole thing, from the interview with a four-year-old girl to the academic perspectives of professors.

It’s always important to listen to people discussing their own experiences, as this documentary enables us to do—and the filmmaker is right: it’s up to us all to challenge notions of beauty and see the beauty in every skin tone.

Via Laughing Squid, our video of the week celebrates a playful love of books:

I think we can all agree: that is so cool.

Via Angry Asian Man, a music video on the environmental impact of disposable chopsticks:

It’s great to see people thinking about the little, easy-to-do ways we can all help the environment—all the while supporting the deliciousness of sushi and other foods traditionally eaten with chopsticks!

From Colorlines, a moving video articulating what Michael Jackson meant to the African American community:

It points to the goal for all of us—creating a world where everyone can just be themselves, comfortable in their own skin, doing what they love. Where no one is accused of “acting White” or “acting Black,” because they’re just acting like they want to act.

We’re taking a break from Thursday videos this week, and listening to the radio instead! NPR’s Tell Me More has a great segment in which several mothers of multiracial children share their personal experiences being asked if those are their kids, or if they’re the nanny or babysitter. It’s a great piece, so check it out:

I think one of the most interesting things is the difference in the experiences of the white mother and the mothers of color: “where do you get them?” versus “are you looking for more work?”

We’re looking on the lighter side this week, with Jon Stewart and Wyatt Cenac explaining why we’re so bad at talking about race. Enjoy!

Contains some adult language.

This video is from Australia. Videos from abroad give Americans an international perspective on race relations. I always enjoy videos or statements that confront racism with humor and wit. Sure, overt racism is disturbing, but if one is able to collect oneself, avoid the knee-jerk reaction, and calmly and reasonably respond, I feel more wars would be averted and peace would prevail. Besides, it is no small feat to turn an ugly situation into one where we can actually laugh (Warning: Contains adult language).

This week’s Video Thursday is a flashback to 1965, and a movie whose distributors sold tickets by using blatant racial scare-tactics.

^{Via Shani Hilton guest-blogging for Ta-Nahisi Coates via PostBourgie via Oscar Willis.}

Reading a little more about it, the NYTimes description of the movie (which is French) says it’s “more thoughtful and less exploitive than its American release title would lead one to expect,” but, frankly, that’s not saying much because it’s harder to get less thoughtless and more exploitive than “My Baby is Black!” And, of course, the trailer proudly proclaims that the movie is “For Mature Adults Only.” I haven’t seen the movie itself, but what the trailer is saying is, “Adults, a black man with a white woman is risqué and exotic, come be titillated—but don’t bring the kids, they might get the idea that an interracial relationship is okay.”

It’s jaw-dropping to jump back a couple decades and see how open and public race-baiting was. But then we’re reminded that we’re not done with racial stereotyping yet:

Via Stuff White People Do, a different perspective on Arizona’s new immigration law:

Ah, humor. Reminds me of this now-classic tee shirt:

But all kidding aside, what we need is not more people with guns. It’s more schools with pencils and books, more community centers offering classes for adult immigrants. And a society that looks at would-be immigrants and sees a chance, and not a threat with a darker skin tone.

Via RaceWire, a new music video from Alicia Keys showcases an interracial relationship—and facing the condemnation of friends and families as a result.

No single story—and for all the hopping through time, this is a single story—can represent the variety of interracial relationship and the experiences of people dating cross-culturally, but it’s nice to see a mainstream pop star address race in a mainstream medium.

An Indian woman and feminist shares three encounters with women who are working for women’s rights and for peace within their traditions. It’s long, but it’s worth it:

All too often, I think we forget the balance of which she speaks. In one conversation, we talk about how tradition binds communities, provides a sense of self and of shared heritage, and is something worth preserving. In another conversation, we talk about how tradition all too often treats women as second-class. They can be one conversation.

In his deadpan way, Colbert reminds us how central race is to the immigration debate:

Author Chang-Rae Lee speaks about what box he’s going to check on his census, and how little it says about him:

Most interesting to me is his comments on the white box as opposed to the many Asian boxes. There are eleven subcategories of Asian, including two fill-in options. The American Indian/Alaska Native box comes with a fill-in to list your tribe. Black and white, however, only get one box each. It doesn’t differentiate between Black people of Caribbean, Sub-Saharan African, Northern African, or “descended from slaves” heritages. It doesn’t differentiate between WASPs, Ashkenazim, Scandinavians, or Irish.

Maybe it has to do with the assumption of privilege. White people are assumed to be privileged and black people are assumed to be disadvantaged; that assumption wipes away all internal distinctions. Asian Americans aren’t painted in such broad strokes, which allows a greater level of distinction to take place. But, as Chang-rae Lee says, even that doesn’t tell us much.

For your watching pleasure, Colbert’s best comments on race collected in one four-minute clip:

Continuing last week’s conversation on being biracial or multiracial—in a video and link to an essay about census—we have a video looking back to the 2008 presidential campaign and a group of multiracial students at Rutgers:

_{If the video does not appear, you may need to download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.}

The more we talk about race and the more ways we look at race, the better we are able to talk about race and to look at race. So kudos to these young adults for making their experiences known.

An eloquent look at being biracial:

I think it’s telling that the frustrating shown in this video is mostly from the tendency for people to be placed into little boxes and defined in rigid, inflexible terms—and that the biracial people speaking here see that tendency as much in the minority community as in the majority.

These children, honestly answering questions about race and racism, illuminate some of the problems we have talking about race in America. We know that children as young as 6 months old respond to skin color, so when the kids at the beginning of the video don’t know the words race, ethnicity, or racism, that’s a problem: they don’t know how to address their own reactions and experiences. They’re not having the conversations they need to understand the complicated culture in which they live.

And the older children in this video who do know the words to talk about race and racism are jaded. “You just can’t change people,” they say. Really? Or you just can’t change people—without having difficult conversation about the complicated culture in which we all live.

A look at how black children look at dolls—light and dark—in the 1940s and today.

There has been improvement, and that’s great. But what’s really telling is the difference between the boys and the girls; the boys universally look at the black and white dolls as equally pretty, but the girls were split, many of them preferring the white doll. This small study isn’t enough to tell us why the difference exists, but it’s easy to speculate that girls feel more pressure in regard to appearance and prettiness, and are therefore more aware of racial stereotypes when it comes to beauty. Girls of color face sexism as well as racism, and the combination can be particularly painful.