By The Rainbow PUSH Coalition
The racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, violent climate we find ourselves in these days manifests in many ways – starting at the top with the toxic rhetoric coming out of Washington to the latest police slaughter of an unarmed African American in California to the n-word showing up in an ad selling boots on Groupon.
This week, Groupon was forced to apologize after a third-party vendor used the n-word in an ad to describe the color of suede boots for sale on the site. Groupon said that as soon as company officials became aware the word was being used, both the product and the vendor were pulled.
“We are appalled,” a Groupon VP said.
So are we. How does this keep happening?
In 2017, Walmart had to pull an ad that used the n-word to describe the color of a wig cap. Walmart blamed the ad on a third-party seller and apologized.
Also, this week, beer giant Heineken, under pressure, pulled its “sometimes, lighter is better” commercial, which depicted a bartender sliding a beer down a bar. The bottle bypassed several dark-skinned black people, before stopping in front of a woman with a much lighter complexion.
We are sick and tired of insults, slurs and apologies.
These giant companies have major public relations departments, ad agencies and, presumably, professional systems in place to vet ads and sellers. They must do better.
The use of racially insensitive language and images appears to be a marketing device. We don’t think it is a mistake. We know it is an insult.
Enough.
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Links added by Beachwood.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on March 29, 2018