UNICEF is running a series of German-language blackface ads:
Click the link above for a gallery of all the ads.
Of the ads, Black Woman in Europe writes,
Besides claiming that every single person in “Africa” isn’t educated, and doing so in an extremely patronising way, it is also disturbing that this organisation thinks blackfacing kids with mud (!) equals “relating to african children”. Also, the kids’ statements ignore the existance of millions of african academics and regular people and one again reduces a whole continent to a village of muddy uneducated uncivilized people who need to be educated (probably by any random westerner). This a really sad regression.Bottom lines of this campaign are: Black = mud = African = uneducated. White = educated. We feel this campaign might do just as much harm as it does any good. You don’t collect money for helping people by humiliating and trivializing them first.
Interested in (much) friendlier face painting? Check out this face-painting instruction book–it’ll make your kids’ parties extra special. (affiliate link)
2 responses so far ↓
1 In Case You Needed Another Reason Not to Support Unicef « Artificially Sweetened // Oct 17, 2007 at 4:55 am
[...] October 16, 2007 at 11:55 pm | In AdoptThis! | Tags: adoption, guatemala, UNICEF I got this link to Multicultural Toybox (which is a pretty awesome site in and of itself) from my one of my must-read bloggers, cloudscome. [...]
2 Michelle Morris // Nov 26, 2007 at 12:33 am
I understand your stance against this ad, but aren’t you giving them free promotion by posting it on your site?
My heart all most jumped out of my stomach when I saw that. Is there any way you can just post a link to the site, but take the picture off. Please, Please, don’t give them promotion by leaving that picture up.
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