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.
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.
Hi Michelle, I think these ads need to be seen, much as the images do on such sites as the Museum of Racist Memorabilia. There’s power in the image, and as difficult as it can be to look at the ads, they need to be seen as a cautionary tale–one that illustrates the persistence of racism.