In an advertisement currently running on TV, a young white male kneels on his front lawn, trimming the grass one blade at a time with a nail clipper. Next door, a slightly older black male sits comfortably on his porch, scanning his automated payroll accounts with an air of confidence and superiority as he looks askance at his foolish neighbor.
In another ad, a large, middle-aged black woman dances and sings her way through the supermarket aisles, waited upon entirely by whites. At one point she stands still, looking doubtfully at a middle-aged white male who has taken a break from mopping the floors. In the end, she breezes out of the store, her cart filled by whites employees overjoyed to serve her.
In yet another ad, two young girls are selling something like Girl Scout cookies — one using a payment app and another relying on cash. The black girl, who uses the app, has sold her entire wagonload of goods before the other has sold much of anything. At the end, the black girl wheels her wagon off with a baseball glove and ball inside (indicating she is headed out to play), looking back with a knowing smile at her less clued-in white neighbor.
These are just a few of the dozens of ads now airing that depict whites in a demeaning manner and blacks as their superiors in intelligence and ability.
“Racial superiority” was once regarded as immoral if not criminal, but now it is out in the open, with blacks consistently depicted as more capable than whites. Nearly every medical doctor in the media is depicted as a black male, a throwback to Dr. Huxtable on the Cosby Show. Increasingly, investment advisers and plant managers are depicted as black, despite the fact that in real life, 4.7% of medical doctors are black, while 6.3% of plant managers and 1.9% of investment advisers are black. The advertising world’s depiction of blacks bears no relation to reality; it seems to be driven by sheer ideology.
Some will see this discrepancy as excusable and chalk it up to a sort of cultural affirmative action. For decades, whites were depicted in dominant roles. Old movies often portray black women as maids and black men as porters, as in fact many were, but those blacks who were successful in business or the professions, and surely there were many, were rarely shown. So the argument is that now it’s time for whites to be underrepresented.
The problem is that when whites were depicted in superior roles, that was a reflection of reality. In 1960, the vast majority of doctors, managers, and other professionals really were white, much more so than today. In 1960, 2.8% of physicians in the U.S. were black. The causes of this low number were complex, more so than pure racial exclusion, but undoubtedly were often the result of unfair practices. Today the vast majority of professionals are still white, but whites are almost universally depicted as inferior. It is a strange anomaly, and not without consequences.
No one can object to seeing black actors depicted positively in television ads. But the problem is that today, blacks are almost always depicted as superior to whites, and the percentage of ads that feature blacks in leading roles — the chief of the boardroom, the manager of the office, the factory supervisor, the smart investor, the well spoken, well groomed leader paired with a clueless white — is not credible.
One consequence is anger on the part of whites. Most reasonable people are willing to judge others of all races on the basis of merit, but the depiction of whites and blacks in today’s advertising does not reflect merit. Whites who have worked hard in school, earned postgraduate degrees, and devoted themselves to their jobs find themselves depicted as innately inferior to blacks. They know that this is not the case, but there is no way to escape the barrage of hateful depiction.
This racial inequality must be confusing for blacks as well, for surely they realize how insincere and dishonest the ads are. The ads are a form of racial pandering, and they may represent a desperate effort on the part of corporations to cover their bases: Large investors such as BlackRock and Vanguard control billions of shares of stock, sometimes amounting to 20% or more of a company’s stock. Those investors have reportedly become “woke” to the point of insisting on more positive portrayals of minorities. For those who do not understand the role of index funds in pressuring corporations, the racial content of advertising must be mystifying.
But for many, the ads appear as confirmation that blacks have automatically received priority over whites throughout the culture. Non-minority workers who have lived through the years since affirmative action was widely implemented, which is to say nearly all white and Asian workers, have suffered a lack of opportunity. They have been passed over for promotions, paid less, or outright excluded from employment while less qualified blacks have been hired and quickly promoted based on their race.
Private companies, schools and universities, media, and government have played along with this racist program, refusing to acknowledge that it is unfair. Tens of millions of lives have been harmed, but again few have spoken out because of fear of being accused of racism.
There is racism in our country, but most of it is now directed again whites and Asians. We are expected to sit still and watch what we know to be a lie because radicals in the media and elsewhere believe they are righting the wrongs of the past. One does not right past wrongs by imposing a national program of anti-white and anti-Asian education, employment, and promotion. One does not “change the culture” by airing hundreds of thousands of ads that people know to be false. Blacks on television dressed up in white coats are not really doctors, but neither are blacks who have been passed along through college and medical school based on their race.
Now, under President Trump, this form of “shameful discrimination,” as the president has called it, is being eliminated. Federal agencies are closing down DIE programs, and private companies have begun to modify their DIE programs as well to re-introduce “merit.” In the case of J. P. Morgan Chase, DIE has been modified to DOI (diversity, opportunity, inclusion), a step in the right direction. One would hope that individuals of all races will soon experience opportunity based on their performance, not their skin color.
As for those annoying ads, I mute the sound or switch to another network so I don’t have to listen to them.
Racism, no matter what form it takes or for what purpose, is anathema to the spirit of our country. Only by eliminating racism entirely will we bring about fairness based on merit for all Americans.
Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture.
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