Recent Dove, Lotte Choco Caramel With Mango Ads, Show Racist Attacks On Black Women

For all of the claims of a more advanced, enlightened, diverse, and color-blind society, we have good-old, mainstream corporate advertising to thank for reminding us that old-fashioned racism is alive and well.

Sadly, Dove and Lotte Choco Caramel With Mango are the most recent examples, and Dove - which was the champion, I thought, of the normal woman, regardless of color - should be particularly ashamed.

What Dove did was authorize the production of an ad that reads "before" on the left, and "after" on the right, with an obviously black woman posing on the "before" side, and an obviously "white" woman on the "after" side.

Who's in the middle? A woman who's skin color is between the two extremes.

The photo and the words imply that if you use Dove in the shower, you will turn white.

There's no other way to read that ad.

To this time period, Dove is still using the ad and it appears on the website for Dove Close Up, which you can see here.

What's equally disturbing is that the mainstream media, including columnists, have ignored the Dove issue, leaving bloggers to comment, and the noise hasn't been very loud at all.

But the ad is an obvious attack on black women, and it comes on the heels of a Psychology Today article that was an obvious, and down right sick, attack on black women.

And as if that weren't enough, a brand I never heard of called Lotte Choco Caramel With Mango, out of India, ran an ad photo that look like, well, Hamilton Nolan of Gawker put it pretty well...

In this ad out of India (click to enlarge) for Lotte Choco Caramel With Mango Inside, the choco-caramel-colored pregnant maid represents the Choco Caramel With Mango Inside. The happily leering mango is pleased that his mango sperm has been "inside" the choco caramel, and will be again soon, by the looks of it. Probably via rape. This scenario makes people want to purchase the candy in question.

I don't know what's going on, but this is one issue news media editors should take up their opinion columns on, and get to work. The ultimate shame is this strategy of attention-getting by racism is allowed to go without significant attack.

Why not sue Dove and Lotte Choco Caramel With Mango for defamation, and throw in Psychology Today to make the "burn the fields" legal strategy complete?

It's clear the fields do need to be burned.

Something must be done to stop this crap.