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Thursday, March 28, 2024

American Red Cross receives flak for ‘racist’ poster

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It was supposed to be a cool poster to remind kids about safety rules. After all, it’s a cute cartoon showing several children having fun in a swimming pool, with a couple of lifeguards watching over them. Arrows point to examples of what is “cool” and “not cool” behavior. Not cool to chase each other around the pool, but cool to jump from the diving board; not cool to push someone into the water; cool to teach someone how to swim, etc.

The poster looks harmless enough so there should not really be any problem with that, right? Except for this one sticky detail: All the “not cool” arrows point to colored kids (black and Hispanic) while the “cool” arrows point to white kids showing proper behavior while in the swimming pool.

Shortly after the poster made its rounds on social media following a tweet by a John Sawyer, people started calling out the nonprofit humanitarian group for its “very racist” depiction. American Red Cross later issued an apology saying it is “sensitive to the concerns raised” by the water safety poster. “We deeply apologize for any misunderstanding, as it was absolutely not our intent to offend anyone. As one of the nation’s oldest and largest humanitarian organizations, we are committed to diversity and inclusion in all that we do every day,” the statement read.

This latest controversy just goes to show that sensitivities still run high on the subject of racism, and that even seemingly harmless materials can drive overwhelming, emotionally-charged negative reactions, as seen in the flak drawn by a Gap Kids poster that showed three white girls (in identical blue colored shirts) and one colored girl in a pink shirt – whose head just happens to be under the ‘pit of a much taller white girl.

Many took exception to the poster, saying it conveys a message of superiority (for the white girls) and subordination (for the smaller black girl). Others though saw nothing wrong with the poster, even coming out with an older ad that showed a tall black girl resting her arm on a smaller white girl. But Gap, fearing a backlash, issued an apology and promised to replace the offending poster.

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Another controversial ad was the 2013 Mountain Dew short video that showed a woman in crutches being asked to identify her attacker from a police lineup. The only thing is, the lineup showed three black men and a goat as suspects – triggering outcries, most prominently from a Syracuse University professor, who said it reinforced stereotypes about black males being criminals and made light of violence against women.

It was actually a sequel to an earlier ad showing this goat named Felicia getting so addicted to Mountain Dew that it went to great lengths to get a bottle – kicking a waitress in the process. Ironically, the ad was the brainchild of a black rapper/designer/music video director named Tyler, The Creator (Tyler Gregory Okonma), known for pushing the envelope and thinking out-of-the-box. And the actors? They are members of Tyler’s alternative hip-hop group known as Odd Future. As expected, PepsiCo apologized and took down the video.

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