https://padlet.com/olivierlafontant/1ew50lmiufkfur3r Critical Race Theory en-us 2022-06-04 01:46:23 UTC 2022-06-04 03:13:07 UTC hello@padlet.com olivierlafontant https://padlet.com/olivierlafontant/1ew50lmiufkfur3r/wish/2210680385 The 2010s were profoundly affected by the onset of anti-police protests as a result of unjust killings of unarmed Black men, women, and children. Protests were marked by conflict between raucous crowds and hostile police barricades, setting the precedent for the tumultuous George Floyd riots of 2020.

"When George Floyd was brutally killed by a police officer kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes while three other police officers looked on, it resulted quite rightly in protests that have rapidly spread around the world," John Storey writes in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture.

Three years prior in 2017, Pepsi released a long-winded, tone-deaf commercial depicting Kendall Jenner defusing tension at a protest by simply offering a Pepsi to a police officer on the opposing side. The energy is lax and amicable, and the ad failed to reflect the significance and emotional depth of the real life protests of that time.]]> 2022-06-04 02:20:26 UTC https://padlet.com/olivierlafontant/1ew50lmiufkfur3r/wish/2210680385 olivierlafontant https://padlet.com/olivierlafontant/1ew50lmiufkfur3r/wish/2210690323 Rightfully so, at the time of the commercial's release, it was subject to mountains of backlash from viewers, quickly prompting Pepsi to rescind the ad altogether. The main issue comes from the fact that the creators chose to emulate images of real-life, racially charged events just to dumb them down and remove all context for the sake of product. To portray a protest in such a way is demeaning and degrading to the cause that the protestors of that time were standing for: racial equality.

The struggle of Black America is only able to be compartmentalized in such a way through whiteness. According to Storey, whiteness "operates as an unmarked human norm, and it is against this norm that other ethnicities are invited to measure themselves."  ]]> 2022-06-04 02:49:05 UTC https://padlet.com/olivierlafontant/1ew50lmiufkfur3r/wish/2210690323 olivierlafontant https://padlet.com/olivierlafontant/1ew50lmiufkfur3r/wish/2210696181 In recent history, we've seen the general public become more aware of the severity of harmful messages like the one in this ad. More people are opening their eyes to shallow trivializations of Black culture and Black issues in mass media. The backlash was plentiful, and with good reason.

Storey continues, saying "Any discussion of ‘race’ and ethnicity that does not include a discussion of whiteness will always . . . contribute to the power and privilege of whiteness." Essentially, we must continue to call out shallow depictions of race relations (like this ad), and highlight the presence of whiteness in order to prevent harmful ideologies from spreading.]]> 2022-06-04 03:07:28 UTC https://padlet.com/olivierlafontant/1ew50lmiufkfur3r/wish/2210696181