Media
exploit blacks’ image
By Monica Levette Clark
On-line Forty-Niner
.
Merira Kwesi lectured on the ways marketing
and advertising companies exploit the African
American image in the media during the 23rd
annual Black Consciousness Conference at
Cal State Long Beach Saturday.
 Based
on 22 years of research and travel throughout
Africa, and 10 years of experience in corporate
marketing, Kwesi told the people that certain
companies specifically seek to manufacture
and market directly to consumers of African
decent.
“Spiegel has its black-targeted ‘E-Style’
catalogue. JC Penney’s had its afro-centric
boutique apparel. And just a few years
ago the California Raisins were singing
‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” she
said.
What blacks fail to realize, Kwesi told
the people, is that those companies are
only interested in making money off of people
of African descent, which is why they come
up with all kinds of promotions to attract
those consumers.
“Everyday we are hit by vast amounts of
advertising,” she said.
Tobacco companies were found guilty of disproportionately
targeting blacks and other ethnic groups
by placing billboards all over those communities,
before a law passed restricting them from
such massive advertising in those neighborhoods.
These billboards, which were placed primarily
over public schools, featured the images
of people in those ethnic groups smoking
a specific tobacco brand, while having a
good time.
“[Today] we are a walking billboard, advertising
for everybody — Nike, Reebok and Tommy Hilfiger,”
Kwesi said.
Businesses in those communities worry that
by displaying the corporate messages, blacks
are kept in the cycle of buying products
from companies that exploit them, instead
of from businesses in their own communities.
Slides featuring concepts and symbols used
in Western advertising were presented during
the 90-minute lecture that Kwesi found to
be directly influenced and derived from
significant symbols on the African continent,
although that fact is kept hidden from society.
The lecturer revealed the African origins
of caricatures like Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben
and Rastus, the man on the Cream-of-Wheat
package, as well as the company logos for
Shell and Nike.
“It is very frustrating to see all of the
ways that these companies target African
Americans,” said Risha Riley, a CSULB public
administration graduate student.
Riley said she was wearing apparel made
by some of the companies mentioned in the
lecture and was unaware of their advertising
practices.
“This shows that [African Americans] need
to organize and start making our own clothing
and shoes and even our own cars,” she said.
Leilani Ford, a psychology major and vice
president of the African Student Union,
attended the lecture and held up the advertisement
of the graphic design’s first art show,
that sparked controversy on the campus recently.
The advertisement featured a white noose
on a black poster with the words, “It’s
our first hanging.”
Reacting to this advertisement, the student
organization wrote an open letter that was
published in the On-line Forty-Niner, demanding
an apology from the department for posting
the advertisement all over campus, and asking
that it be taken down.
Some students, responding to the open letter,
said that the organization was just being
too sensitive to the department’s exercise
of their right to free speech.
Commenting on this, Kwesi said, “There was
nothing sensitive about the students who
protested against that poster,” and prompted
those attending the lecture to applaud the
students who spoke out against the advertisement.
Along
with husband Ashra, Kwesi, who is a national
and international lecturer on the African
origins of civilization, religion and culture.
The tours on these subjects in Africa every
year.
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