KARDASHIANS START CHAOS AGAIN (This Time in a Pepsi Commercial)

Just like Dove : here's another advertisement that didn't think of how offensive their self-promotion really is... At this point? Expected, but still disappointing. 

In this advertisement, Pepsi attempts to promote their soda with a cameo of Kendall Jenner. Clearly using her to their advantage, it still stirred up social media conversations and is responsible for all the offensive comments that came out of it. In a world where the acceptance of other cultures and ethnicities are still in the progress of coming into terms of peace, Pepsi decides to make a privileged rich white woman the star of this commercial which completely contradicts the whole idea of having people of several backgrounds there. Rather than empowering the different cultures in the protest they have filmed and directed, having Kendall Jenner there doing what she can without any consequences kind of discriminates everyone else. 

This relates to the civil rights movement that happened in the 1960s because African Americans still do not receive the same rights as white people. Though on paper today, black people have the same rights, but the way these laws are executed do not reflect on any sort of equality. Police brutality is a huge problem today that many people protest. Not just African Americans, but anyone of any culture that is considered to be a minority. White supremacy still exists today, but a lot more subtle and with the presidency of the United States and his own values & perspectives does not help our progress of growing from racism and stereotypes. 

When Kendall Jenner was seen in this commercial, it was already bad enough that it represented the supremacy that (some) white people feel entitled to. With police brutality still occurring today, Kendall Jenner giving the Pepsi can to the officier without any consequences especially during a protest is an accurate portrayal of what would actually happen. White people have that privilege of security and safety when it comes to interacting with the police force, while every other ethnicity (which were represented in the commercial) would either be completely ignored, abused, or violated by these police officiers. Having Kendall Jenner in this commercial completely ignores the empowerment and unity that Pepsi (seemingly) attempted to show. 

Racist Halloween Costumes

Halloween is a holiday/recreational day where people (usually kids and teenagers) dress up however they want for the fun of it. Past the fact that halloween costumes need to be scary or horrifying, people have come to terms to dress up as whoever they want to be ; whether it is a celebrity, an inanimate object, or a cartoon character. Although now, some people have actually pushed and stretched the line of being whoever they want. This being said, I am talking about people dressing up as someone else's culture. Using their culture as a costume : an Indigenous person, Japanese, Mexican, and Muslim.

The picture above shows a halloween costume for those who want to "dress up" as a Native American. The costume completely disregards the Indigenous culture and what everything represents for those within this group, and for someone who isn't a part of the culture or even know a single thing about them is disrespectful and ignorant. The costume above is actually entitled "Sexy Native American One-Shoulder Costume", I cannot imagine how people of the Indigenous culture could manage to witness or see such discrimination against them in this day and age. 

As our society continues to grow and evolve to accept other ethnitcites, halloween is still a time where people's costumes end up being controversial and borderline offensive. Not only is the Indigenous culture something that people have used as a costume, but there has been pictures uploaded onto social media platforms of people dressing up as muslims and claiming that they are "terrorists" for halloween. Which is completely outrageous for them to stereotype and generalize that all muslims are terrorists because there are plenty of white people who actually are terrorists. So if they wanted to dress up as a terrorist, they could have been themselves for halloween because anyone can be one ; it is not acclaimed to be a part of one's culture but one's character. 

Taking the Indigenous studies course myself, it has given me a lot more insight to their own culture, but that doesn't mean everyone else is ignorant. You do not need to study a culture for you to act accordingly to respect it.

NFL Players Taking a Knee In Spite of Current Events

During the 6th week of the NFL season, Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the American national anthem. This action of his represented his form of protesting against police brutality towards African Americans. After he took the knee during the national anthem, it went viral on almost every social media platform. It was mentioned in casual conversations people have with others, in the newspapers, and even Donald Trump himself spoke about it.

Donald Trump spent a majority of the time during the NFL season scouring for athletes who have taken the knee during the American national anthem ; he claimed that Colin Kaepernick (the first athlete to take upon this action) should have been suspended during the season for that action, and claimed that athletes who have followed his actions should be fired.
As a president, Donald Trump clearly cannot manage people who explicitly disrespect/dislike him.

As someone who dislikes the actions of the U.S government and their way to dealing with unarmed African American people, I completely agree with the actions of these athletes who have decided to protest against the abuse towards innocent lives. These athletes have enough power to influence the mindsets and perspectives of other people (their fans), the amount of power they have in their hands is something they should take advantage of - especially when it comes to current events they feel so strongly towards. If I was a popular athlete or just a generally famous person, I would do the exact same thing. Despite the consequences, I think trying to fight against what's wrong with all your advantages is worth it in the end. My beliefs and who I am as a person is what I consider more important than my career status and what the president (who I don't care for) thinks.

So, I've Done the Past 6 Posts Wrong

DOVE AD GONE HORRIBLY WRONG

In this advertisement for Dove, it shows a small film/GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) of an African American women removing their tops to reveal a white woman. Through this video/advertisement, many people took offense to what they potentially represented. Representing a cleanser and how well it works on different types of skin, social media took it as offense : claiming that the African American woman was to represent dirt while the revealing of the Caucasian woman was to represent purity and to be generally clean.

Personally, I don't think we should pay so much attention to this. Obviously, what Dove did was ignorant, but it was an honest mistake and they did not think this advertisement through. People claiming that they do not want to buy Dove products after seeing this advertisement is a bit of a stretch ; what they've done was a mistake and not the smartest thing that they've done, but that does not mean they have to go out of business because of this one advertisement. It was not their intent for the advertisement to be seen as racist and I think we should give them credit for that. It was not their intent, but the way they have portrayed their product was wrong - hopefully we can come to that conclusion. 

The most of hatred people hold towards this advertisement is dramatic. Yes, what they've decided to do was ignorant, but that does not mean they are problematic. For them to be problematic is for the company to continue acting upon racist advertisements. If the company had a problem with different cultures, they wouldn't have taken down the ad and sincerely apologized for it. May I also say, that we have worse things to talk about. This is an UNINTENTIONAL racist advertisement, they do not mean it. It's not worth our time to talk about something that has already realized it's mistakes. Forgiveness is a virtue we seem to forget during a time of accepting others, especially on social media platforms. People will call out others for something so tiny and not worth their time - there are better things to do. There is a difference between spreading awareness and stretching the idea of something that has already been talked about. They've realized what they've done wrong ; let them be and move on from it. Continuing to speak about it will not only make it unnecessary, but annoying too. 

This being said, people chose to completely ignore the rest of the video. After revealing the white Caucasian woman, she took off her shirt to reveal a Hispanic woman. If the video was so racist, would they put another person of colour after a white privileged woman? People have gotten to sensitive to everything and anything they see, often times we forget to look at the full picture.