Black Shadow Watch objects to this Clorox commercial

RACIAL STEREOTYPING IN ADVERTISING 
What You Can Do 

Most of us assume racial neutrality in advertising but you know what they say about assuming.  Messages of black inferiority blast (have you noticed that commercials are louder than regular programming) into our homes as innocent product marketing. Take the Clorox commercial featuring an African American mother and her toddler son. The toddler is obviously being potty trained. He happily informs his mother that he went to the potty. She, like any mother, seems excited until she looks into the empty toilet and asks, “Where.” She then turns around skeptically and discovers that he has gone (defecated) in the bathtub.  Not to worry—Clorox—is there to clean and whiten away the mess. But who will clean up the mess—racial stereotyping—left behind by Clorox? In the broader American social context, race is a divisive and differentiating force in defining life’s opportunities. Black children therefore can ill afford to internalize negative racial stereotypes. The racial backstory to the commercial is that the myth of black inferiority is played out.  The African American toddler is able to go into the bathroom but then is not smart enough to know the difference between the bathtub and the toilet.

African Americans in general and African American males in particular are still characterized as unintelligent and lazy.  According to a 2004 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, more than two-thirds of all Americans overall reject the idea that we should make every effort to improve the condition of blacks, especially if it means giving them preferential treatment. Hence African Americans must assert efforts to promote fair treatment toward improving our own conditions. We have to be willing to call advertisers out. We have not overcome. 

In a society that likes to pretend that racism does not really exist and that we don’t have the motivation or willpower to pull ourselves up, legitimate racial concerns are thwarted and African Americans are expected to be immune. African Americans are told to, “Get over it. Stop playing the race card.” We should keep talking about race until race doesn’t count. Racial stereotyping in advertising may reflect subconscious or unintentional bias. Regardless, we must at least give it our attention even if it does not command national attention.  So here’s what you can do.  You can write a letter letting the advertiser know that it is denigrating to African Americans and unacceptable.  It’s what I did.

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Don Knauss, Chairman and CEO,Clorox,Clorox Corporate Headquarters,1221 Broadway,Oakland, California 94612

 Dear Chairman Knauss:

 I have been purchasing Clorox for over 40 years. As an African American and couple and family therapist, I am particularly distressed by a Clorox television ad in the Philadelphia area. I am well acquainted with the persistent myth of black inferiority and white superiority that robs many African American children and youth of their full potential before it has been developed. Your ad featuring an African American mother with a toddler son whom apparently defecates in the bathtub as opposed to the toilet is degrading to African Americans. Rationalizing that the African American toddler is just a toddler ignores our nation’s history of racial stratification and discrimination. By implication, it confirms racial stereotyping of African Americans as intellectually inferior. Though I don’t assume intentional racism, racial bias is definitely an unintended consequence of your ad.  I appeal to your moral concern and commitment to remove this offensive ad with haste.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation.

Sincerely,

Marlene F. Watson, Ph.D., LMFT