activism?
this feels a little weird.... i'm not mad, but a little disturbed. okay a little mad.
maybe some of you artists can help me out here... does the below ad for germany's unicef have some sort of artistic expression that i'm not picking up on? can you explain the statement here? sigh.
seriously, take a look at the below ads: black faced german kids who are appealing for solidarity for their african contemporaries.
maybe some of you artists can help me out here... does the below ad for germany's unicef have some sort of artistic expression that i'm not picking up on? can you explain the statement here? sigh.
seriously, take a look at the below ads: black faced german kids who are appealing for solidarity for their african contemporaries.
yes, this is a real unicef ad:
"I'm waiting for my last day in school, the children in africa still for their first one."[sigh]
"in africa, many kids would be glad to worry about school"
[blank stare]
"in africa, kids don't come to school late, but not at all" (!)
[blank stare]
"in africa, kids don't come to school late, but not at all" (!)[gasp]
ohhhhhhh k. class dismissed. comments?
giving a sister credit, check it: http://blackwomenineurope.blogspot.com/2007/07/this-is-actual-ad-campaign-by-unicef.htmlohhhhhhh k. class dismissed. comments?
posted by dcsavvystar at 18.7.07
15 Comments:
Wow! You know, I was taken aback at first, but I think I can kind of see what they are trying to do. Especially with the second two pictures. Now, the first one they could have left out, but the second two kind of make me consider the fact that all children, deep down inside, are a lot alike and that they all deserve the best in life.
Thanks for sharing this too. I hadn't seen them.
This ad is ridiculous. Why don't they have actual African or Black kids in the article? What's the purpose of having toothless German kids in BLACKFACE with goofy expressions? Shock? At the expense of whom? I must say I like the text, just think it could've been more tastfully done. This is NOT ok.
I AM NOT FEELING THESE ADDS AT ALL!
WHY DO THE KIDS HAVE TO BE IN BLACKFACE?
I just want you to know that no, I don't usually type in all caps. Those pictures just got to me.
I'm with brightstar an nic, although I understand the point of showing the solidarity of youth beyond race; I feel the creatures of this ad have totally missed the offensive nature of the whole 'blackface' era...that's not a joke at all...so they should have found another way.
Heck, they could have had all the children's faces painted RED symolizing the color of blood shared amongst all.
maybe they could have been better off having the children doing the "soft shoe"...grrrrrrrrrr
i ain't feeling this at all
That ad is disturbing on many levels, it just doesn't sit well.
Good attempt, but they missed. Just doesn't feel right. But that's just in our culture. Being that race is an American made concept, I think it holds more weight to us than it does to Africans.
If they were trying to bring attention to DC inner city schools, this a wouldn't have seen the light of day; but I don't think that non-Americans look at race quite as strongly as we do.
Well, I think the Germans probably don't attach the same cultural significance to blackface as americans do. There were no minstrel shows in germany and no history of slavery, civil rights struggle. So I don't think, to them, they see it as a symbol of anything. If I had to guess (which is hard, because germans are weird), I think they used white kids in blackface to make the germans realize that the kids suffering in africa are just like their sons and daughters in germany, except for the color of thier skin, and that if the kids in Africa were white, you would've done something about it by now.
I don't understand what point they were trying to make with the blackface. Was it to get people's attention? It got mines, but at that point I really don't care about what the campaign is for because now I'm offended by the pictures. This is a case were bad publicity can and will hurt them.
Believe or not, these captions created an international controversy, sparked by the AfroSpear that went all the way up the line at UNICEF. The German division of UNICEF created the campaign to get the G-8's attention about their neglected obligations and promises to African. The Germans, in reaction to black bloggers worldwide, pull the ad.
Thanks DC for posting this. I just wanted to share some of the "rest of the story" and the power of the AfroSpear.
all i can say is germany IS the birth place of Hitler...smh....
and i'm sick of that "they don't see the world the same way American Blacks do" CRAP!!!! that type of "apology" is worse than the ADS!
@Homeimproving:
You might want to avoid the inference that African Americans are projecting our world view on the Germans. Geremany is the home of social darwinism / arayan supremacy - eugenics hype, they get enough American media and have for aloooonnnggg time to have white supremist ideas and have racist ideologies that are directed to people of Black African ancestry.
Just a word of advice
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That was the most poorly-conceived ad I've ever seen. Glad it's being pulled.
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