Is This Racist?

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YouTube video

Is this video racist?

My coworker (Johnny Demonic on KMC) says the video is not racist. He sees two people that were given jobs by a successful family. He says it would be racist if it could somehow show that those two black people were slaves. He says that even at the end, the black dude was smiling and cheesing it up indicating no slavery and great working conditions.

I say it's racist because of the history behind the confederacy and how long that organization has been around which was shortly after the Civil War. The fact that the only two people working for the white people are black further solidifies my point that it's racist. It's almost not subtle but overt racism, imo.

He said that I'm treating it like they lynched the black dude for smiling at the family and that I'm going too far by looking for racism in everything. He said that if it was Michael Richards (Kramer) playing the father, I may have a point.

If the black girl had said 'Here you go massah!' while delivering the lemonade as the black guy was picking cotton in the background would definitely make this racist.

The company that the commercial promotes may be a racist folks, but just off what the commercial shows, I don't see any racism.

I feel like its definitely an unfortunate implication... i'm not sure if it was intended that way or not.

Originally posted by King Kandy
I feel like its definitely an unfortunate implication...

My understanding of racism is if someone is being denied equal accces.

One would assume these are paid positions or some sort of live ins in exchange for labor of some sort.

We don't know if the tried to hire white servants. But yeah, with the music and the company name, I could see how some folks could be uspset with it. Wonder with many athletes making millions from the south that are blacks, do they have servants and are the same race as the millionaires or different?

I didn't think it was racist at first, then the word "Confederate" came up. So not sure.

Originally posted by -Pr-
I didn't think it was racist at first, then the word "Confederate" came up. So not sure.

Myself, as well.

I would not have called it racist if it did not come up with "Conderate Families". It would have just been an unfortunate advertising setup if it was some other type of organization.

It's quite taboo to show black people serving white people in advertisements. In movies, too...but it has to be done tactfully or be a period piece if done in a movie.

It clearly racist in obvious undertones; how anyone can't see this is beyond me. You don't have to yell "n!gger, pick that cotton" to be racist.

The fact that the black guy showed up right as it said and their property made me lol

Originally posted by jalek moye
The fact that the black guy showed up right as it said and their property made me lol

😆

I did not notice that.

I feel that white people are blind to some forms of racism because we simply have not walked in those shoes.

crylaugh

Yes.

It seems like a joke 😐

But yeah...showing the family with "Confederate People: Protecting a people..." then cutting to their gardener and writing "...and their property", has very unfortunate, racist, implications. May not be intentional, but to me it does seem like it was done on purpose, but trying to cover it a bit, with "plausible deniability". Either way, unfortunate, and they should do the right thing and can that commercial as I am sure it will be offensive to many people that view it.

The horrible worry is that it was directly aimed at those people that would like to go back to the "good old days".

Commercials are fiendishly constructed: every detail is considered, nothing (or virtually so) is by chance. My guess is, they're trying to slip in a subtle dig. I mean, why even show a gardner at the last second?

Either that...the way the gardner smiled at the end...I felt the commercial could've been an SNL skit.

Originally posted by Mindship
Commercials are fiendishly constructed: every detail is considered, nothing (or virtually so) is by chance. My guess is, they're trying to slip in a subtle dig. I mean, why even show a gardner at the last second?

Either that...the way the gardner smiled at the end...I felt the commercial could've been an SNL skit.

Yeah, same, it seems very outlandish to me. A striking example of Poe's law in action.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't that a clip from this movie? I'm 80% sure that it is, making the racism moot because that's the point

If not, ignore everything I said atop

Originally posted by Lestov16
Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't that a clip from this movie? I'm 80% sure that it is, making the racism moot because that's the point

If not, ignore everything I said atop

Yes, that sounds perfectly plausible to me

Hell yes. And there is nothing subtle about this clip. But I don't believe it's a "real" commercial.

There's nothing inherently racist about them having black people who work for them even if they want to call themselves confederates.

Overlaying "and their property" when only the black guy is on screen is blatantly racist (blatant enough that I seriously doubt its a real commercial).

This looks like it would have been on TV on the "Father Knows Best" show