Most Racist Vintage Ads

Sunday, Aug 16, 2020, 12:55 pm

By:Tony Williams

1.For cigarettes?

This is one of those adverts where you try to work out the link between the racism and the product itself, but of course you will fail with this because there actually is no link. Instead, it is simply people being racist because that is how they thought they had to be back then.

2.The servant again

The idea of the black person being the servant appears to be relatively common. On the flip side you never see a white person being the servant and for that reason alone this advert is indeed racist. Surely the likes of Budweiser look back at this advert and feel ashamed?

3.In a watermelon?

This advert is very confusing as well as being racist, so there is like some kind of double hit happening here. The entire story is also a bit racist due to the way it takes certain ideas and turns them into a story that nowadays would result in people being fired and taken to court.

4.Is that for real?

The first thing that you will undoubtedly notice is the two words in red near the top of the advert. How can they go ahead and call something that? Of course it does then mean that the entire advert immediately becomes racist simply because of the name, so the advertising designers had no chance.

5.What about the features?

Once again this advert is pretty amazing because of how it has portrayed the two black people. They just seem to love giving them over the top features as if to really stress that they are not from the same country as the other people in the advert.

6.Wash that color off

The fact that a big company such as Pears' is also getting in on the act is something that should show you how widespread a problem it was decades ago. Yes this advert does indeed show a black person being able to wash their color off thanks to their soap and surely there is nothing more racist than that?

7.Seriously??

You will probably look at this advert in absolute amazement because how can they possibly get away with putting that tagline at the bottom? The very idea that you can simply wash it off with this soap is astonishing even if they are doing it from the angle of a child that does not know any better.

8.Just what??

The thing about this advert is the way in which the artist has managed to really exaggerate the features of the people in the advert and that is the part that makes it racist. Why they felt the need to do this with an advert for tobacco is an absolute mystery.

9.The simple servant

Yet again this advert has to show the black person as the servant and of course here he is doing it for what could be described as the upper class. It is just typing into the racial stereotypes of where black people were seen as being in society during those times.

10.Voice in adverts

The thing about this advert is that not only do they make sure that black people are seen as servants, but the way they spell things is to simple replicate a particular accent. This does mean that they manage to be racist in two different ways, so double racism if you like.

11.Bleaching?

There are probably a number of other ways in which soda bleaching could have been advertised without going down this particular road. However, this company decided to go for the racist angle, but the sad part is how that was just accepted back in those days.

12.Can you believe this?

In all honesty can you believe that this advert actually existed? Is it possible for it to be any more racist than it currently is? Imagine the uproar if they tried to do this in the world today.

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