The most expected time of the year has arrived with our favourites: Christmas adverts! All major brands graced us with their version of the festive season with carrots, reindeers and the most controversial of all, Black people.
Sainsburys made a three-part series of adverts illustrating family moments at Christmas and the first one told the story of the ‘Gravy song’ where during a phone call between a father and a daughter they talk about Christmas and the dad’s famous gravy and its complementary song. The video shows old footage and photographs of the family’s Christmas during the call. The advert hit social media on the 14th of November and instantly became controversial. Why? Because it features a Black family’s Christmas.
Not long ago, the unlawful killing of George Floyd sparked a series of protests across the world including the UK. The hashtag the UK is not innocent started trending as a reminder of the red in Britain’s ledger. The affirmation of this fact alone lead people to ferociously defend that ‘Britain is not racist and black people never had it better’ with a top-up of ‘go back to where you came from if you don’t like it here’.
However, the Sainsburys innocent advert was accused of being ‘unbritish and unrelatable’ with calls of a boycott. This negative effect lead Tesco to cut out a segment of a black couple from their Christmas ad.
So where do we stand? Earlier this month the UK Parliament Human Rights Committee published a report on Black people, racism and human rights. The report stated ‘the death rate for Black women in childbirth is five times higher than for white women. The NHS acknowledge and regret this disparity but have no target to end it.’
Unsurprisingly, there was no outcry or outrage about this disturbing statement that came out only three days before the Sainsburys advert. In the words of Funmi Olutoye ‘In Britain, the elusive racist, like Bigfoot or the dragon, may be a mythical creature. But the truth is, black people face their Bigfoots and their dragons on a daily basis.’
Racism is not lynching people on the streets, segregation or any of the million practices invented during Slavery. Racism a mindset.
Is driving out a princess because she’s mixed-race and does not conform with the whiteness of the Royal Family. Is calling protesting virtue signalling. Is watching refugees drown and be glad that ‘the illegal aliens’ died. Is supporting the alienation of your closest neighbours because they speak a different language. Is watching your young people locked up in their university halls and blame them for the spike of coronavirus. Is seeing the lack of black people or ethnic minorities in the countryside and celebrate it. Is electing a prime minister that for years used racially pejorative terms to describe Black people, Muslim women, homosexual men and even the former US President Barack Obama. Is seeing an advert of a black family and feeling unrepresented even though only 37% of adverts feature at least one black person. But not caring when black people die at the hands of health professionals either from childbirth or Covid-19.
But does everything need to a race thing? In short, yes. As thinking beings, humans are guided by a moral compass. It defines who we are more than the things we achieve or buy.
‘The mouth speaks what the heart is full of’ therefore all we do comes from the morals that we carry inside us.
I do believe they can be changed and upgraded but they will be an indicator of who we truly are.
An advert, a controversial joke all mount up to the true character. So yes, it is racist and it serious not only because is hurtful and unnecessary. But if someone feels compelled to voice these damaging opinions for no apparent reason, reveals that the same spirit of white supremacy that was widespread during the 19th century is alive and kicking.
Remembrance Day was not that long ago. It is a day to remember the sacrifices and honour which people fought against a prejudiced, small-minded power. How can British people bang on their chest with pride of all this but actively oppress and ignore all people that look different from them? Is that the British spirit? If black people dying is not the priority or a big deal at all why does seeing them happy at Christmas causes so much fury? And how can you look at all this and still say the UK is not racist?
