Discriminatory Commercial.

Discriminatory Commercial
Stephanie Estess
English 112/Cross
“Blacks and Asians”
February 14th, 2018
Discriminatory Commercial
The commercial “If you don’t vote you take the color out of Britain” is a commercial which was developed by the British black community and published in the Lewisham News Shopper newspaper. The Black community is a not for profit organization which depends on volunteers and sponsors for capital. It has people from different walks of life; employed, youths, elderly, religions, ethnic groups and others as its members (Operation Black Vote 1). The community developed the commercial which was aimed to sensitize people about the importance of voting. Notably, the commercial has triggered controversy among people. The controversy lies in the issue of racial discrimination. The commercial which comprises of an image and text postulate that those black or people of Asian origin who do not participate in voting should leave the country. It is also biased since it assumes that people of African and Asian origin do not vote.

Figure 1: Text and a picture of a black person with his face painted white in the commercial.
Source: Lewisham News Shopper newspaper (2017).
Reportedly, the commercial has triggered controversy among people of all races in the country. Blacks, whites, and Asians have reacted to the commercial differently. Particularly, most of the blacks and people of Asian origin have expressed their dissatisfaction with the commercial by saying that it is their freedom to decide whether to vote or not to vote.

They have argued out that the commercial has threatened and hence violated their freedom as citizens (Operation Black Vote 1). They have criticized the fashion in which the commercial was developed and argued that it was not a convincing way of asking people to vote. On the other hand, most whites have not supported the commercial and argued that since the minority groups have been complaining about not being given equal opportunities, they are supposed to vote and if not should stop complaining about not being equally represented.
Furthermore, despite the fact that voting is a civic activity, the commercial is biased in that its target audience is a specific group of people. The commercial targets only Blacks and Asians as evident in the text. This by itself is a kind of racism since seemingly, the minority groups in the country are ganging up against people of other racial groups. Additionally, people from all racial backgrounds have been living together without noticing their differences (Operation Black Vote 1). The message in the commercial has however been perceived to trigger some form of tension. Most people, as well as organizations, have argued that matters of national interest should be independent. They should not take sides and support a certain group of people. The reason behind this is that with such kind of commercial it is easy to trigger violence.
The face of the black person in the commercial is painted white to show that they should embrace the characters of the whites and vote. This aspect has been viewed to indicate inferiority complex among the Blacks and Asians in Britain (Operation Black Vote 1). The commercial was perceived to indicate that white people are superior to Blacks and Asians and therefore blacks were to become like them and appear in large numbers and vote. Those who were not voting were asked to leave the nation. Even though the majority of the people took the commercial negatively, some people both blacks and whites supported it. It is clear that people have chosen to understand the commercial from a different perspective and according to how they want it to suit them.
Works Cited
Operation Black Vote. Don’t take the color out of Britain. 15 Apr 2015 4:09pm. Operation Black Vote. Available at: http://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/dont-take-colour-out-britain. Retrieved 17/01/2018.