Dove soap ad. Racist?

Dove Body Wash: Strong Enough to Turn a Black Woman White

Hamilton Nolan — Dove Body Wash: Strong Enough to Turn a Black Woman WhiteDove VisibleCare body wash: "Visibly more beautiful skin." Bye-bye black skin, hello white skin! (Scrub hard!) Can this ad possibly be real? Some people think it is! We've emailed Dove's representatives for confirmation, and we'll update with their reply. If real, this could be the most (unintentionally) racist skin care product ad in... about ten months.

UPDATE: It appears that the ad is real; commenters point out that the photo can be found on this Dove website, and others have told us they've seen it in magazines. We'll add any official response we receive from Dove.

UPDATE 2: We received the following statement from Edelman, Dove's PR firm:

"We believe that real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes, colors and ages and are committed to featuring realistic and attainable images of beauty in all our advertising. We are also dedicated to educating and encouraging all women and girls to build a positive relationship with beauty, to help raise self-esteem and to enable them to realize their full potential.

The ad is intended to illustrate the benefits of using Dove VisibleCare Body Wash, by making skin visibly more beautiful in just one week. All three women are intended to demonstrate the "after" product benefit. We do not condone any activity or imagery that intentionally insults any audience."

Tony Marino wrote:I visited the website and I see the picture but nowhere can I see that it says "can turn a black woman white"

Shale wrote:

Tony Marino wrote:I visited the website and I see the picture but nowhere can I see that it says "can turn a black woman white"

Thanx for the clarification Tony. It appears that the before & after were on the panel of skin, showing the creases in the before.

Just bad placement for the overly sensitive that the black/latina/white women were in the order from before to after.

Some ppl just look for being slighted.

RedBedroom wrote:It is shameful that the placement of the women from left to right as they are would bring about such speculation about it being a racist ad, when clearly, the before and after had to do with less dry skin, and all three of the happy women are representative of the happy "after".

CeCe wrote:I think there are people who could offended by an egg roll if they tried. The intent of the ad is obvious. No one is trying to "turn" anything other than dry skin into smooth. There was a comedian quite a few years ago who talked about his father finding racism in everything including breakfast cereal. That's what this reminds me of.

I was once accused of racism at work and it really pissed me off. In '94 I made a panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt, dedicated to all the black ppl I knew who died of AIDS and were quietly disposed of by their families without any acknowledgment of how they died and especially how they contracted the disease (gay sex or IV drug use).

Here is the panel, that was well received in Gainesville Florida (a university city), and was even displayed in a conference room at the community college.



Years later I displayed it at work on Dec 1st, World AIDS Day and a black co-worker raised hell. "Why only black ppl? White ppl get AIDS." I was asked by the executive director to take it down. I was really pissed!

BTW, these are the same backward local black ppl who complain of being downtrodden by "whitey" when the black Caribbean immigrants who live here are doing quite well. It is not race anymore, it is the persecution complex and attitude that causes their grief.

Nhaiyel wrote:Even if their intentions were on the level, that a black woman just happened to be posed under the banter of "before" and a white woman under the banter of "after" does look very suspect. Whoever put together that photo should have caught the possible connotation before it went to print and done some last minute reediting, because to the passing eye it does seem to suggest that the black woman's skin is dirty and the white woman's skin is clean.

Chris wrote:This ad is causing controversy. It features a black woman on the end labeled 'before,' a latin woman in the center, and a white woman on the other end labeled 'after.' The implication is that the black woman was dirty, the latin was cleaner (but not quite there), and the white woman was the end result of the wash.

What do you think?

http://gawker.com/5804724/dove-body-wash-strong-enough-to-turn-a-black-woman-white

Dove Body Wash: Strong Enough to Turn a Black Woman White

Hamilton Nolan — Dove Body Wash: Strong Enough to Turn a Black Woman WhiteDove VisibleCare body wash: "Visibly more beautiful skin." Bye-bye black skin, hello white skin! (Scrub hard!) Can this ad possibly be real? Some people think it is! We've emailed Dove's representatives for confirmation, and we'll update with their reply. If real, this could be the most (unintentionally) racist skin care product ad in... about ten months.

UPDATE: It appears that the ad is real; commenters point out that the photo can be found on this Dove website, and others have told us they've seen it in magazines. We'll add any official response we receive from Dove.

UPDATE 2: We received the following statement from Edelman, Dove's PR firm:

"We believe that real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes, colors and ages and are committed to featuring realistic and attainable images of beauty in all our advertising. We are also dedicated to educating and encouraging all women and girls to build a positive relationship with beauty, to help raise self-esteem and to enable them to realize their full potential.

The ad is intended to illustrate the benefits of using Dove VisibleCare Body Wash, by making skin visibly more beautiful in just one week. All three women are intended to demonstrate the "after" product benefit. We do not condone any activity or imagery that intentionally insults any audience."