UnINTELligent Advertising

We last took a look at print ads from decades past, but now we turn our attention to the ads of today. This Intel ad for Core 2 Duo processors is current but demonstrates a more subtle but just as disturbing presentation of racism. Although the sprinters readying in the blocks are suppose to represent the faster speed of Intel’s new Core 2 Duo Processors, a closer look reveals that they are all black sprinters and they look to be bowing down to their white master, the collared golf shirt and khaki panted, the Intel guy. This racist pitfall could have easily been avoided by simply offering a few different shades of skin in the starting blocks. Having watched the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, I saw many different colors of sprinter, which is what makes this ad so puzzling. On some conscious or subconscious level this choice was purposefully made.

Beyond the apparent slave/master comparison, the phrasing at the top of the ad is also created in a framework of cultural bias. The phrase, “and maximize the power of your employees”, in particular, creates the typical stereotype of African-Americans being in a subservient position as ‘workers’ and a Caucasian being in a position of power as the ’boss’. It furthers the point of characterizing what research suggests to already be true, that African-Americans are at a disadvantage, not because they are proportionally less intelligent or hardworking than whites, but because the system is designed to keep blacks (as well as other minorities) at a disadvantage. It is a flawed system created ultimately with the interest of a few at heart. It is a system which protects white cultural beliefs, values, morals, and wealth directly in opposition of upward mobility of minorities, poor, and undereducated.