Quote:

Originally Posted by tomia
My beef is a simple one: The way the media and corporations use children of obvious racially mixed backgrounds in advertising and television.

On the one hand I am glad that more biracial youngsters are getting acting jobs and that someone finds them attractive enough to sell their wares. But how could they NOT find these children attractive? Since I am on a messageboard which is devoted to biracial issues then I can speak frankly: Mixed children are beautiful. And I know that beauty is a very subjective thing but apparently the powers that be in the media and corporate America feel the same way. These children have  that caramel colored skin that White America idolizes (spending billions of dollars every year for tanning-related products), the curly or wavy hair that Black America idolizes (spending billions of dollars every year for hair products) and the facial features which are ambiguous and could belong to either race. It is understandable why so many mixed children are now seen in print ads, television ads and television shows. They photograph well, they appeal to a large demographic, they are very marketable.

My problem is WHY have the media and corporations deemed mixed children acceptable (even profitable) to use in their campaigns but they haven't been able to swallow the fact that these children came from multiracial backgrounds-- not simply Black backgrounds. I'll give you one example:

When I started my bank account with Bank of America they gave me a rather large folder with my paperwork, terms of conditions, starter checks, etc. On that brightly colored folder there was a picture of a happy family. A mother, a father and two children (who apparently were twins). The mother was black, the father was black, the twins were (very obviously) biracial. So let's use these adorable little 4 year old twins w/ their tan complexions, curly hair and chubby cheeks but let's pretend they came from these two Black people because if we replaced that man who is the skin tone of Denzel Washington with someone the skintone of Brad Pitt then that will be too controversial and people may not want to bank with us.

Long story short: Let's use 'em because they're pretty but let's deny where they came from (cause that's NOT pretty).