Transforming representation in South African advertising
THE Equality Court ruling that the controversial Clicks/TREsemmé hair advert did not unfairly discriminate against black women should not undermine efforts to transform the advertising industry.
The spate of racially insensitive adverts in recent years necessitates critical dialogue on race and representation in South Africa beyond reactionary PR responses from implicated brands.
Representational practices always reflect the positions from which we speak or write and play a crucial role in defining and controlling political and social power.
There is a profoundly ideological nature of cultural texts that influences the way others view us and how we view ourselves.
Therefore, simply labelling racist adverts as unconscious bias veils entrenched systems that fuel and sustain anti-blackness.
The violence of anti-blackness is not restricted to prejudicial interpersonal encounters between black and white people, and it is complicated by internalised anti-blackness within black communities.
The valorisation of light[er] skin and straight hair in black communities demonstrates the power of racist discourses to make us see and experience ourselves as others.
In his essay, Cultural Identity and Diaspora, Stuart Hall explained that:
Every regime of representation is a regime of identity power formed, as Foucault reminds us, by the fatal couplet, power/knowledge.
But this kind of knowledge is internal, not external.
It is one thing to position a subject or set of peoples as the other of a dominant discourse. It is quite another thing to subject them to that “knowledge, not only as a matter of imposed will and domination, by the power of inner compulsion and subjective conformation to the norm”.
The politics of representation is a struggle of power and knowledge concealed in language, imagery and institutional practices.
Yet, the issue of race and representation is not just about critiquing the status quo.
It is also about transforming the image of blackness and creating alternatives that move us away from essentialising binaries towards identity as a process of being and becoming subjected to the continuous play of history, culture and power.
Equally important is the need to critically engage whiteness. The myth of white people as non-raced is most present in the absent reference to whiteness in writing and speech. As long as whiteness is felt as a human condition, then it alone both defines normality and fully inhabits it.
The equation of whiteness to being human secures a position of power to think, feel and act like and for all people.
This creates a social context where the dominant images of the world are constructed through the prism of whiteness. I intentionally use the term whiteness instead of white people because this condition transcends interpersonal experience.
Negotiating identity requires a dialectical approach accounting for the material, symbolic and lived experiences that influence interpersonal and systemic practices.
While it is encouraging that the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) is committed to promoting sensitivity and anti-discrimination training on unconscious bias, such endeavours should not be approached as window-dressing exercises.
These programmes need to embrace the messiness of transformation.
They need to provide safe spaces for people (from all sides) to express painful experiences that are not always easy to articulate – and sometimes poorly articulated.
Finally, such processes require patience because uprooting bias involves interrogating power/knowledge systems that nourish racism.
Superficial sensitivity and anti-discrimination programmes can intensify simmering tensions, making people resistant to change.
In my personal experience at a place of employment, the leadership hosted sensitivity training for the staff. Initially, the programme seemed encouraging.
Everyone agreed on general principles of respect and collegiality, but the session became heated once we broached the subject of race and gender.
One colleague mentioned that he felt victimised as a white, heterosexual male in South Africa, triggering an angry response from staff who identified as people of colour, women and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
The leaders of our company abruptly ended the training at the height of this tense exchange because the conversation touched on systemic issues our leaders were ill-equipped to address.
I remember feeling angered and discouraged because sensitivity training should encourage contestation and divergence if we desire meaningful change.
Successful programmes require empathy and an openness to learn from each other's lived experiences, especially in moments of disagreement.
It is disturbing to see critical organisations like the Institution of Race Relations deny the existence of racism in the advertising industry when there are blatant examples of insensitive – and even racist – adverts that have caused a public outcry in recent years.
The South African Human Rights Commission is currently investigating several submissions of discrimination in the sector – dispelling the myth that racism doesn’t exist.
If we continue ignoring the lack of diversity in advertising, we will constantly be plagued with recurring controversies.
The call for anti-discrimination programmes is a proactive measure to correct problematic representational practices in the sector.
However, a more comprehensive approach is required to address the entire supply chain that promotes and sustains inequities in the industry.