Call it an occupational hazard of someone already drawn to research and
write about the historical links between beauty, race, and power, but I have begun to observe a strange phenomenon on the streets of Berlin…
Here, where at first it seems there is almost no visibility of black people in
advertising, it is always striking when – suddenly – brown
faces on posters hove into view…
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© Raphael Hoermann
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Each of these adverts …
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© Raphael Hoermann
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is intended to promote…
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© Raphael Hoermann
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coffee–drinking. (Oh, and eating chocolate…whatever takes
your fancy.)
Its no secret that, historically, images of people of African
and Asian descent have been used to advertise the tropical commodities that their
sweated labour helped to produce. Coffee, chocolate, tea, sugar, rum…the list is long.
And in spite of the tendency to express utter dismay when ethnic minorities complain of racism in German cultural institutions.
Germany is no exception…
These brand icons (Austrian and German) have recently undergone makeovers...
to – literally – tone down racial overtures of images designed to sell coffee and chocolate.
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