As if we didn't already know that the War on Black women is GLOBAL,Iberia Airlines recently had to pull this ad, running in Spain. From the Miami Herald.
The video posted earlier this month on the company's website showed the baby being coddled by two black women with exaggerated full lips and wide hips squeezed into hot pants.The women fed, massaged, fanned and danced with the infant as he sang, in an adult male voice, ``Mulattas, feed me. Come on mulattas, take me to the crib.''
An organization called the Consumers in Action Federation protested because the advertisement denegrates women who work in the Cuban tourist industry. Apparently under Spanish law, it is illegal to have advertising that denegrates a group of people.
It was the Cuba cartoon that drew fire from a consumer action group, which said it was a sexist insult to Cuban tourism workers. ''Cuban tourism workers do not massage you, fan you and dance with you,'' Ruben Sánchez, spokesman for the Consumers in Action Federation, said by phone from Madrid. ``This ad denigrates people who work in tourism.'' He said the ad violates a 1988 Spanish law that prohibits advertising that is denigrating to groups of people. In this case, Sánchez said, the video was demeaning not only to tourism workers, but Cuban women and Cubans. The organization complained about the ad last week and Iberia pulled it four days later, he said. Advertising professors are requesting copies so they can show them to students as an illustration of what not to do, he added.Wow. Yay. Consumers in Action Federation! They are known as FACUA in Spanish. You can find their translated page here. Wouldn't it be nice to have US consumer groups lead the battle against negative portrayals of African American women? Alas, it is not to be. We'll have to do it ourselves.
