UGH

Dove Ran a Disturbingly Racist Ad—and It Isn’t the First Time

The personal care brand has come under fire for running an ad depicting a black woman transforming into a white woman through the power of soap.

Dove, the world-renowned soap brand—not the bird (as of today, there is no ornithologist-backed study framing pigeons as being bigoted)—has publicly apologized for an ad campaign viewed by the general public as “racist.”

Following the campaign’s overwhelming blowback, Dove issued a statement via their brand’s Twitter account: “An image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of color thoughtfully. We deeply regret the offense it caused.”

Do you, Dove? Because according to CNN political commentator Keith Boykin, Dove has funded not only one, but two murky campaigns that, to the “woke” human eye, allude to blatant racism and white superiority.

In the most recent offending ad, a black woman is shown using the Dove product; she then removes her brown shirt, and voila: a white woman magically appears. The previous campaign, which ran three years ago, featured three women possessing varying skin tones, with the ladies again subjected to the “before and after” archetype Dove seems to be enamored with. And yet again: the “before” is a black woman and the “after” a white woman.

Soap campaigns, according to a handy, investigative Twitter user, have a baffling history of being racist. In four different visuals, the white person reigns superior to the black person. “Why doesn’t your mama wash you with fairy soap?” one ad condescendingly reads. “ In another, a dainty white girl who looks like she’s on her way to a snooty Veuve Clicquot polo soiree is calling her black acquaintance—depicted by the brand as a blackface stereotype—a “dirty boy.”

What do these tone-deaf advertising campaigns have to do with soap, arguably the world’s most innocuous object adored by 99 percent of human beings? I wish I could tell you. But If I could say anything to these soap brands, it’d be this: Body odor does not discriminate, and neither should you.

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Austin Gebbia

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