Racism comes out in the wash

A racially insensitive ad highlights the ignorance and class-based bigotry that has become a growing challenge in the age of globalization

The controversy surrounding an advertisement for a Chinese detergent is the latest cultural mismatch in the progress for globalization.

Qiaobi, the brand, posted a commercial online that had a young black man being thrust into a washer and then coming out as a fair-skinned Asian, the kind of androgynous pop idol that represents male beauty in China.

The ad went viral and became a target of criticism. Leishang Cosmetics, the company that owns the brand, issued an apology to those who felt offended.

Suffice to say, this ad would not have passed the marketing department, let alone the broadcast platform, had it been made in a Western country.

While the racial insensitivity was outrageous, the underlying forces for this ad could be much more complicated. Simply put, it seemed to be an act of ignorance rather than malice.

If you put yourself into the shoes of Qiaobi, you'd probably be bursting with pride when first hit by the concept. "Our detergent is so powerful it can whiten your skin," or so went the pitch, I assume. Most detergent commercials would show a piece of dirty laundry and how it turns clean after a spin in the washing machine. Sure, everyone can see the skin-whitening idea was an exaggeration, but wasn't it more fun - and effective in getting across the marketing message?

I don't think the people who thought up the ad equate being black with being dirty - at least not consciously. For many years, there was a toothpaste ad on Chinese television that used a black person. Even the brand was called Darkie. I saw expatriates squirm when they saw it.

For good or bad, blacks as a race are used for dramatization when appearing in Chinese imagery. We have not come to the colorblindness stage yet.

However, there is a historical correlation between dark skin and low social status. In the old days, physical laborers had to work in the fields. So the more tanned the skin, the less shelter and comfort one is presumed to have enjoyed. Even today, in an age of fitness mania, the joke is still around when a young man in China has skin darker than average.

Chen Xiaoqing, a producer of the documentary series A Bite of China, is often jabbed by his friends with lines like, "I thought I bumped into an African", or "It's so dark here I didn't know you were standing in the way."

If it's a woman with dark skin, friends and neighbors won't make fun of her. They will look at her with pity as if it's a mild deformity. I've seen healthily tanned Chinese-American women who have returned to China to find shocked Chinese relatives.

All women's cosmetics in China are designed to make them look fairer. I'll bet you a king's ransom that a tanning salon for women would be laughed off the block.

In China, it is more a class thing than a race thing. Many Chinese have never come into contact with people of other races, especially blacks, and they may not know how the issue of skin color should be addressed properly.

That said, I'll not justify the simmering racial discrimination that exists among some of my compatriots. Years ago, I heard a story of a Chinese language school that refused to hire English teachers who were black. They would rather get Russians who speak English with an accent than native English speakers who are more qualified in every other way. The school authorities defended themselves by saying the parents insisted on white teachers.

Another example is the Chinese poster for the recent Star Wars movie. The lead actor, who is black, mysteriously disappeared from the poster until he was reinserted after protests. Perhaps whoever made the initial decision may have thought that Chinese moviegoers would not be drawn by an unknown black man.

That is why symbols like the first black American president and Hollywood luminaries like Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman are so important in shaping public perception. They help shatter the stigma inherent in sections of the Chinese public.

Although China is an ethnically diverse country, most of our minorities do not have distinct facial features. For some, only when you're given the name do you realize they are not Han (the largest ethic group). So our level of racial sensitivity is not as high as in the United States.

I once debated the issue of "yellow face" with a Chinese-American dramatist who is a kind of vigilante against the outmoded casting practice. "Do you know why we Chinese are not offended by the yellow face?" I asked him. "Because for decades we had the habit of putting on a white face to play Caucasians. We couldn't afford to hire white actors."

Just as early Hollywood portrayals of Asians tended to be caricatures, white or black characters on Chinese screens are rarely three-dimensional. They play on exaggerated stereotypes.

Again, ignorance is at the heart of the problem. Until you have mingled with a fair number of regular people of other races, you tend to form opinions that are basically prejudices, and if you're a filmmaker you might reinforce it by presenting crude replicas on the screen.

In 2011, CNN posted on its website an article listing "the most revolting food" in the world. Much of it was Asian food like the century egg, a traditional snack in China. After causing a controversy, it apologized "unreservedly for any offense the article has inadvertently caused".

Had it labeled the article "some of the revolting food in the eyes of most Westerners" and changed the tone from authoritative to humorous, it may have flown by without any controversy. Instead, it could have been helpful by alerting some Chinese not to serve these local favorites to foreign guests.

But I guess the editors had forgotten that CNN is a global news operation rather than a local Atlanta channel.

Likewise, Qiaobi forgot we are living in a global village. Its detergent may not be targeting Africans per se, but they are not selling to a landlocked market either. So they should have vetted the ad with cross-cultural experts, or at least with a few blacks, since they are the subject of the misplaced humor here.

Contact the writer at raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn