Sluggo892
02-02-2011, 03:55 AM
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Tom Burrell is seeking to change what he says is reinforced notions of black inferiority. In his book "Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority,“ Burrell, who’s African-American, said many individuals and institutions have been complicit in keeping the myth alive. Burrell takes to task the Founding Fathers; the mainstream media and advertisers; some churches and longstanding civil rights organizations; and blacks themselves who spew the N-word, link academic achievement to “acting white” or simply engage in self-destructive behavior. (Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune / January 26, 2011)
Dawn Turner Trice
January 31, 2011
Chicago advertising legend Tom Burrell is making what may be the most important pitch of his life. He's trying to convince blacks that the daily consumption of negative images and stereotypes erodes self-esteem and keeps them feeling and acting like second-class citizens.
"The longest-running propaganda campaign is that of black inferiority," said Burrell, 71, the founder of the Chicago-based Burrell Communications, a multimillion-dollar ad agency specializing in the African-American market.
"We have to understand that images, symbols and words can be so powerful and so ubiquitous that they affect behavior without us knowing it."
In his popular book, "Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority," Burrell, who's African-American, said many individuals and institutions have been complicit in keeping the myth alive. Burrell takes to task the Founding Fathers; the mainstream media and advertisers; some churches and long-standing civil rights organizations; and blacks themselves who spew the N-word, link academic achievement to "acting white" or simply engage in self-destructive behavior.
In a way, Burrell's message is reminiscent of the dose of tough love that entertainer Bill Cosby dispensed a few years ago. Cosby chastised low-income blacks for not "holding up their end of the bargain," and after critics complained that he was painting with too broad of a brush, he stressed that he was talking about some blacks, not all.
Unlike Cosby, Burrell, who was inducted in the Advertising Hall of Fame in 2005 and sees this from the unique perspective of an adman, argues that all of us have been "sold a bill of goods." He said that makes all — no matter our race or income level — susceptible to perpetuating and believing negative images that support the notions of black inferiority and white superiority.
Burrell started Burrell Communications in 1971 and built an advertising empire — clients include McDonald's, American Airlines, Procter & Gamble — creating campaigns that often targeted multicultural audiences. In the company's downtown office, where I met Burrell last week, televisions that looped the company's ads depicted young blacks as clean-cut, Cosby-esque role models.
I asked Burrell if the company, known for promoting positive images of blacks, sometimes fell short.
"We have all been so infused with the idea of white superiority that it is second nature even when you're trying to champion your own cause, " said Burrell, who retired (or "rewired," as he puts it) in 2005 after completing the sale of his company. "So, yes, I was complicit in projecting negative images, but I was also sensitive. But even in being sensitive, you have blind spots."
Burrell said the campaign to cast blacks as inferior dates back to slave owners attempting to make an inhumane institution fit into a democracy. He considers slave auction posters among the earliest forms of "propaganda" in American history. Much followed, including Stepin Fetchit-type characters, along with salt and pepper shakers, postcards and Halloween masks depicting blacks with big red lips and protruding eyes.
"These messages have been passed down like tchotchkes through the generations," he said. "Somebody had to say that if we can market this idea that slaves are not human beings — they're chattel — then the Founding Fathers can say 'all men are created equal' and not have this profound contradiction. That's how the advertising campaign came about.
"We've used the Bible, textbooks, symbols, the media, bad science to constantly reinforce those ideas. People buy into it, internalize it."
Burrell said that as a young person growing up on the South Side, he struggled with his own negative self-image. After an academically disastrous freshman year at Roosevelt University, he was told that he wasn't smart enough for college and should try to pass a qualifying exam for a post office job.
School officials didn't realize that he had taken a particularly grueling course load, and that his vision was deteriorating. At 27, he would be diagnosed as legally blind.
Burrell, who did graduate from Roosevelt, writes that during his senior year there, he became Wade Advertising's first black employee. He was hired in the mailroom, and the goal was to make him the company's first black copywriter, he said. While there, the Black Power Movement, with its insistence on "black is beautiful," began to take root, and Burrell started to question the images and notions of white superiority.
He said that today the "brainwashing" is far more subtle than in the past, which makes it far more insidious. And too much of it is self-inflicted.
"At some point there were forces that were fighting against this because of the very clear-cut oppression and racism," Burrell said. "But now we are suffering under the illusion and delusion that it's over and so nobody is pulling anybody over and saying, 'Watch out for this.'"
He said one way to combat negative imagery is to not reward artists, companies and products that are demeaning to blacks. He said he's not trying to eliminate the negatives, but identify them so that they aren't considered commonplace.
"We have a wonderful opportunity in this world of media to use the technology, the Internet, to create positive images to offset the negative ones," he said. To this end, he has begun a nonprofit, The Resolution Project. (You can learn more at stopthebrainwash.com (http://www.stopthebrainwash.com/).)
He acknowledges that change is neither easy nor immediate. But he said awareness is the first step.
"We have to be aware of how brainwashing devastates us," he said. "It's easy to take off the physical chains, but much harder to get rid of the psychological ones. This is something that has occurred over 400 years, and it's going to take time to undo."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-trice-madman-0131-20110131,0,7330736.column
Tom Burrell is seeking to change what he says is reinforced notions of black inferiority. In his book "Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority,“ Burrell, who’s African-American, said many individuals and institutions have been complicit in keeping the myth alive. Burrell takes to task the Founding Fathers; the mainstream media and advertisers; some churches and longstanding civil rights organizations; and blacks themselves who spew the N-word, link academic achievement to “acting white” or simply engage in self-destructive behavior. (Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune / January 26, 2011)
Dawn Turner Trice
January 31, 2011
Chicago advertising legend Tom Burrell is making what may be the most important pitch of his life. He's trying to convince blacks that the daily consumption of negative images and stereotypes erodes self-esteem and keeps them feeling and acting like second-class citizens.
"The longest-running propaganda campaign is that of black inferiority," said Burrell, 71, the founder of the Chicago-based Burrell Communications, a multimillion-dollar ad agency specializing in the African-American market.
"We have to understand that images, symbols and words can be so powerful and so ubiquitous that they affect behavior without us knowing it."
In his popular book, "Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority," Burrell, who's African-American, said many individuals and institutions have been complicit in keeping the myth alive. Burrell takes to task the Founding Fathers; the mainstream media and advertisers; some churches and long-standing civil rights organizations; and blacks themselves who spew the N-word, link academic achievement to "acting white" or simply engage in self-destructive behavior.
In a way, Burrell's message is reminiscent of the dose of tough love that entertainer Bill Cosby dispensed a few years ago. Cosby chastised low-income blacks for not "holding up their end of the bargain," and after critics complained that he was painting with too broad of a brush, he stressed that he was talking about some blacks, not all.
Unlike Cosby, Burrell, who was inducted in the Advertising Hall of Fame in 2005 and sees this from the unique perspective of an adman, argues that all of us have been "sold a bill of goods." He said that makes all — no matter our race or income level — susceptible to perpetuating and believing negative images that support the notions of black inferiority and white superiority.
Burrell started Burrell Communications in 1971 and built an advertising empire — clients include McDonald's, American Airlines, Procter & Gamble — creating campaigns that often targeted multicultural audiences. In the company's downtown office, where I met Burrell last week, televisions that looped the company's ads depicted young blacks as clean-cut, Cosby-esque role models.
I asked Burrell if the company, known for promoting positive images of blacks, sometimes fell short.
"We have all been so infused with the idea of white superiority that it is second nature even when you're trying to champion your own cause, " said Burrell, who retired (or "rewired," as he puts it) in 2005 after completing the sale of his company. "So, yes, I was complicit in projecting negative images, but I was also sensitive. But even in being sensitive, you have blind spots."
Burrell said the campaign to cast blacks as inferior dates back to slave owners attempting to make an inhumane institution fit into a democracy. He considers slave auction posters among the earliest forms of "propaganda" in American history. Much followed, including Stepin Fetchit-type characters, along with salt and pepper shakers, postcards and Halloween masks depicting blacks with big red lips and protruding eyes.
"These messages have been passed down like tchotchkes through the generations," he said. "Somebody had to say that if we can market this idea that slaves are not human beings — they're chattel — then the Founding Fathers can say 'all men are created equal' and not have this profound contradiction. That's how the advertising campaign came about.
"We've used the Bible, textbooks, symbols, the media, bad science to constantly reinforce those ideas. People buy into it, internalize it."
Burrell said that as a young person growing up on the South Side, he struggled with his own negative self-image. After an academically disastrous freshman year at Roosevelt University, he was told that he wasn't smart enough for college and should try to pass a qualifying exam for a post office job.
School officials didn't realize that he had taken a particularly grueling course load, and that his vision was deteriorating. At 27, he would be diagnosed as legally blind.
Burrell, who did graduate from Roosevelt, writes that during his senior year there, he became Wade Advertising's first black employee. He was hired in the mailroom, and the goal was to make him the company's first black copywriter, he said. While there, the Black Power Movement, with its insistence on "black is beautiful," began to take root, and Burrell started to question the images and notions of white superiority.
He said that today the "brainwashing" is far more subtle than in the past, which makes it far more insidious. And too much of it is self-inflicted.
"At some point there were forces that were fighting against this because of the very clear-cut oppression and racism," Burrell said. "But now we are suffering under the illusion and delusion that it's over and so nobody is pulling anybody over and saying, 'Watch out for this.'"
He said one way to combat negative imagery is to not reward artists, companies and products that are demeaning to blacks. He said he's not trying to eliminate the negatives, but identify them so that they aren't considered commonplace.
"We have a wonderful opportunity in this world of media to use the technology, the Internet, to create positive images to offset the negative ones," he said. To this end, he has begun a nonprofit, The Resolution Project. (You can learn more at stopthebrainwash.com (http://www.stopthebrainwash.com/).)
He acknowledges that change is neither easy nor immediate. But he said awareness is the first step.
"We have to be aware of how brainwashing devastates us," he said. "It's easy to take off the physical chains, but much harder to get rid of the psychological ones. This is something that has occurred over 400 years, and it's going to take time to undo."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-trice-madman-0131-20110131,0,7330736.column