Chicago-Lake Liquor (series of ads):

Chicago Lake Liquors located in South Minneapolis, they put out a series of ads years ago which tried to turn what people would call “African American” dialect into a joke for promotion purposes. In a series of three commercials you will see Caucasian men doing stereotypical things that are pinned on the African American race, and Latino race. One of the ads open up with an African American man wearing a du rag picking up the phone using words such as pimpin, crackin, and homie as he discusses with his friend that he is picking up a bottle of Hennessy so they can have a good time. In the next aisle is a Caucasian man, may I add dressed very nice in a sweater and khaki pants, listening in on the African American man’s conversation. The commercial then switches scenes to both men at the checkout line. The Caucasian man says “that is pimp tight” to the cashier since she saves him some money. She then awkwardly fist pounds him as he turns to the camera and smiles with a grill in his mouth. In the background you can see the African American man face of confusion. This is just one example of the stereotypes used in these commercials. The media tends to frame stereotypes as marketing points for companies. A lot of times they use it in a way that they feel will get laughs. In this case it was just plain distasteful, and you could tell the company was reaching for laughs. The company knew what they were doing but failed to get a laugh out of me as the viewer. Below is a link attached so you can also view the ad. Give your opinions on the topic, do you feel this commercial was racists or do you feel it was blown out of proportion? You will also see how the company tried to use stereotypes within the Latino community.