In April 2017, Pepsi released an advertisement using a social protest to depict a bright, happy and polished outcome, had the police accepted a gesture of kindness from protesters. The advertising caused intense reactions from populations revealing that it is minimizing the “Black lives matters” social movement asking for police brutality acknowledgment.
The theory of internalized oppression explains how oppressed people should be the one explaining to oppressors what to do, what to say, and what to avoid doing and saying. A person of colour should therefore be the one defining what is racism to them, and a woman should be the one we listen to when she calls out on misogyny or sexism. An oppressor, as in a person with a race background of privileges, or a person being of a priviledged gender, should not explain, minimize, or shut down what the oppressed ones express on their experience (Williams, 2012). In the everyday life of every oppressed person, this theory is often not applicable yet. Hence the terms "mansplaining" or "reverse racism", that wrongly assume men can define if something is sexist towards women, and wrongly claims that racism towards white people (with priviledges they can tend to forget) is a thing. Change comes slowly. However, coming from Public Relations, Media or Advertising practitioners, known for being the “spin doctors”, known for running the platform that has the power to get the attention of a whole country when it is not the whole world, the "shutting down with half apologies without listening and understanding" seems to be a wrong way of practicing. It is our duty, as PR practitioners, to listen, understand, and remain quiet, when we are in the wrong.
The world of public relations was anciently based on manipulation and “taking the blame away from” the CEO, the company, the political characters, and so on. In 2017, perhaps Public Relations should redefine the profession and implement the high duty of defining change and leading ethical mass communications, instead of taking the blame for a company. For instance, Uber’s head of communications recently resigned. What does it really say when a spokesperson resigns? It usually happens in time of crisis, regardless of the efforts and quality of the PR practitioner’s role, as in their resignation would save the CEO or the company’s reputation. Maybe it is time that the spokespersons representing a company, do more than just diplomatically accept their responsibility. Maybe it is time they call out on the unethical ways of their company before a crisis emerges, maybe PR should not just talk about errors and responsibilities. Maybe PR should be in charge of responding with ethics and have the power to command change, because in the end, it is not the PR professional’s responsibility for the company’s mistakes—and it is not helping when they try to defend their company’s mistakes instead of taking the public side and acknowledging the oppression.
What works at a human level, should inspire a company level. Oppressed people do not want to hear apologies and justifications on the oppression they have to undergo in their existence. They want to be acknowledged as oppressed people, they want the world to acknowledge that some oppressors ways are wrong and are truly happening. The right way to respond would be the human way.
A possible response could have been in the vein of,
“Yes we did minimize the black lives matter and we are learning from it. This came from ignorance and will not happen again—because we learned from that experience. We learned that the right way of doing would have been to take the side of the oppressed, to highlight a cause that is asking for change. We heard. We will act on it.”
The actual response was,
"Clearly, we missed the mark, and we apologise. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are pulling the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologise for putting Kendall Jenner in this position."
References
Williams, T. K. (2012, September). Understanding Internalized Oppression: A Theoretical Conceptualization of Internalized Subordination. Retrieved April 10, 2017, from http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1628&context=open_access_dissertations
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