Take a few minutes to analyze this ad. Why do you see? Is something making you mad? Do you agree or disagree with this ad? Please post a thoughtful comment with your thoughts about this controversial Ad. What do you think this Ad is trying to convey? How does it influence our society, (especially young girls and women)?
Skin Color is one of the most important ways in which people vary. We tend to define people by their skin color.
Historically, skin color has been a contributing factor to the advantages and disadvantages of people. Unfortunately to this day some people still hold very negative and racist ideas about people of color.
Society often sees White people as being superior, more beautiful, and deserving of better opportunities and resources, while people of color often face discrimination for the color of their skin.
Some think that people of color are not as beautiful as white people. As we see in this famous advertisement, the white woman is being considered as more beautiful than the other two women who have darker skin color. If we analyze this ad, we can see that it is persuading people to buy this product by telling them that it “…improves the look of your skin”. This ad is basically telling women that the lighter their skin is the more beautiful they are. The problem with these kibd of Ads is that they create a narcissistic society. Children and young adults are easily influence and they grow up believing that beauty and looks are more important than other qualities. As a result, teenage girls and women who are not satisfied with the way the look end up suffering of depression and self-esteem.
In addition, considering white people as more beautiful creates a lack of self esteem in young girls who are not white and blonde. In some cases, this might result in girls developing a feeling of hate toward their own race. They start to feel inferior and lack confidence in themselves.
I believe these racist views that some people have about the color of our skin are mainly a product of the stereotypes, lack of knowledge, education, and discrimination that has always existed toward people of color since ancient times. As a result, the discrimination that some people face because of their skin color has resulted in fewer opportunities, more barriers, and disadvantages.
However, skin color should not by any means be a reason to discriminate people. As Jina Jabloskin asserts in her speech Skin Color Is An Illusion “the color of our skin is the product of our evolution”. Throughout her speech she explains why people have different skin tones. As she explains, it has nothing to do with our abilities, capabilities, or value as a human beings. Nina Jabloski explains why some people are lightly pigmented while other are darkly pigmented. She explains that the earliest humans lived in high UV environments in equatorial Africa, which is why that they had dark skin. Later, people moved to low UV environments and started to lose their pigmentation and their skin became whiter. In short, the evolution of their skin allowed humans to survive and adapt to different environments which is why people living in different parts of the world have different skin tones. That being said, I believe we all should love and feel proud of our skin color. And in order to end with the racism and discrimination toward people of color, we should educate the uneducated.
How Does the Media Shape Our Minds? 
I agree with you 100% we see this so many times in AD’s in media where they portray skin color to be a negative thing. As much as we have come a long way from our way of thinking I still believe people live in this bubble where they see being authentic as one way “original”. I believe everyone is beautiful in their own way and beauty is not what media says it is since they like to mediate everything and photo shop. In killing us softly “I’ll mention what observations I can though, and one thing that stuck out to me was the Rihanna ad – “Light up your eyes” – you can see that most of her face is darker, but just around her eye is white. As I mentioned in my last post, this is a Covergirl campaign that seems to be cashing in on Rihanna’s abuse at the hands of Chris Brown in 2009. So, while this particular ad makes a pernicious comment on domestic violence (in normalising a need for women to deliberately hide any injuries on their faces), I can’t help but wonder if it’s also saying something about having darker skin: “Cover up that embarrassing bruise on your skin; cover up that embarrassing darkness on your skin” (Jean Kilbourne). It seems to me that African American women in media are often being presented in as animals, wearing animal skins, running with animals, or in some way or another being related to wild animals. We are still not comfortable as a society when it comes to mixed race or even a different race besides Caucasian we still have a lot of work to do. Unfortunately we face discrimination every day in our lives because we are so narrow minded and we choose not to step outside our norms and accept everyone equally. With that being said everyone is beautiful in their own way and who cares what the media says we should love our selves no matter what.
I also agree with you 100%, Racism is always going to be around. We will always have someone believing that they are superior than somebody else. Now, about this ad, I actually find it very disturbing and upsetting. What I took out of this AD was that; The darker complexion the skin – the less nutritious skin you would have, the whiter the skin – the healthier. I find this ad to be really disrespectful and disgusting and I hope that DOVE was not trying to send out a message for white supremacy.