Dear Editor,
To many Jamaicans, the Super Bowl VW commercial appears humorous and innocent. However, when you live in a racialised society where your culture is only validated through ridicule and stereotypes, the VW advertisement takes on a much deeper meaning.
Attending school in Toronto, Canada, in the late 1970s and 1980s, to speak Jamaican wasn't "cool". In fact, having a Jamaican accent meant articulation difficulty or it was assessed as a learning disability that would likely land you in a special education or a remedial class. Once you were placed in these classes, your chances of graduating on to tertiary education were very slim.
As an educator, I note that this reality has not changed much today. The tendency to streamline Caribbean students into these types of classes has been one of the factors in the high dropout rates among black youth in the Canadian high schools. Moreover, one of the many stereotypes that North Americans have associated with the Jamaican accent and culture is "carefree".
In Disney's 1989 film, The Little Mermaid, Sebastian, the Jamaican-sounding crab, teaches Ariel that life is better "Under the Sea," because living underwater you don't have to worry about getting a job. In many ways, I see this commercial subtly reinforcing the "lazy", "shiftless", and "carefree" Jamaican which is not much different from the Disney representation of the Jamaican who enjoys living underwater because he does not have to work.
Had the VW character been depicted as being more productive, it would perhaps not have been so offensive for some. Indeed, this carefree and shiftless representation of Jamaicans can be detrimental to black youth who represent the highest rate of unemployment in the city. Coincidentally, just last week I lectured a course on how images have been used to distort a people's history (looking specifically at Arabs, Africans, and indigenous peoples). This commercial no doubt reinforces these stereotypical images of Black people as the lazy Sambo who wants to do nothing but play all day.
While the advertisement might seem to embrace Jamaican culture, we need to look at the broader picture and reexamine the historical iconography constructed around blackness and how they are used in North America to maintain racial hegemony.
Dr Lisa Tomlinson
Toronto, Canada
The VW ad's real meaning
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To many Jamaicans, the Super Bowl VW commercial appears humorous and innocent. However, when you live in a racialised society where your culture is only validated through ridicule and stereotypes, the VW advertisement takes on a much deeper meaning.
Attending school in Toronto, Canada, in the late 1970s and 1980s, to speak Jamaican wasn't "cool". In fact, having a Jamaican accent meant articulation difficulty or it was assessed as a learning disability that would likely land you in a special education or a remedial class. Once you were placed in these classes, your chances of graduating on to tertiary education were very slim.
As an educator, I note that this reality has not changed much today. The tendency to streamline Caribbean students into these types of classes has been one of the factors in the high dropout rates among black youth in the Canadian high schools. Moreover, one of the many stereotypes that North Americans have associated with the Jamaican accent and culture is "carefree".
In Disney's 1989 film, The Little Mermaid, Sebastian, the Jamaican-sounding crab, teaches Ariel that life is better "Under the Sea," because living underwater you don't have to worry about getting a job. In many ways, I see this commercial subtly reinforcing the "lazy", "shiftless", and "carefree" Jamaican which is not much different from the Disney representation of the Jamaican who enjoys living underwater because he does not have to work.
Had the VW character been depicted as being more productive, it would perhaps not have been so offensive for some. Indeed, this carefree and shiftless representation of Jamaicans can be detrimental to black youth who represent the highest rate of unemployment in the city. Coincidentally, just last week I lectured a course on how images have been used to distort a people's history (looking specifically at Arabs, Africans, and indigenous peoples). This commercial no doubt reinforces these stereotypical images of Black people as the lazy Sambo who wants to do nothing but play all day.
While the advertisement might seem to embrace Jamaican culture, we need to look at the broader picture and reexamine the historical iconography constructed around blackness and how they are used in North America to maintain racial hegemony.
Dr Lisa Tomlinson
Toronto, Canada
The VW ad's real meaning
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