Black People: “Let Your New Life Begin”

Lisa Wade, PhD on February 28, 2012

My Occidental College colleague, politics professor Caroline Heldman, snapped this photograph of a billboard on an L.A. freeway. It suggests that one may celebrate Black History Month by calling 1-800-GET-THIN. The billboard is another stunning example of the trivialization of black history by companies using it only as an excuse to market their product or service.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Comments 13

Andy The Nerd — February 28, 2012

I wonder though if these sorts of transparent advertisements hurt business more than they help (a sort of natural karma)? I wonder if anyone has studied the effects.

Yrro Simyarin — February 28, 2012

Is this different from having George Washington driving a Dodge Challenger or Abe Lincoln selling car insurance?

Anonymous — February 28, 2012

A very ironic ad, since the higher average body weight among black Americans (compared to white Americans or black Africans) is thought by some to be due to the 'selection effect' of the Atlantic voyage and slave life itself (i.e., only persons with more-efficient metabolisms would likely survive the experience of food deprivation and be able to reproduce and pass on their genes). So, black Americans are to 'celebrate' black history by erasing the visible traces of their historical experiences that live on in their biological bodies.

Tressie McPhd — February 28, 2012

This is particularly peculiar when one realizes that thin-ness is often associated with white-ness, especially with high status whiteness.

Lindsayjean1 — February 28, 2012

Also there's this (people suing over deaths somehow related to this "treatment." http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/02/21/147220961/the-big-squeeze-calif-weight-loss-clinics-under-investigation

Jane Roe — February 29, 2012

You're suggesting that loosing weight is the most trivial and non oppression-related endeavor one might undertake. Given how much women in this culture are encouraged to believe that thinness is the most important characteristic they could ever possibly have, that's hardly the case.

A little awareness of intersectionality, please?