Racism and Racial Discrimination in the United States

During the days of American slavery, many whites held stereotypes of African-Americansas inferior, unevolved, incapable. In societies such as the United States, which arecharacterized by unequal cultural power, prejudiced ideologies, usually affected by history,there is a solid reason for which dominant groups (e.g. whites) sustain and legitimate theirpower over other groups (e.g. African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians). The present paper isdesigned to see whether stereotypes during Jim Crow have persisted after the civil rightsmovement, event that was meant to bring equality and push the United States into a postracial era. Moreover, this analysis aims to extend the current research on the portrayal ofethnic minorities in advertising, especially in the case of African-Americans. Afterestablishing an analytical and theoretical framework based on the relationship betweenracial ideology and stereotypes of African-Americans, this study investigates how AfricanAmericans are represented in American advertising and how racial ideology is embeddedwithin those depictions.