Corporate racism is an interesting beast to tackle, because so much of it is subtle that you wonder if it’s actual racism. Certain prejudices and stereotypes are so deep rooted in our culture that a lot of people don’t even notice them, or understand the struggle, so that some will end up sitting around asking if something offensive is, indeed, offensive.

The advertisement Tyler, the Creator made for Mountain Dew is not one of those subtle incidents. The ad’s pretty freaking racist, in our opinion. In fairness, Tyler may not have written it; he merely created a drunk goat character that seems to be totally supportive of blatant racism. What happens in the advertisement? A badly beaten white woman is shown a lineup of black men. A white warden tells her to “nail the little sucker”. The drunk goat, Tyler’s character, says “ya better not snitch on a playa’,” and “snitches, get stitches, fool.” The white woman leaves crying.

Dr. Boyce Watkins said the ad was “arguably the most racist commercial in history… Mountain Dew has set a new low for corporate racism. Their decision to lean on well-known racial stereotypes is beyond disgusting. This doesn’t even include the fact that the company has put black men on par with animals.”

Is it racist? Either way, the company has agreed that it is, and has pulled the ad for good (as has Tyler from his own websites). Decide for yourself by seeing the video here after the break.

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Dan Bogosian

I finished school with a music theory degree. Before I finished school, I was a janitor. You really should apologize to all the janitors you've ever had. You hurt them. Seriously. You did.

But, now that we've cleared that up and you called your high school janitor, know that I quit being a janitor to pursue writing about music. So here I am, and here you are, and hey how are you?

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