Racism and the post-apartheid media: Problematizing the racist Clicks advert as a manifestation of token transformation

Abstract

This article provides insight into the media as ‘reproducers’ of racist ideologies in an African postcolonial context. In South Africa, a ‘racist’ Clicks TRESemmé advert, released in September 2020, triggered public outcry and protests and exposed pertinent issues to consider about a lack of diversity and transformation as well as colonial tropes of Blackness still circulating in the post-apartheid media. This article locates the ‘racist’ Clicks advert historically within apartheid-era constructions of Blackness, as well as globally and locally within a wider pattern of Blackness representation. I problematize the advert as a manifestation of systemic weaknesses in the media transformation agenda in terms of race, specifically (1) racial substitution, (2) racial hierarchy and (3) beyond policies of non-racialism. I argue for a need to adopt decolonial visibility (Maldonado-Torres 2007) of Blackness to strengthen the media’s transformation efforts and dismantle the embedded racial hierarchy that emanated from capitalist modernity (Grosfoguel 2007).