This project opened our eyes to how racist the advertising industry is. Although people claim that mainstream racism is dead, it became clear to us that it is very much alive. Whether it is older brands failing to update their image, or newer, ignorant brands, racism is prevalent in advertising. We took original racist ads and made an effort to point out the flaws in the logos. For example, the Land o Lakes logo has a Native American woman kneeling down holding butter. We added a colonial man with a speech bubble saying “this land is my land” and we put the word “stolen” up top. We wanted to portray that the Native American woman is in a vulnerable position like many Native Americans were when the settlers came in.

            The most challenging part of this project was being able to brainstorm culture jam ideas. We found it was easy to get off track and look for ads that were already blatantly racist instead of finding ones that we could be creative with.  We would be temped to use ads from the 50’s and 60’s that obviously racist, but our goal was to use our own wit and creativity to point out flaws in current logos and advertisements.

            Working in a large group is difficult with conflicting schedules. Also, it became clear to everyone that a strong leadership presence is necessary in groups, especially large ones. Obviously communication is important, but the confidence to make decisions and delegate the workload is something that not everyone has.  Without a confident and clear group leader this project would have been hectic. Thanks to strong leadership we are proud of our work, It is important that people in the workplace are able to either step up to the leadership role, or recognize who has qualities that make a great leader.