JORDAN ADS REPLACE UNCLE BEN

Aunt Jemina, Uncle Ben and Rastus have been replaced in advertising with Michael Jordan and Bill Cosby, but there's still room for improvement in the ways advertising portrays African-Americans, an expert on advertising told an audience of about 200 at Southeast Missouri State University Monday evening.

Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, a journalism professor at Texas A & M University whose lifework is studying images of Black people in advertising, alternately entertained and provoked the audience with poetry and a slide show.

Her lecture was the first in a series honoring Michael Davis, a journalism student at the university who died in a hazing incident. Kern-Foxworth looked at the two rows filled with the Davis family and told them. "I pledge to myself to do everything to stop these insidious incidents," adding that as a sorority member she believes that "you can haze a person by making them go to the library and making them get into knowledge."

She showed slides that exposed members of the audience to images in advertising that would be unimaginable today: soaps that advertised that they could wash the black off people's skin, black men with bulging eyes and exaggerated lips saying "My missus says dar's no good coffee in these yer parts," people so dark the bottoms of their hands and feet were coal black.

She spoke of growing up 20 years ago and not being able to buy pantyhose or Band-Aids that matched her dark skin tones.

The imagery began to change during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Kern-Foxworth said. The first use of an African-American in a positive, non-stereotypical manner in an ad for general audiences came with a New York Telephone Co. showing a man in a business suit using a phone booth.

Now wholesome images of African-Americans are commonplace in advertising, more so than in television and movies. But she said there are two few images like the one from a Jockey Shorts ad she displayed. An African-American agricultural economist says he appreciates the comfort of the shorts on his many trips around the world.

She said the predominant images of successful blacks where you can tell what they do for a living are of athletes and entertainers, fields where a child's chances for success are slim. Black children need more images of attainable professions like doctors or lawyers, she said. Children need realistic images they can relate to.