If you are Pepsi, the past few days have not been good ones for you.
It all began when Pepsi released a long-form advertisement featuring Kendall Jenner ditching a modeling photoshoot to join a group of very attractive protesters.
Things got worse as she handed a black woman her blonde wig, wiped off her lipstick, fist-pounded a black man, and then reached the front of the protest where she handed a policeman a conveniently chilled and placed Pepsi before everyone cheered and started a dance party.
Yeah. As you might think, some folks got a tiny bit offended.
The commercial has been called “tone-deaf” at best, and a whole host of (appropriate and deserved) profanity at worst.
Minorities have also taken the high road and employed ample sarcasm in their complaints, as they should. Because the message of Pepsi appears to be “just give our soda to the cops, and they won’t kill, beat, or arrest you any longer.”
But, yesterday, the counter-Pepsi movement gained its most legit member yet–Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.
Bernice wasted no time, and no unnecessary words.
Ouch.
How do you come back from a vicious sarcastic comment like that, and a symbolic photograph like that?
Well, if you’re Pepsi, you apparently retweet a meme, wherein you are also apologizing to a white woman.
Hire some minorities, Pepsi. Hire lots and lots of them.
Or, if you have some in-house, give them promotions and start asking what they think of things before you do or say or tweet or share them.
Because, as it stands, your commercial has infuriated minorities, your explanation of it prior to yanking it has offended them, and your apology after yanking it has also offended them.
Best of luck to all of you in figuring your way out of this mess. We don’t envy you.
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