Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority »

Marketing communications pioneer and Advertising Hall of Fame inductee Tom Burrell is credited with revolutionizing the image of African Americans in television and changing the face of American advertising. His award-winning work promoted positive and realistic images of blacks and acknowledged the purchasing power of the African American community. Burrell is the founder of The Resolution Project, a nonprofit organization that promotes intra-racial dialogue and community-based new media “stop the brainwash” campaigns. He lives in Chicago’s South Loop area.

      “Black people are not dark-skinned white people,” says advertising visionary Tom Burrell. In fact, they are much more. They are survivors of the Middle Passage and centuries of humiliation and deprivation, who have excelled against the odds, constantly making a way out of “No way!” At this pivotal point in history, the idea of black inferiority should have had a “Going-Out-of-Business Sale.” After all, Barack Obama has reached America’s Promised Land.

Yet, as Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority testifies, too many in black America are still wandering in the wilderness. In this powerful examination of “the greatest propaganda campaign of all time”—the masterful marketing of black inferiority, aka the BI Complex—Burrell poses ten disturbing questions that will make black people look in the mirror and ask why, nearly 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, so many blacks still think and act like slaves. Burrell’s acute awareness of the power of words and images to shift, shape, and change the collective consciousness has led him to connect the contemporary and historical dots that have brought us to this crossroads.

Brainwashed is not a reprimand—it is a call to action. It demands that we question our self-defeating attitudes and behaviors. Racism is not the issue; how we respond to media distortions and programmed self-hatred is the issue. It’s time to reverse the BI campaign with a globally based initiative that harnesses the power of new media and the wisdom of intergenerational coalitions. Provocative and powerful, Brainwashed dares to expose the wounds so that we, at last, can heal.

Introduction ix

Chapter 1 The Scorch at the Bottom of the Melting Pot 1

Chapter 2 Relationship Wrecks 13

Why Can't We Form Strong Families?

Chapter 3 Studs and Sluts 41

Why Do We Conform to Black Sexual Stereotypes?

Chapter 4 Uglified 65

Why are Black and Beautiful Still Contradictions?

Chapter 5 Homey-cide 87

Why Do We Keep Killing Each Other?

Chapter 6 Slow Suicide 107

Why Do We Neglect Body, Mind, and Spirit?

Chapter 7 Buy Now, Pay Later 135

Why Can't We Stop Shopping?

Chapter 8 D'sWill Do 161

Why Do We Expect So Little of Each Other-and Ourselves?

Chapter 9 Bred to Be Led 185

Why Do We So Willingly Give up Control of Our Lives?

Chapter 10 Diss-Unity 207

Why Can't We Stick Together?

Chapter 11 Neo-Coons 233

Why Is the Joke Always on Us?

Chapter 12 Yes, We Must! 255

Healing from the Inside Out

Acknowledgments 273

Endnotes 275

About the Author 285