Black Identities Inside Advertising: Race Inequality, Code Switching, and Stereotype Threat

Abstract

This article explores Black identities within the U.S. advertising industry—an atmosphere charged by a history of discrimination against, and continuing underrepresentation of, African American practitioners. Drawing on theories of code switching and stereotype threat, the author interprets data from a set of focus groups with Black interns working at agencies in New York City and argues that their supposed race-based affiliations conceal deeper anxieties of cultural belonging marked by fissures of class and language that trigger self-monitoring and thus undermine retention and advancement in the advertising field. Furthermore, the author contends that the added psychological burden of stereotype threat makes Black interns wary of seeking out help from other more established Black employees—for fear of being seen as preferring their own race—thus placing them at a career development disadvantage vis-à-vis Whites, who have no qualms about affiliating with and mentoring other Whites. The author then offers some strategies for closing the White–Black labor gap in advertising ranging from agency reform from within to clients exerting structural pressure from without and concludes with a call for communication scholars to move beyond the text and critique race representation at the point of production.

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