Brainwashed:
Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority

Black people are not dark-skinned white people.

This marketing strategy, that pinpoints the cultural cues of the target audience, was as simple as it was genius-and it made Tom Burrell one of the most successful 'ad men' in modern history.

Burrell's new thought included the early courtship of the image-conscious young urban consumer; he invented the advertising term "yurban." Through the years, Burrell Communications Group would dominate that niche market, earning hundreds of millions of dollars for groundbreaking advertising campaigns for Verizon, Tide and Sprite, among others.

In 2004, Burrell announced his retirement from Burrell Communications Group. Today he's rewired-having released a riveting new book, Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority (SmileyBooks, February, 2010), which no advertising exec would want the urban consumer to read.

In Brainwashed, Burrell illustrates with disturbing detail how the sausage is made, taking the reader from the fattening farm, to the slaughterhouse, to the cooked sausage patties at the breakfast table.

By the way, the sausage is you.

Two Black Women: the Mammy & the Siren

The oversexed siren and the asexual, overweight Mammy are among the dominant caricatures of Black women, according to Burrell.

Of the two, the Mammy is especially controversial.

Aunt Jemima (portrayed by Nancy Green, a bandana-wearing, full-figured black cook), made her world debut in Chicago, at the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893. Green happily flipped pancakes with the new self-rising flour, as she told cheery down-home stories.

Fast forward.

On December 15, 1939, 20th century Confederates packed Atlanta's Loew's Grand Theater for the world premiere of the civil war saga, Gone With the Wind, where another Mammy would make her debut. Hattie McDaniel, who made history as the first African American woman to win an Academy Award for her portrayal of the doting Mammy in the film, wasn't invited to the premiere. But her presence was felt-while Atlanta's Big Bethel choir, clad in costumes of the old South, serenaded Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh with Black spirituals, the Atlanta black press pounced on McDaniel for her role in the film.

Fast forward.

Decades later, Aunt Jemima and Mammy remain sore spots for many black women-fueling the complicated, yet blossoming underground resistance to Precious. Translation: It's beautiful that Gabourey Sidibe can be the face of self-acceptance and self love; it's tragic that her spring board is the ghetto tale, Precious.

Writes NY Press film critic Armond White, "Not since The Birth of a Nation has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as Precious. Full of brazenly racist clichŽs (Precious steals and eats an entire bucket of fried chicken), it is a sociological horror show."

White was torn to shreds over that review, even by some media heavyweights. Yet with history as a guide--Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar; and Halle Berry won an Oscar for her controversial performance in Monster's Ball--it appears that nominee Gabourey Sidibe may soon clench the most coveted award in Hollywood as well.

Two Black Men: the Stud & the Deadbeat Dad

The stud and the absentee father are among the rampant stereotypes that envelop black men, the ad man-turned author states.

"Only a few generations ago, it was illegal for a black man to be a father. We have to remember that it's not a father problem that we have, it's a relationship problem that we have," Burrell says. "The father is not in the home because black men and women have these unresolved issues that come out of slavery. We basically have been conditioned to be against each other. We were separated; we were not able to form relationships because we had no control over our lives. We have failed to heal those wounds that exist between us and those have to be addressed and understood."

Thank goodness for the First Family, Burrell says.

"Images are powerful and one of the most powerful images right now in America for black people is Barack and Michelle Obama," he states. "She is a tremendously powerful image, intellectually, physically, and for her values. Think about the image of an African American woman and man getting off of Air Force One; being in the White House as the leader and the First Lady of the free world.

It's not that they're black, it's that they're black and they have a cool factor. You watch Obama walk and you see that cool pose in his gait. If you listen to him, you'll hear the occasional, 'Hey man...' And we've seen some evidence of that, already in young black men; you can be cool and smart and, as a matter of fact, smart is cool."

Not so fast.

The power of Barack Obama, the black father and husband, is a feel-good victory. But, Burrell cautions, "Even that image is challenged by all of the negative cues that we get through the media."

The Root of the Black Inferiority Complex

So, how did the Black inferiority complex come about?

"The systematic brainwashing [existed] from the beginning of our being here, starting in 1619, and really revving up at the founding of this nation, with slavery," Burrell explains. "It has never abated."

In the book, Burrell explains that the church was integral in the brainwashing.

"The role of religion in the lives of black people historically was to suppress us. It was a bit of a paradox because we were trying to use religion to sustain ourselves, [but] we were being conditioned to use religion to accept our inferiority in the earliest part of our being here, that was the scheme. Starting with the fact that we weren't even allowed as slaves to have black ministers. We started off with white preachers telling us to, 'Depend on me and I will deliver you because I've got a special relationship with God.'"

Burrell adds, "We did not bring any of our religion to the shores, whatever we had was whipped out of us, we were taught that we were the scourge, and that we should accept our inferiority and look for our rewards beyond life... and we should accept our enslavement."

A stirring debate among historians and theologians concerns how the Bible, specifically Ham, was used to justify slavery.

In the Bible, Ham discovers Noah in his own tent intoxicated and naked. Ham tells his brothers, Shem and Japheth, who hurriedly cover their father without looking at him. When Noah finds out what happened, he curses Ham's son Canaan, saying he shall be "a servant of servants."

The debate: Ham is believed to be black, and future descendants were cursed to be slaves.

"One thing is, however, absolutely clear," notes David M. Goldenberg, author of The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam. "The name Ham is not related to the Hebrew or to any Semitic word meaning 'dark' 'black' or 'heat' ... Ham did not represent the father of hot, black Africa and there is no indication from the biblical story that God intended to condemn black-skinned people to eternal slavery."

Burrell agrees. "The curse of Ham--which was totally disconnected from any kind of sensible cause-effect relationship--had nothing to do with this whole concept of inferiority as it was sold to us.We bought the whole myth of Ham, and being cursed into darkness, into blackness, and we also bought the idea that we should look outside of ourselves for help. And we should depend outside of ourselves for any kind of assistance, health, or fulfillment, and that's what we have been doing ever since."

Burrell's Roots

Thomas Jason Burrell was born on March 18, 1939.

If you look closely, the DNA markers of the image-conscious entrepreneur are evident.

The father, Thomas Burrell Sr., an entrepreneur by way of Tennessee, came to Chicago with a healthy work ethic and a distrust of banks. When the Great Depression wiped the banks out, Burrell Sr., had enough cash on hand to purchase buildings. He later opened a blues club, where none other than Muddy Waters performed. From Thomas, the son would inherit his business savvy, the inner voice to carve his own path.

The mother, Evelyn, one of ten children, left Alabama to pursue a better life in Chicago. She attended beauty school, and was a popular kitchen beautician. From Evelyn, the son would inherit an acute eye for image-and how important it is to Black people.

In 1957, Tom Burrell attended Roosevelt University where an advisor told him that he wasn't 'intelligent enough' to graduate. He quit college, did manual labor at a paint factory for a stint, but returned to college and graduated in 1962.

The son trumpeted the uniqueness of the black consumer and the importance of authenticity when engaging that target market. He created a niche. "I started a business at the same time the whole black consciousness arm of the Civil Rights Movement was taking place," Burrell recalls. "Black Power; Black Is Beautiful; the outgrowth of the Civil Rights Movement that Stokely Carmichael was heading up."

It's befitting for Burrell to roll out the industry secrets to educate that niche-after years of giving the people what they wanted, he aims to give them what they need. But can the people handle the truth?

Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority, is a deep book, raw and unrelenting in its reportage of what makes you tick, what makes you buy, and, most damning, what makes you despise who you really are.

The book offers solutions for taking control of the black image; namely, via the utilization of new technology to police and combat the mainstream negativity. Blogs, online radio, newsletters, e-blasts, social media--the eyes and the ears of the world have been open-sourced and the power to spread positive image consciousness is real.

Still, the blueprint for significant progress, Burrell advises, begins within; and the desire is apparent.

"African Americans have always had this underlining desire to overcome. This pops up through our history from time to time, like the 'Black Is Beautiful' era. But we've never been able to sustain it because of the overwhelming bombardment of images that tell us we are inferior."

With new technology and a historic presidency, perhaps the revolution will stick this time around.

Perhaps.

For more info, visit www.stopthebrainwash.com or www.theresolutionproject.us.