Shenequa Golding:
As a Jamaican woman, I know an authentic accent. Hell, I grew up with it and I’m the only one of my friends who can actually decipher the lyrics in a Beenie Man song, so when I saw this Volkswagen ad. I wasn’t offended. I was actually annoyed.
In my opinion, the commercial isn’t racist. It’s wack! I didn’t laugh and not because I was trying to hate on it, but it simply in my mind merited one of those LOLs you place at the end of a text, but you really didn’t LOL.
To me, the commercial appears to have sounded great on paper in the brainstorming session, but didn’t do too well when the director yelled action. The execution was off.
For people to say the commercial is racist is a stretch. I sometimes feel like people can’t take a joke, despite how flat the joke landed.
As a woman with family from the island, I’m not upset, I’m not ready to cuss anyone out. I don’t even want to throw a beef patty, some jerk or curry chicken at the “offensive” commercial. I simply want to change the channel.