When a Heinz advert features racist stereotypes to sell pasta sauce, it’s vital to speak out. So I did

It’s Black History Month, one dedicated to reclaiming narratives. It also happens to be a month before the 140th anniversary of the plotting phase of white supremacy’s most enduring set of crimes: the Berlin conference (in which it was decided which European nations, empires or monarchs would get to own which parts of Africa and, effectively, enslave the population). Complementing and continuing the catastrophes that emerged from the industrialised kidnapping and enslavement of Africans in the Americas before it, the Berlin conference unleashed a slew of compounding tragedies, confusions, narratives and stereotypes, which have led us down the years to the stereotype of single parenthood, and notably the “deadbeat father”.

Fast-forward to last Friday. Standing on the Victoria line platform of Vauxhall tube station, I noticed an advert for a new “family size” pasta sauce being flogged by Heinz. It is a wedding shot, in which a joyful-looking dark-skinned Black woman in her wedding dress is clutching a fork of pasta in tomato sauce, seemingly unconcerned that sauce has dripped down her dress. So far, so innocuous. Sat beside her is a man you assume is the groom (who is white) and a rather bewildered-looking older Black woman you could reasonably guess is her mother. On her other side are two older, and also apparently bewildered, white people who would reasonably be assumed to be the parents of the groom. Admittedly I had to look a few times to ensure I wasn’t seeing things. I wasn’t. Where was her father, whom the average person – looking at her – would assume to be Black? Nowhere to be seen. Not at the top table. Not anywhere.

Most might not have noticed. That’s probably how the image – which Heinz, post-social media storm, has apologised for – got that far.

Looking at it on the tube, I reflected on how much the concept of the deadbeat or missing father has cost us. It’s not that it doesn’t happen. Everything’s Gonna Be Alright (Ghetto Bastard), a furious anti-deadbeat father record by rappers Naughty By Nature sprung to mind. It was a song I knew line for line as a 10-year-old former foster child before I met my own biological father.

But that detachment isn’t a given. And it certainly shouldn’t be the basis for an ad executive’s lazy assumption. On Friday night, I tweeted a line from a song by the rapper Nas, Daughters, (“for my brothers with daughters”) – alongside the picture of the Heinz ad, before adding that Black girls, believe it or not, have fathers too. It rightly touched a nerve.

A key legacy of centuries of racist assault on Black people has been Black families struggling to stay together. Yet a statistic is a liar’s best friend, and statistics on single parenthood in Black communities are a bigot’s closest ally. Admittedly, the stats on single parenthood look notably vicious for Black communities. The figure in England and Wales increased from 48.5% in 2011 to 51.0% in 2021.

However, in Black communities, the synonymising of single parenthood with deadbeat fatherhood is an error. As in all communities, it is not uncommon for Black or multi-racial parents to break up or to be unmarried, but it is increasingly unusual for Black fathers not to play a super-active role in the lives of their children. The stereotypes we inherited from yesteryear are yet to be updated and are crowded out by statistics that don’t paint a full picture.

Thanks in large part to intra-communal accountability endeavours for Black fathers on an interpersonal, collective (see organisations such as Dope Black Dads) and cultural level (more musical examples include Parity by AKS), we are living through the aftershock of the era of the deadbeat Black father. So we are left with no choice but to challenge the Heinz advert and that stereotype.

We know that outrage sells. As does subtle racism. And in the main, no publicity – especially for a billion-dollar entity like Heinz – is bad publicity. But I will also say that, compared with other media, advertising has really tried to reflect and represent modern, multicultural and diverse Britain, especially at a time when it is under political and, as we saw in this summer’s riots, literal physical assault.

Advertising in Britain formed a force field against the culture war assaults of the years of Tory rule. And money talks: diversity has proven to be a very good (profitable) marketing and advertising tool. I view the Heinz ad as more cock-up than corporate Klansman conspiracy, and its apology for “unintentional perpetuated negative stereotypes” – assuming it is taking the posters down and doing something positive to challenge those stereotypes – is to be welcomed.

But let this be a lesson. From advertising to TV to reality, what must always be remembered is that Black girls, like Black boys, have fathers too. Keeping Black men off the table does no one any good.

• Nels Abbey is an author, broadcaster and the founder of Uppity: the Intellectual Playground

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