Car Commercials and Primitive Peoples

It could have been just another dull TV ad featuring an Inca boy, Maori warriors, or Maasai dancers–heck, why not throw them all in there–and filed as such in the archives of car-plows-through-exotic-river-bed commercials.

But then we find out through this making-of clip “no Indian was hurt during the shoot” (around the 3:00 mark: “…nenhum índio foi ferido na filmagem”). So, now this commercial becomes something else. It becomes a reminder of Brazil’s past and present fraught with racial discrimination and we forget what the ad was trying to sell.

Further Reading

The road to Rafah

The ‘Sumud’ convoy from Tunis to Gaza is reviving the radical promise of pan-African solidarity and reclaiming an anticolonial tactic lost to history.

Sinners and ancestors

Ryan Coogler’s latest film is more than a vampire fable—it’s a bridge between Black American history and African audiences hungry for connection, investment, and storytelling rooted in shared struggle.