I woke up this morning to news feeds talking about Pepsi’s new ad featuring reality TV star Kendall Jenner.
I’ll admit that I was curious so I watched the advertisement and I was surprised that I saw a positive, feel good video that culminated in Jenner handing a police officer a Pepsi.
In the ad released Tuesday, Jenner is in the middle of a photo shoot when she happens to notice a protest march making its way down the street.
The demonstrators were marching but they were peaceful, pleasant and their signs read “peace” and “love” and “join the conversation.”
Jenner joins the crowd, grabs a can of Pepsi and walks up to a police officer watching the protest and hands it to him. He takes a drink, a woman wearing a nose-ring and a traditional Muslim headscarf takes a photograph and cheers erupt.
I thought it was pretty cool and exactly what America is and should be. We can disagree peacefully, we can be cordial towards law enforcement and we can all agree on a message of peace and unity.
So why did Pepsi pull the advertisement within hours and apologize?
“Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize,” Pepsi wrote in a statement on Wednesday.
It wasn’t Pepsi that missed the mark.
Apparently some individuals and groups were offended. Black Lives Matter Activist DeRay McKesson told NBC News that “this ad trivializes the urgency of the issues and it diminishes the seriousness and the gravity of why we got into the street in the first place.”
McKesson also rejected Pepsi’s apology, “Pepsi didn’t apologize to all of the people who have been protesting for two years, didn’t apologize to the people who dedicated their lives and their time to these issues and to understand the urgency of them because in so many cases, there’s so much at stake including people’s lives,” he said.
The mainstream media jumped on today’s controversy and never questioned individuals like McKesson on their anger towards the video.
They should have.
Pepsi never mentioned Black Lives Matter in the ad and it was never implied that the protest was in regards to law enforcement.
In usual fashion, McKesson and others placed their false narrative in front of the video and let their “outrage” push and intimidate everyone else.
McKesson should have been asked why he organized protests in Ferguson with the mantra “hands up….don’t shoot” when it was a complete lie.
When one Black Lives Matter Rally called for cops to be killed, McKesson never rejected it.
It’s not until Pepsi runs an advertisement that is positive that McKesson and others get mad.
This advertisement wasn’t about McKesson, which he proved by getting upset about something that had nothing to do with him and the movement he leads.
It was about something that all of us can get behind but clearly a select few will not.
Unfortunately, Pepsi caved to the yells of just a few and for that we all lost today.