If you hate hamsters, you probably hate black people.

If you have a television, I'm sure you have seen this commercial for the Kia Soul. If you haven't seen it, or just want to refresh your memory, I have embedded it below.



While watching the television, I had an epiphany about Kia's marketing department, hamsters, and people who hate this Kia commercial.

Unfortunately, racism will always be a part of any society. In America, overt racism is generally rare (unless you're pumping gas in West Virginia). However, covert/latent racial attitudes remain alive and well.

In America, urban culture has become primarily associated with African-Americans. In producing/writing this commercial, Kia's marketing/commercial developer must have recognized that a large part of Kia's customer base are either urban or people who appreciate urban music and culture. The marketing writers probably selected Black Sheep's single The Choice Is Yours (Revisited), hired dancers, and choreographed an urban-themed commercial.

Then someone realized that too many Americans are disproportionately afraid of African-Americans. So they replaced African-Americans with hamsters. Because really? Who hates hamsters?

The idea is to keep the marketing appeal of urban culture, but not activate the latent prejudice many people maintain. Unfortunately, this means if you hate this commercial, the "sanitizing" didn't work for you.

Ergo, if you hate this commercial because of the hamsters, you hate black people!

Disclaimer: This was obviously tongue-in-cheek.