Okay, I can see why Australians are pissed off for being wrongly accused of racism. But I don’t see why you’re putting down Americans for thinking in terms of their own country. Every person in the world thinks in terms of their own country. Even Australians do. I also find it hypocritical that Americans are put down for being nationalists when this commercial is about Australian nationalism for their own cricket team. That’s unfair. As for every single American being racist, way to stereotype a nation! Maybe we were quick to judge this commercial because we are sensitive to racism since we have long history with it. It doesn’t mean that every American person against racism is compensating for guilt. Speaking out against racism is us speaking out against racism. Nothing more. All naysayers think they have such a richly deep (or shallow, since they all think we’re all stupid) understanding of every American person, when really they are just stereotyping.

As an Australian. I am offended by this American generated slur. Americans seem over-sensitive as soon as they see a black person (why is that ? strange!). Talk about imposing your own guilt on the other nations of the earth and then labelling them.  Go TEAM U.S.A.

Don’t African Americans like KFC?

Drakeson, you talk of the Harry Conick comments. Another dim witted, uninformed comment by you. The guys that did that were indian (there’s more than american), and pakistanian. yea, they were being racist. I do find it interesting that you go on about this yet you all laughed at a portrayal of domestic violence on SNL (tiger woods!!). So its funny to smack your spouse but not offer a west indian chicken??? Hmmm.

Having visited the US I can understand the negative reaction from the American Negro cultural group in the US population who have battled racism for some 200 years or more. The advertisement was intended for the Australian market and was aimed at Cricket fans (to the US readers - no not the insect that funny game Aussies play for days on end and may not even produce a result). As KFC states their Australian marketing division never considered that the advertisement would be seen outside of Australia.  This demonstrates that in today’s Globalised environment consideration needs to be given to the multiple Geographic and Cultural locations that may be exposed to media messages including Advertisements.
The US has enough enemies in the world without isolating a long-term mate such as Australia over a minor cultural misunderstanding. The US population must realise that some parts of their culture is offensive in Australia, as an example, several years ago a well known US actor in an interview on TV said the words “… my hogs were rooting around in the garden.” The US actor could not understand the reaction of the Australian audience until it was explained that the word “root” means fornication in Australian English. Let’s just understand that as close as the two cultures are differences do exist, but we should not allow these differences to damage a long-term mateship.

Aaarrgghh!!!!! This is doing my head in!!!!! How to explain this in a way even an American can understand… Ok, forget there are black & white people in the commercial. The whole point of the ad is the fanatical supporter of one sports team is stuck in the middle of a big group of fanatical supporters of the other competing sports team. As KFC sponsors the Windies team why not use their fans? They are black people from the WEST INDIES, they don’t eat soul food & neither do Aussies! The whole concept of African Americans eating soul food stereotype has nothing to do with either country. The Windies have recently been playing against the Aussies, why they didn’t feature the Poms barmy army instead (look them up & see how crazy cricket supporters can be). These matches are played for DAYS so you’d be sitting there for the whole day in the middle of your rivals. You buy seat tickets, you can’t move around in some stands. This ad is stupid, but it’s far less stupid than the crazy behaviour you see in the stands during a match & none of it is racially motivated. The international fans of the teams that compete all get into taking the mickey out of each other. Cricket brings people from all over the world together. Maybe Yanks should consider getting a team together, you’d learn a thing or two about tolerance

Typical hypocritical screeching Americans acting like the global morals police, inflicting their experience of race and identity on everyone else as the only one worth knowing because they the USA are so much more the important than ANYONE else.
Its about context. And the lack of even looking for one when you are convinced YOUR reading of an ad is the ONLY one..
This ad is about as Racist as Mother Theresa was Kung- fu master,.. not at all. If anything it should be the USA that looks at ITS racism and how US ignorance of anyone or thing else than them.
Why do I bother,.. this is an open letter to a country that calls it’s baseball league the “world series” when Cuba, Japan and you guessed it… Australia,.. have owned you in the past in global competitions. Notice i don’t have to say “go screw an x y z” or ” look at how you treat native peoples,..how racist” No.
I’ll not sink to that level you wish to dwell at. Says more about America than it does me

The Australian hyper-defensiveness is what’s making this weird.

now thats racist maybe i shouldnt have said that they might invade us

the only peolpe australians hate are white americans

Please, this is absolutely ridiculous. Anyone that shows offence to this has no understanding of the context in which it was shown, this add was not meant for an American audience and as such any cultural understandings that exist in America have no relevance.
Furthermore just what is to be gained from this outrage. How many fried chicken companies are now going to be willing to feature black actors in their adds. Hiring actors from an agency would sound something like “We want actors for our next add please, but no black people as we don’t want to discriminate against them”??? how does this make sense.
How do you suggest KFC should advertise in say, any African country where the majority of the population is black?

To the Australian audience, all we saw was the humour as we love our friendly rivalry with the West Indian cricket fans. We don’t expect an American audience to understand as they are not a cricketing nation.
Should we take offence to the comments you make about us? On this page alone I see someone refer to us as crocodile fuckers. I can tell you now that if were capable of fucking crocodiles (a dangerous apex predator that has survived since the time of the dinosaur) then I would have to say that we would be pleased with ourselves. It’s so much harder than rooting a sheep.
Until the vast majority of Americans have any comprehension of the greater world and other cultures, we shouldn’t care what they think of us.
I agree with the people who write that it is your own guilt about your own racism that creates these feelings.
Perhaps America would be better off talking about their gun laws and how stupidity with guns has led to death of yet another innocent child. He was only 4 years old and at church with his family, when a stray bullet fired in ‘celebration’ from some distance away was able to penetrate the church and kill the boy instantly. Why wouldn’t this cause national outrage? Is it because he was black? Take a look at yourselves first before you judge others.

Hey Drakesan, how many generations does it take for an ethnic Korean family to get Japanese citizenship?

Wait a gosh derned minute! If Americans don’t understand this ad because Australian culture is so complex and unique in it’s colorblind layers of racial harmony and we, as Americans, are ignorant of the chasm of differences between America and Australia…  then why the hell are you eating so much Kentucky Fried Chicken in the first place? Is it a different, SPECIAL Kentucky Fried Chicken that only by sheer coincidence looks exactly like the American version? Do our cultural blinders and supreme ignorance keep us from seeing the complexity and uniqueness of the Australian Kentucky Fried Chicken?

I was going to do my own response to this moronic reaction, but this guy on you tube says it perfectly: “Americans might think this is racist because black people eating fried chicken is a stereotype that exists in their country. This ad was shown during cricket matches between Australia and the West Indies. If England had been playing at the time, the ad would have shown the bloke feeding chicken to the Barmy Army to make them sit down and shut up. There’s no racism intended or perceived in Australia. The complaints I’ve seen have come from Americans guilty about they treat people in their country”

So there is an American stereotype about African Americans that they like fried chicken right? And they are calling the KFC ad racist because it shows black people eating fried chicken? So forgetting for a moment that that stereotype doesn’t even exist in Australia - why should West Indians be included in an African American stereotype? Oh that’s right, they’re black and to American all black people are the same. What a fantastic example they are to us racist Australian people, showing us they way

They just know their market… minorities in Aussieland don’t have TVs… therefore cannot be offended by this ad… duh