Powerful ad shows generations of black moms teaching their kids about bias

How do you prepare a black child for the discrimination, hatred, and racism they will experience?

It's an agonizing question black parents have faced for generations. Now, a new ad is chronicling how they've tackled these heartbreaking yet necessary conversations with their children over the past several decades.

The moving ad comes from an unlikely source — consumer goods corporation Procter & Gamble. The spot is part of its My Black Is Beautiful campaign, which was launched earlier this year by black P&G employees to celebrate and support black beauty.

The one-minute video tracks "the talk" throughout history, chronicling moments black mothers first needed to talk to their children about racism and bias.

In one segment of the video, a young girl who appears to be from the 1950s holds a white doll and tells her mother that a woman at the store told her she was "pretty for a black girl." Her mother is visibly taken aback and says, "That is not a compliment ... You are beautiful, period. OK?"

In another segment, a modern mother teaches her daughter how to drive. The mother says, "When you get pulled over…" as if it's an inevitability. When her daughter insists that she's a good driver and won't get stopped by police, her mother says, "This is not about you getting a ticket. This is about you not coming home."

So far, reaction to the ad from the black community and people of color has been positive and emotional.

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The gut-wrenching stories in the ad may be fictional, but they certainly reflect real conversations. P&G hopes to help end the need for these conversations by encouraging their consumers to confront bias in their own lives.

The ad ends with the phrase, "Let's all talk about 'the talk' so we can end the need to have it." To help foster this conversation about racial discrimination, P&G is promoting the hashtag #TalkAboutBias.

While there's definitely a critique to be had about a corporation using black pain for profit, P&G's ad is a sensitive and harrowing depiction of the realities of black parenthood in a biased society. Corporate "wokeness" is definitely worthy of a critical eye. But attacking racism from all angles? There's little harm in that.

You can watch the full-length version of "The Talk" below:

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