Step 1: Read the Advertisements

As a group, watch at least five advertisements and discuss how well the ads represent different social groups (racial, gender, sexual, class, etc). Talk about whether or not the ads focused on stereotypes of those social groups and, if so, whether the overall message and the language was positive or negative. Some good examples of advertisements to look at are cleaning products, car advertisements, and fragrance ads. During this activity, participants will learn how to identify when micro-aggressive messages are present in an advertisements.

Hint to facilitator: Before the exercise, the facilitator prepares several types of advertising messages in advance that will serve the purpose.