Junk food ads target children

Junk food ads in the US try to make children pressure their parents to buy junk food for their children. That is surely harming children and promoting obesity. Curiously, the advertisers appear to target these ads primarily at black families.

Does that make the practice more wrong? I don't think so. I think that luring children to eat junk food is equally wrong regardless of details about those children.

Why do they advertisers target mainly black families? I doubt that racist thinking plays a direct part, and the article doesn't say it does. As far as I know, advertising agencies are motivated by unscrupulous greed and will target whoever appears vulnerable. The article mentions various reasons why black families are likely to be more vulnerable, on the average.

Those reasons seem to be aspects of systemic racism; they are probably consequences of other forms of racism, such as housing discrimination.

Should we restrict these ads? If we can find an effective way to do so, I think we should. Corporations are not human beings, and neither is a large business even if it is owned by one human being. But what goal should the restrictions aim for? To make advertising agencies target white children just as much as they target black children? I think the goal should be to stop targeting children of whatever race.

The article linked to above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important. I made an exception for this article because it is an opportunity to explore a moral point.