Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Boycott? BOYcott? Who you callin' "BOY?"
I mentioned recently that I generally think most boycotts are stupid. Case in point:
I have a Google Gadget that gives me updates from Snopes, so I see their new items while they're fresh. Like this one from today, an item that has my head spinning from it's stupidity.
Snopes has verified that Arizona brand tea company has changed the label for one of it's products because some people thought that it was racially insensitive. Snopes sited an e-mail that has been circulating to indicate the perspective of those who were offended by the product's label:
Read this as a Proud Black person and forward this to every Black Person you know!
My name is LaMar McGowan and today was the first day of my life were I Felt like less of a Black Man! When did Slavery become marketable? I'm Calling for a nation wide Boycott on a drink company named "Arizona" Which has a variety of flavors, I myself have bought a number of their drinks, but on 11/30 I bought my last one. Their is someone in the marketing dept. who told someone on the board that "We can degrade Black People and make money at the same time" and the board member agreed! Every Black person from the south knows how good it felt on those hot southern days to have a tall glass of sweet tea.
"Arizona" has a flavor known as "Southern Style Sweet Tea" but if you Look closely on the front of the can their is a picture of a Plantation!
Yes I said a Plantation, with a white couple on the porch and a Black woman Dress like Aunt Jamama walking away from the house. When did Slavery become marketable?
My Grandfather was 100 years old before he passed in 2004 and that Picture reminds me of his very few but painful story's not a hot southern day with a cool refreshing glass of sweet tea. So stop buying any drinks from this company! Stand up and let your voice be heard & overload their lines.
1-800-832-3775
And here's an image of the offending label, with detail:
I suppose that it's possible to look at that image and see the portrait of racism described above. I suppose it's also possible to look for shapes in the clouds and find racism if you're self-programed to look for racism everywhere and in everything. But when I look at that picture I don't see an image of slavery and plantation life. I see three people with indistinct features and a house in the Southern Gothic style of architecture.
As far as the supposed "Black woman Dress like Aunt Jamama walking away from the house" (sic), what I see is more like a white woman dressed in a fancy, old-fashioned dress and a bonnet. And I think the distinction is clear:
Heck, even Aunt Jemima doesn't look like that Aunt Jemima anymore. They updated her image a long time ago:
Let's wake up and be honest, shall we? There are really only two kinds of racism that are still publicly acceptable and marketable. That's racism toward southern whites and racism toward conservative blacks. The idea that the Arizona tea company would try to market a product with a really racially offensive image is just dumb. Nobody could take this seriously, right?
Well, I looked around the net and found a few opinions about the Arizona tea "scandal." Here are a few of the two extreme reactions...
From a Yahoo! 360 blogger:
Friends, as we approach the annual celebration of MLK Day, along with Barack Obama’s historic run for the White House, let’s not loose sight of how close we really are to the good old days of the past. It’s clearly not another internet hoax when a major national brand decides to release a new product featuring an image of the good Old South, with a happy slave on it. Yes, how far have we really come in 2008?
His post about the "racist tea packaging" got all kinds of comments, from
I'VE NEVER DRINK THEIR BRAND OF SOUTHERN STYLE TEA YET, I'VE SEEN IT IN THE STORES OVER THE YEARS,BUT I HAVE DRINKED THERE GREEN TEA, BUT I LIKE LIPTONS BETTER! BUT I'M TRULY A LEMONAID DRINKER, SO ARIZONIA WILL NOT GET NOTHING FROM ME! GOOD LOOKING OUT!
To a more thoughtful response like
I am a proud black woman and I think for our people to take this to the extent to banning this company because of a picture that I have yet to see that is described is not very smart. I could understand if the company had a limp body hanging from a tree, then I can understand a few hot heads.
And lest my fellow redneck crackers think that all black people are buying into this "scandal," let me present an opinion from the Black Voices website:
There's nothing wrong with addressing racism in any form and lord knows it's still very prevalent, but at the same time, people shouldn't jump to boycott something as ambiguous as the alleged color of a woman on a can at least without digging deeper.
And a poll at that website shows that most of it's readers apparently think this is silly, too:
So what's the moral to the story? How did the Arizona tea company respond? You're gonna love this. From the Arizona website:
We want to thank everyone who took the time to share with us their concerns about the packaging of our Southern Style Sweet Tea. The dialogue helped us to understand the problem and move forward to correct it. Although it was never our intention for the Sweet Tea label to offend any of our customers, we understand the change in label design was needed. We have commissioned an artist to totally redesign all of the Southern Style labels, and are already in the final stages of implementing the first phase of the changeover. The new artwork will appear first on our can line and next on our glass and plastic bottles.
Southern Style tea has been one of our most popular drinks over the past five years or so. People of all walks of life enjoy this and many of our other products, and we do not ever want to alienate any of them. We hope you like our new design and will continue to support the AriZona brand.
Thank you.
Ah, yes. Corporate and political ass-kissers give in to raving race-baiters every time. And that, my friends, is what keeps racism alive and well in America in 2008.
I'd write more but, for some reason, I'm craving pancakes.
Labels: Humor, Links, News, Politics
Permalink -- Posted by Darrell at 16:41 
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I think I've told you about this before, but it bears repeating in this context..
When I worked security for the EXTREMELY PC Montage Resort in Laguna Beach, California, I was called into the boss's office one day and informed that I'd had a complaint filed against me.
Evidently I'd told someone a racist joke in the vicinity of a Latino landscape maintenance worker, and he'd filed the complaint. I asked the boss what the joke was, since I didn't recall having done that, and he said the worker didn't speak English - he just KNEW that I was talking disparagingly about HIM, and I'm told I had pointed at him and laughed.
The boss actually had a security video cued from a perimeter camera that was time coded to the conversation, and it did INDEED show me talking to another white man while the worker pulled weeds nearby. It didn't show any pointing or laughing, though, so I guess I did that at a different time or out of the camera frame.
We watched it for a minute or so (no audio) and after the other man in the video walked away and the boss shut the video off, he turned to me and said, "So you won't be charged, but let's watch that sort of thing in the future".
When I worked security for the EXTREMELY PC Montage Resort in Laguna Beach, California, I was called into the boss's office one day and informed that I'd had a complaint filed against me.
Evidently I'd told someone a racist joke in the vicinity of a Latino landscape maintenance worker, and he'd filed the complaint. I asked the boss what the joke was, since I didn't recall having done that, and he said the worker didn't speak English - he just KNEW that I was talking disparagingly about HIM, and I'm told I had pointed at him and laughed.
The boss actually had a security video cued from a perimeter camera that was time coded to the conversation, and it did INDEED show me talking to another white man while the worker pulled weeds nearby. It didn't show any pointing or laughing, though, so I guess I did that at a different time or out of the camera frame.
We watched it for a minute or so (no audio) and after the other man in the video walked away and the boss shut the video off, he turned to me and said, "So you won't be charged, but let's watch that sort of thing in the future".
I read this yesterday and was stunned. I'm still stunned by the range of naiveté to sophistication, the range of kneejerk to reasoned tolerance. Yikes. Give us some dancing monkeys please.
This is indeed stupid.
And FYI are you saying that the Duke Lacrosse players being falsely charged was racist? Can you tell me how you define racist? They were charged because of an overzealous DA.
And FYI are you saying that the Duke Lacrosse players being falsely charged was racist? Can you tell me how you define racist? They were charged because of an overzealous DA.
Scott: They were charged because of an overzealous DA.
Yes, an overzealous DA who thought he could garner support among blacks by going after an easy target: young, affluent white guys. And yes, I'm aware that Mike Nifong himself is white. Most of the racism I see is still perpetrated by by whites. But it seems to me that the objects of their mockery and abuse are almost always white Southerners and black conservatives.
Yes, an overzealous DA who thought he could garner support among blacks by going after an easy target: young, affluent white guys. And yes, I'm aware that Mike Nifong himself is white. Most of the racism I see is still perpetrated by by whites. But it seems to me that the objects of their mockery and abuse are almost always white Southerners and black conservatives.
This story just makes me sad. From the people who just sit waiting to be offended, to the company cowardly enough to give into something this silly. It's just sad.
And Rhodester, that's just crazy. I mean, what are we becoming?
I'm clearly in a bad mood today. Maybe I should withhold my commenting until I can at least be cheerful about it. HA HA
And Rhodester, that's just crazy. I mean, what are we becoming?
I'm clearly in a bad mood today. Maybe I should withhold my commenting until I can at least be cheerful about it. HA HA
Actually in the case of the Duke Lacrosse boys I think it was more a case of class than race. There's quite a bit of tension between the town residents who aren't generally well off regardless of color and the students who generally are well off regardless of color. The race card was of course also an issue no thanks to Sharpton/Jackson. But when the white southerners in this case do something monumentally stupid and put themselves in that situation their stupidity needs to be pointed out. Not of course by being charged and held for crimes they didn't commit, but for the mistakes they did make.
Scott, Nifong's hold on his job was tenuous and depended on his maintaining support in the black community. Race was a factor long before Sharpton, et all, became involved. Race was a factor the minute Nifong decided to press charges that he knew were probably false. Anyone who believes that the Lacrosse players would have been prosecuted if they weren't white is foolish. And to imply that those kids were even partially responsible for the horrible, false accusations of rape and abuse that were brought against them ... in my opinion, that's a typically sickening display of twisted liberal logic.
I don't mean to be rude, but you should really read up on the correct usage of its vs. it's.
http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html#1
If you don't mean "it is," there shouldn't be an apostrophe.
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http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html#1
If you don't mean "it is," there shouldn't be an apostrophe.
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