Quick, now! What are some of the things you know for sure? You know that all engineers are illiterate, right? And all people of sub-Saharan African descent have beautiful gleaming white teeth. Right? "It's a good thing he was smiling or I'd never have seen him!" Such is the power of the stereotype.Which brings us to Darlie toothpaste, which I hadn't seen since my daze in China, but noticed in an Asian convenience store yesterday. As you can see, "Darlie" used to be called "Darkie". In Chinese it's still 黑人 hēi rén, or "black person". In fact they have an advertising slogan in Chinese: "Black Man Toothpaste is still Black Man Toothpaste".
Political correctness dictated the name change when Colgate-Palmolive bought Hawley & Hazel, the Taiwanese manufacturers, in 1985. At that time the original name was "Darkie", which, Wikipedia tells us "is a term used primarily to refer to black people". Ah. I see.
Anyway, rest assured. You can use Darlie with full confidence that your teeth can look just like Al Jolson's. Al Jolson, by the way, was white.
No comments:
Post a Comment