Can’t be racist if you get rid of all the brown people taps forehead

  • TooManyFoods@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I don’t remember the call to get rid of uncle Ben though. It feels like at best the company was trying to get out ahead of it, at worst they wanted to stop paying his family residuals and had an excuse.

    • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todayOP
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      9 months ago

      Apparently the character was based on a black maître d’, so it wasn’t even particularly racist, since many white people also do this job, and it certainly isn’t slave labor (they tend to get very good tips, especially at fine dining restaurants, which the suit and tie he was wearing kinda implies he was working at). Therefore I’m inclined to believe the second reason might have been their actual motive, and the supposed racism was just a convenient excuse.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        No. That was simply the man who originally posed for the picture. The brand was officially named after a sharecropper. However Uncle was also a common title for an older male house slave. Same with Aunt. Both the original rice farmer and pancake mix inventor were born into slavery and had their products lifted from them by white corporations.

        • eatthecake@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I have no ides about this, being Australian. Are you saying that the people on the boxes represent real people who had their recipes stolen?

      • RedAggroBest@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Uncle Ben is literally a generic name given to house slaves. There were many Uncle Bens all across the south.