Would these lollies be considered racist in the USA

[antechinus]

Are the Chico and Red Skin lollies available in the USA? Are they, or would they, be seen as racist?

Reading the tar baby thread in GD about racial sensitivities in the USA made me wonder.

Chico's are little black babies. Redskins are based on an American Indian theme. (http://www.aussieproducts.com/products.asp?dept=73&pagenumber=1&sort_on=number&sort_by=ASC)

[Wendell Wagner]

The hardest thing for Americans to figure out are what lollies are. Does this just mean "candy"? Or does it mean something more specific?

[Argent Towers]

If there's any question about it at all, then yes, they most likely would be considered racist.

[Mehitabel]

Well, Chicos look a lot like Chocolate Babies (http://www.oldtimecandy.com/chocolate-babies.htm), which are indeed brown but then again chocolate is brown (usually). There's no association with humans on the packaging as far I can see, so they're fine. What flavor are they? And Chico is just Spanish for little boy, so big deal.

Redskins...hmmm...with stylized pictures of actual people (Lakotas I think) and that red dot thing wearing a feather bonnet--that's kinda borderline, as well as the name. That sort of name should be reserved for football teams. (http://www.redskins.com/)

[ZipperJJ]

Looks like the OP is talking about candy available in Australia.

Not sure if there's a solid answer to this one, might be a GD or IMHO thread.

So in anticipation of the move...

Chicos - yeah, the cartoon on the package would probably be offensive to African Americans. Not so much the name.

Redskins....er, unfortunately, no - we've done much worse (http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/graphics/illos/chief.wahoo.logo.jpg).

[Argent Towers]

Actually, on second thought, why would anyone find the chicos candy to be racist?

What if the chicos were a white chocolate candy and the picture on the front was of a white baby? Obviously nobody would think it was racist. But I find it intriguing that some people might consider the black chicos baby to be racist for no other reason than that it is black.

There are many white mascots - the Tennessee Pride sausage boy, the Village Pantry kid, the Dutch Boy - none of whom ever get accused of racist. And we have black mascots like Uncle Ben, and I have never heard anyone accuse that of racism.

[Cunctator]

Yum. I love Redskins. We used to buy them on the way home from school (totally against all of the rules) for one cent each. A couple would last you all of the train journey home.

Does this just mean "candy"?Yes. Lollies = sweets, candy

[Mehitabel]

Better picture of Chicos here. (http://about-australia-shop.com/product_info.php/products_id/1239)

I'm not really seeing the offense part. I'm much more worried as to why some of them are jumping out of the balloon.

They're just Chocolate Babies, which had a generic red and yellow package IIRC. Growing up in the Bronx, I was unfortunately able to hear a lot of racial insults fly back and forth, and never heard the candy used as a bad reference.

[Askance]

The hardest thing for Americans to figure out are what lollies are. Does this just mean "candy"?Yes; it's an Australian and NZ term for confectionery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lollies), more or less. It's applied to candy that comes in small discrete pieces (eg M&Ms, boiled candy, allsorts; basically most of the things on this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lollies)) and not chocolate, fudge, toffee and other more bulk items.

[antechinus]

Well, Chicos look a lot like Chocolate Babies (http://www.oldtimecandy.com/chocolate-babies.htm), which are indeed brown but then again chocolate is brown (usually). There's no association with humans on the packaging as far I can see, so they're fine. What flavor are they? And Chico is just Spanish for little boy, so big deal.

They are chocolate flavour, but it is not chocolate - its chewy.

I don't know what flavour redskins are. I know what they taste like, but buggered if I know what the flavour is called.

If there is a USA footy team called the Redskins, then there should be no problem with calling the candies redskin.

[Dr_Paprika]

I grew up with "black babies" and redskin peanuts. I don't consider those terms racist, or those candies racist. Doubtless some people would.

[mhendo]

Redskins...hmmm...with stylized pictures of actual people (Lakotas I think) and that red dot thing wearing a feather bonnet--that's kinda borderline, as well as the name. That sort of name should be reserved for football teams. (http://www.redskins.com/)Actually, i think the image on the package of Redskins in the OP's link might be and old and superseded one.

My mother occasionally sends me a "care package" of candy and other goodies, and one thing i always request is a pack or two of Redskins. They're yummy.

But she's been sending these packages for a few years now, and the Redskins packaging hasn't had actual picture of indians on it for that whole time period. Instead, it looks like this (http://www.everythingaustralian.com/alred20bag1.html).

When i first saw this new packaging, i looked to see who owned the brand, and it seems that it's manufactured by the Wonka candy company, which is originally an Amerian company but is now, i believe, owned by the Nestle conglomerate.

[ZipperJJ]

The pic from the OP's link had a different packaging than Mehetabel's link. here's the package I saw (http://www.aussieproducts.com/prodinfo.asp?number=NECH12)

Actually when I wrote my first post the only pic I'd seen was the small thumbnail from the OP's link, so my first impression was the baby on the front looked a little uh...mammy (http://www.glasshunter.com/MY%2030%20Salty%20Mammy%20Ssalt%20Pepper.jpg) (can't think of a better term right now) to me.

On closer inspection, which still isn't clear, I don't think it's as offensive as I thought before. But in America I can totally see someone being offended by it. Americans like to be offended :)

[mittu]

For a very long time in the U.K. Robertson's jams (jelly to Americans, I believe) and marmalades featured the Golliwogg (http://www.rjohnwright.com/images/chronology/collectorclub/gw.jpg) on the packaging and in commercials and promotional material. Despite the golliwogg being something of a grotesque caricature and being the likely etymological source of the racial slur "wog" it continued to be used right up until 2001 when golly was officially retired. In these racially sensitive times we live in it is quite surprising that golly lasted as long as he did, possibly down to a sense of tradition, he had been on the packaging and part of the promotions for so long that the image seemed to lose any racial connections and was just seen as a fun character.

[TheLoadedDog]

For a very long time in the U.K. Robertson's jams (jelly to Americans, I believe) and marmalades featured the Golliwogg (http://www.rjohnwright.com/images/chronology/collectorclub/gw.jpg) on the packaging and in commercials and promotional material. Despite the golliwogg being something of a grotesque caricature and being the likely etymological source of the racial slur "wog" it continued to be used right up until 2001 when golly was officially retired. In these racially sensitive times we live in it is quite surprising that golly lasted as long as he did, possibly down to a sense of tradition, he had been on the packaging and part of the promotions for so long that the image seemed to lose any racial connections and was just seen as a fun character.
We have "Golliwog" chocolate biscuits here in Australia, in the shape (and colour) of a charicatured black clown character. Surprisingly, these politically correct times did not kill them. They were a childhood favourite of mine in the 70s, and were withdrawn because of perceived racism in the early 80s. Anyway, common sense prevailed, and they've been back for five or ten years. Still very tasty too!

I remember going to a shop with a friend of mine in the early 90s to buy a tube of DARKIE toothpaste, complete with a picture of a (very) black man in a top hat with a brilliant white grin. It was imported from Asia or somewhere, and my firend had to go to that specific one shop to get it as nowhere else in Sydney sold it. He only bought it because he knew it was on borrowed time, and was a curiosity. Sure enough, it's now "DARLIE" toothpaste.

I also have fond childhood memories of redskin lollies.

Another product you could get when I was a kid was the pack of huge tissues called MAN SIZE. They're still available, but the labelling has changed. It used to be:

200
WHITE MAN SIZE
TISSUES

Now it's:

200 White
MAN SIZE
TISSUES

It'll probably be "person-size" soon.....

[mittu]

Actually 'person-sized' could be seen to suggest that all people should be the same size which is discriminatory against those of a diminished stature. You would be safest sticking to giving actual measurements.

[Nava]

I'm quite sure that the original Conguitos (http://www.lacasa.es/conguitos.asp) would be seen as racist. Here in Spain they've been around for so long that nobody complains. They're peanut MnMs minus the coloring.

Once we were expecting an engineer from the US, with a name nobody had heard before. We didn't know if it was a man or a woman, color, size, age, nothing. All we knew is it was an engineer from the US, coming to stay for a few months.

So one day I'm in the cafeteria and one of the guys walks in saying "hey, anybody seen that lady? Man, she looks just like a Conguito!" (catches himself) "Oh, man, I'm so glad the manager didn't hear me say that..."

(the other guys, once they stopped laughing) "Well, she IS round and black. She's the engineer, too. Not very 'yanki', that one"



Several months later, some of the guys were reminding the first guy of this and he said "well, i was even more right than I thought: she is round, she is black and she is as sweet as chocolate"

[CalMeacham]

Nowadays companies try to avoid even the possibility of being taken as insensitive, ethnocentric, ior racist.

When I was a kid in the 1960s, there was a line of Kool-Aid-type powdered drinks called "Funny Face" that included, among such innocuous offerings as Goofy Grape and Loud-Mouth Lime the following:

Chinese Cherry
Injun Orange


After a short time, these were removed, and replaced by:


Choo-choo cherry
Jolly Olly Orange


Today, I think they'd avoid the Naspoleon-hatted, cross-eyed Goofy Grape as being insensitive to the mentally ill. Maybe it'd be Gilbert Grape, and we';d finally know what was eating him.


http://theimaginaryworld.com/ffpac.html#other

[chowder]

Good Golly Miss Molly!!





What?

[Monty]

mhendo,

Being very color-blind, I find that the new image on the Redskins looks like a too happy Gumby.

mittu,

For us Americans, jam is

from dictionary.com
A preserve of crushed fruit
while jelly is
from the same source
A soft, semisolid food substance with a resilient consistency, made by the setting of a liquid containing pectin or gelatin or by the addition of gelatin to a liquid, especially such a substance made of fruit juice containing pectin boiled with sugar.

[Monty]

Nowadays companies try to avoid even the possibility of being taken as insensitive, ethnocentric, ior racist.

When I was a kid in the 1960s, there was a line of Kool-Aid-type powdered drinks called "Funny Face" that included, among such innocuous offerings as Goofy Grape and Loud-Mouth Lime the following:

Chinese Cherry
Injun Orange


After a short time, these were removed, and replaced by:


Choo-choo cherry
Jolly Olly Orange
I vaguely remember from the very late 1960s, when I lived in Georgia, a line of artificially sweetened (with cyclamates) fruit flavored drinks. IIRC, they were called Uncle Tom. No idea what the different flavor names were.

[awldune]

If there is a USA footy team called the Redskins, then there should be no problem with calling the candies redskin.

That team was created generations ago. You couldn't name a new team "Redskins" or similar.

[Acsenray]

If there is a USA footy team called the Redskins, then there should be no problem with calling the candies redskin.

It's not really that simple.

First of all, I don't think "redskin" would necessarily be considered offensive unless it was somehow indicated that it was a descriptive term for people. Redskin peanuts are peanuts with red skins. No problem there.

Second, there are circumstances surrounding the name "Washington Redskins" and the Cleveland Indians' Chief Wahoo logo, principally that they were adopted in a pre-civil rights era. There are plenty of people who consider both extremely offensive, but because of the commercial value of those things as trademarks and because of the attachment that many sports fans have, those clubs are resisting making any changes.

I would think that any new sports organization or other commercial entity that started using race-based caricatures would be universally criticized.

[Beware of Doug]

Lollies = sweets, candyIn the USA, to be lollies (aka suckers, pops) they'd have to have a stick up their little asses! :eek:

[Monty]

If there is a USA footy team called the Redskins, then there should be no problem with calling the candies redskin.
Nobody would hear you referring to the team with an (allegedly) racist term. They'd be too busy laughing at the term "footy" used for an (allegedly) manly endeavor.

[CookingWithGas]

When i first saw this new packaging, i looked to see who owned the brand, and it seems that it's manufactured by the Wonka candy company, which is originally an Amerian company but is now, i believe, owned by the Nestle conglomerate.I haven't seen these stateside. On a tangent, you are sorta correct about Wonka. My dad was the president of Sunmark, a St. Louis candymaker who makes Pixie Stix, Sweetarts, Lik-M-Aid, Sprees, Nerds, David's Sunflower Seeds, etc. They were also licensed by Quaker to make the Wonka line (Oompahs, Skrunch Bars, etc.), though there was never a Wonka company. Sunmark was a privately held company that sold out to Rowntree, a British outfit (according to a web search, though I could have sworn it was German), who was later acquired by Nestlē's.

[Acsenray]

Nestlē's.

You mean Nestlé?

[don't ask]

I think it was as late as the 1970s that we had Nigger Boy Soap Pads which later changed to Bigger Boy. I'm pretty sure they are Brillo pads in the US.

MY ex-wife used to make one of the few funny food items I know of using Golliwog biscuits. From memory all it consisted of was the biscuits and thickened cream whipped with coffee or chocolate liqueur. She would knock one up in just a few minutes before we went visiting people. She would whip up a huge bowl of cream and a little liqueur. She would use the cream to "paste" together the biscuits, place the long "log" on a flat platter and then coat the whole lot with the remaining cream. By the time it came out of the fridge late at night and was sliced up for with coffee the biscuits had softened. The highlight for first-time eaters was that each slice, when looked at, clearly contained Golliwogs.

Due to the amount of certain herbaceous substances that we used in those days the Golliwog "cake" or maybe "log" always produced much merriment.

[Wendell Wagner]

As other people have said, the athletic teams that use American Indian names are preserved only by a sort of grandfather clause. There are dozens of them, perhaps hundreds of them if you go all the way down to college and high school teams, but no one is creating such names for new teams. Every year a few more of the already existing teams that use American Indian names change those names to something else. Eventually they will all disappear.

[don't ask]

They'd be too busy laughing at the term "footy" used for an (allegedly) manly endeavor.

It's enough to make a bloke take a sicky. Even kids in kindy know enough of the lingo so that in the arvo if you ask them to play footy they know that it's not poofy, they see it all the time on the telly while dad has a tinny. Still if it seems iffy to you I shouldn't chuck a wobbly or I'll end up in the dunny.

[Captain Amazing]

As other people have said, the athletic teams that use American Indian names are preserved only by a sort of grandfather clause. There are dozens of them, perhaps hundreds of them if you go all the way down to college and high school teams, but no one is creating such names for new teams. Every year a few more of the already existing teams that use American Indian names change those names to something else. Eventually they will all disappear.


And, in fact, the NCAA has a new policy that took effect this year "prohibiting colleges or universities with hostile or abusive mascots, nicknames or imagery from hosting any NCAA championship competitions".

[mhendo]

And, in fact, the NCAA has a new policy that took effect this year "prohibiting colleges or universities with hostile or abusive mascots, nicknames or imagery from hosting any NCAA championship competitions".
I remember reading somewhere a while back that the Florida Seminoles teams actually had the blessing of the Seminole tribe. Is this still the case? Would Florida fall into the NCAA category of "hostile or abusive"?

[brianjedi]

I remember reading somewhere a while back that the Florida Seminoles teams actually had the blessing of the Seminole tribe. Is this still the case? Would Florida fall into the NCAA category of "hostile or abusive"?

Florida State, not Florida. Florida is the Gators, Florida State is the Seminoles.

Florida State does have the blessing of the Seminole Tribe, although one tribal lawyer did pitch a small fit last year over it.

Illinois has a similar problem with their mascot (the Illini,) but there is no actual Illini tribe. The Illini were a confederation of tribes that no longer exist.

[Cervaise]

It's enough to make a bloke take a sicky. Even kids in kindy know enough of the lingo so that in the arvo if you ask them to play footy they know that it's not poofy, they see it all the time on the telly while dad has a tinny. Still if it seems iffy to you I shouldn't chuck a wobbly or I'll end up in the dunny.Hey! Board rules say you're supposed to post in English! :p

[Captain Amazing]

I remember reading somewhere a while back that the Florida Seminoles teams actually had the blessing of the Seminole tribe. Is this still the case? Would Florida fall into the NCAA category of "hostile or abusive"?

Here's the press report from 2005, and as you can see, Florida State is on the list of schools that may be affected:

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/legacysiteviewer?CONTENT_URL=http://www2.ncaa.org/portal/media_and_events/press_room/2005/august/20050805_exec_comm_rls.html

Remember, though, the NCAA decision doesn't ban the use of Indian mascots or symbols, but just ones that, according to the NCAA are "hostile or abusive".