Mota Boy
03-07-2008, 08:24 PM
So many people know the story of Darkie toothpaste - one of the many brands in the early 20th century US that used stereotyped images of minorities as it's "mascot". Darkie's one of the more famous, as the brand is still around as "Darlie", though not terribly popular and almost never advertised.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/eb/DarkieToothpaste.jpg
However, I was amused to see that it is rather heavily advertised in China. As you'll note in the above image, the brand comes from Hawley and Hazel, which is an Asian-based company. At first the whole novelty of seeing Darlie on television was enough, but after a while I noticed something even more interesting. In China, the tube looks like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/14/Darlie.jpg/150px-Darlie.jpg
Now, I'm assuming that most of y'all can't read Chinese. However, I'll give you a bit of a primer. Those two characters above the smiling face are "hēi rén". You'll notice the second one, rén, kinda looks like two legs walking. That's because rén is an ideogram of "man". Rén means "person" or "people". You see where I'm going with this, right? The first character, hēi means "black". So yes, rest assured humanity - you can still purchase "Black people toothpaste". You just have to go to Asia to get it.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/eb/DarkieToothpaste.jpg
However, I was amused to see that it is rather heavily advertised in China. As you'll note in the above image, the brand comes from Hawley and Hazel, which is an Asian-based company. At first the whole novelty of seeing Darlie on television was enough, but after a while I noticed something even more interesting. In China, the tube looks like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/14/Darlie.jpg/150px-Darlie.jpg
Now, I'm assuming that most of y'all can't read Chinese. However, I'll give you a bit of a primer. Those two characters above the smiling face are "hēi rén". You'll notice the second one, rén, kinda looks like two legs walking. That's because rén is an ideogram of "man". Rén means "person" or "people". You see where I'm going with this, right? The first character, hēi means "black". So yes, rest assured humanity - you can still purchase "Black people toothpaste". You just have to go to Asia to get it.