Fazer to change “racist” mascot
Pressure from the EU, Finnish Consumer Agency and Ombudsman, media and others have forced Fazer to change its “racist” mascot which it has used since 1927.
Sweets maker Cloetta Fazer says it will be changing the wrapper of one of its most popular products. Lakritsi liquorice’s mascot is considered by many to be offensive, even racist. The wrapper features a caricature of a black figure, with the exaggerated red lips and cornrows reminiscent of the reviled blackface images of the mid 20th century.
This mascot would never survive one day in the United States, the Fazer family would be hung from a tree for using this logo, but I seriously doubt that many Finns know anything about blackface (Honestly, I’ve seen the logo many times, and never really realized what it was until the media brought it to my attention). Back in 1927, “blackface” was considered acceptable by whites, now it’s considered grossly inappropriate and racist…
Blackface is a style of theatrical makeup that originated in the United States, used to affect the countenance of an iconic, racist American archetype  that of the darky or coon. Blackface also refers to a genre of musical and comedic theatrical presentation in which blackface makeup is worn. White blackface performers in the past used burnt cork and later greasepaint or shoe polish to blacken their skin and exaggerate their lips, often wearing woolly wigs, gloves, tailcoats, or ragged clothes to complete the transformation. Later, black artists also performed in blackface.
[...]Blackface minstrelsy’s groundbreaking appropriation, exploitation, and assimilation of African-American culture  as well as the inter-ethnic artistic collaborations that stemmed from it  were but a prologue to the lucrative packaging, marketing, and dissemination of African-American cultural expression and its myriad derivative forms in today’s world popular culture.
It raises some interesting questions – if something is inappropriate elsewhere in the world, is it appropriate everywhere? Take the Mohammed cartoons for instance, they’re forbidden in many parts of the world, so should they be forbidden everywhere? But maybe that’s a bad example, is being critical of religion versus being critical of race like comparing apples and oranges, since one is a choice while the other is not?
And I wonder how much longer they’ll wait before they change the Brunberg kisses mascot..?
