In Asia, Brands Built on Racist Stereotypes Face Scrutiny
Marketing pitches that are insensitive to Black people and dark-skinned consumers are common.
Darlie toothpaste on sale at a Shanghai supermarket.
Photographer: Aly Song/ReutersAlmost 90 years ago, consumer-products maker Hawley & Hazel decided to piggyback on the popularity of vaudeville singers like Al Jolson, a White man who won fame in Jim Crow America performing in blackface. The Shanghai-based company named its new toothpaste brand Darkie and emblazoned its packaging with a blackfaced man sporting a top hat and a toothy grin. Even before the recent Black Lives Matter protests around the globe, maintaining that kind of racial trope would have been considered a marketing bridge too far in much of the world.
Not so in Asia. The English name on the toothpaste’s packaging was changed in the late 1980s after Colgate-Palmolive Co. bought 50% of the brand, but the product kept its racially charged name in Chinese. It’s still called Hei Ren Yagao—“Black Person Toothpaste”—in China and is one of the nation’s top sellers.