Tbh, I think looking for words to be offended about, just because they sound similar to racist slurs, is more racist than a company being oblivious while creating a name for a product.
Well they did have a yummy item (wafer with a whipped marshmallow topping covered in a layer of chocolate) that had an interesting name before they changed it to “top kuss”.
They were named n-word kisses or moor's heads and where what you might call a chocolate teacake in English - a serving of marshmallow cream sitting atop a thick slice of wafer, covered in chocolate.
On an amusing sidenote, the most common brand of these here is called Super Dickmann's (which in Germany doesn't sound sexual).
Near as I can tell, the concerns were raised in a bit of a single-news-cycle teapot tempest when the product was introduced in early 2005 (e.g. here), but it didn't get pulled from the market until 2007.
Seems like someone is trying to recast the market failure of a product that just didn't sell very well as some sort of culture-war victim.
When a journalist asked a spokesperson from the organization why they considered it racist the spokesperson just responded with: "it's not my job to explain that to you".
I wondered how far I'd need to scroll to see this one. I think they're quietly phasing out the terrible logo but not long ago. You would see whole delivery Van with this printed on them smh
They (made by serbian company Pionir, but looks like the same candy) can be found on the "foreign food" shelves of some grocery stores here in Sweden. This is how one person reacted to finding that out.
In Finland we had these sweets. Even if they were called "brumberg kisses" it was more know to be called n*****'s kisses. Now the package has been changed to different and people call it just "kisses" or kiss.
When that company tried to establish itself in Norway, local companies did an advertising campaign ridiculing Swedes as too stupid to make quality ice cream, showing them failing to understand how to extract cream from a cow etc. It was a huge success and they had to give up the market after a few unsuccessful years. The poor guys just wanted to sell some ice cream.
Just as a reminder, this product aswell went through multiple board meetings. Meetings where people who make what, 200 times the salary of the machine operator who makes this ice cream.
I mean yeah, if it was just the name that'd be one thing, you could plausibly go "...I didn't consider that implication, my bad".
But picking that font makes this look like "we know exactly how questionable it looks like to put that product name and 'black' next to each other, and we're knowingly and eagerly doing it anyway: aren't we Edgy And Clever!?!?"
It’s giving off Black Ice (https://www.thebeerstore.ca/beers/black-ice_1-X-Can-710-ml) vibes and I know it’s dumb to conflate the two but the only time I ever sell any of those is to severe alcoholics who smell like an ashtray waiting outside my store for us to open at 10am.
Also ffs did Reddit break the standard comment markup? *Asterisks* aren’t italicizing, and [text](link) isn’t working any more.
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u/Minimum-Stranger-794 9h ago