Dunkin' Donuts apologizes for blackface ad campaign in Thailand

[MADem]

Source: WCVB CH 5 Boston

BANGKOK —Dunkin' Donuts has apologized for the "insensitivity" of an advertising campaign in Thailand featuring a woman in blackface makeup to promote a new chocolate flavored doughnut.

The Dunkin' Donuts franchise in Thailand came under criticism Friday after Human Rights Watch called the advertisements "bizarre and racist."

The company's chief executive in Thailand initially defended the campaign, but the U.S. headquarters in Canton, Mass. quickly followed up with an apology.

"We are working with our Thailand franchisee to immediately pull the ad. DD recognizes the insensitivity of this spot," Dunkin' Donuts said in a tweet posted on its official U.S. website after complaints erupted on Twitter, in a variety of blogs and in mainstream American media.



Read more: http://www.wcvb.com/news/money/dunkin-donuts-apologizes-for-blackface-ad-campaign-in-thailand/-/9848680/21732484/-/3wineo/-/index.html#ixzz2dZf5tWVg

Read more: Read more: http://www.wcvb.com/new

---

RMoney's Bain Capital owns that outfit. I won't touch 'em with a forty foot pole.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Didn't know Bain owns that company. Thanks. n/t

[MADem]

2. They have an unsavory partner in the alliance as well.

Bain led a consortium, together with The Carlyle Group and Thomas H. Lee Partners to acquire Dunkin' Brands. The private equity firms paid $2.425 billion in cash for the parent company of Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins in December 2005.[105]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_Capital

[jmowreader]

7. Is Thomas H Lee Partners unsavory?

Bain is one of the most unsavory outfits in America. Go read Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone piece on Romney and you'll see...imo they are much worse than Carlyle, who are themselves about two inches from being demons incarnate.

[MADem]

8. They are a predatory company...

They were accused of some kind of insider trading with Bain....I think they got away with it; can't remember the details but they were accused of some kind of collusion.

[jmowreader]

9. Besides being predatory, are they a bad company?

All private equity firms are predatory. It's the nature of the business.

Think of it this way...you have a group that contains Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein. They are all thugs who all did essentially the same things - running their countries with iron hands, committing genocide and disappearing their allies at will. Now, what special trait is there to proclaim Hitler the worst of the bunch? You know there is one, but what is it?

[MADem]

12. From what I understand they were accused of collusion with Bain and others.

I think the goal was to acquire distressed assets on the cheap and in essence divide the spoils. The paper trail may not have held up, I really don't remember the details. I know they were in court for awhile.

[Auggie]

58. According to this link they are no longer owned by Bain:

On December 12, 2005, Pernod Ricard, who had just taken control of Allied Domecq, announced plans to sell the Dunkin' Brands group. Dunkin' Brands was later sold to a consortium of private equity firms consisting of Bain Capital, The Carlyle Group and Thomas H. Lee Partners for $2.425 billion in cash.

In August 2012, Dunkin' Brands became 100% independent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkin%27_Brands

[MADem]

59. They cashed out right before Mitt thought he'd be winning the Presidency.

More here: http://ddifo.org/as-private-equity-cashes-out-whats-next-for-dnkn/

Maybe he shoulda hung on to the donut shop....

[Jefferson23]

3. Stupid freaking racist ad..how clueless or intentional, I don't know. What is next,

an ad where the recipient of the donut morphs into icing and sprinkles all over their face?

[MADem]

4. I've seen some VERY weird shit in Asia when it comes to perceptions of black people,

but this is a new one one me. I won't say it takes the cake, but it sure takes the damn donut...

Here's one that takes the drumstick, from Korea.

I don't remember HRW griping about this one, but they should have. I find it bizarre and appalling:

Of course, if one really wants to be offended, all one needs to do is read some of the hate speech in the YOUTUBE comments....

[Jefferson23]

5. That is disgusting and so contrived I don't see how it could be anything but intentional...wow. n/t

[MADem]

11. Well, if you can't sort out "the fuss," as you call it, I don't know what I can say to you.

You'll just have to trust everyone who is telling you that this blackface representation is offensive.

You're right in line with some of the clueless thinking in Thailand, though.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/30/dunkin-donuts-racist-thai-advert-blackface

"It's both bizarre and racist that Dunkin' Donuts thinks that it must color a woman's skin black and accentuate her lips with bright pink lipstick to sell a chocolate doughnut," said Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for HRW. "Dunkin' Donuts should immediately withdraw this ad, publicly apologize to those it's offended and ensure this never happens again."

The CEO for Dunkin' Donuts in Thailand, which is operated as a franchise, was initially bullish about the marketing. "It's absolutely ridiculous," said Nadim Salhani. "We're not allowed to use black to promote our doughnuts? I don't get it. What's the big fuss? What if the product was white and I painted someone white, would that be racist?"

Salhani said his daughter was the model used in the advert. He dismissed criticism as "paranoid American thinking", saying: "I'm sorry, but this is a marketing campaign and it's working very well for us."

The Associated Press reported that the advert had not "ruffled many in Thailand, where it's common for advertisements to inexplicably use racial stereotypes". The news agency said a herbal Thai toothpaste was available with the tagline "it's black, but it's good", while advertising for the Black Man brand of household mops showed a "smiling black man in a tuxedo and bow tie".

[Igel]

13. We are the world.

And insist that the world be us.

They have their own problems. Given the history of blackface minstrel shows and African slavery in Thailand, which resulted in a civil war and Jim Crow laws for generations and a pernicious legacy of slavery that results in the near subjugation of the large segment of Thai societ with roots in Africa, I can understand why there should be sensitivity shown.


It's not just blackface. She matches the chocolate. The only thing that's not the same dark chocolate color is her lips. I'm not even sure it's blackface and not digitally altered. Skin, nails, hair. Everything ... to match the result of a wave of dark chocolate.

It's "our" racial stereotype that's at issue. We, fortunately, are not the world. We just like to think we are. Or, rather, that the world is exactly like us. Absurdly parochial. Even of HRW, fighting American anti-black racism in every country they can find it.

[Ecumenist]

14. Yeah, well, I beg to differ. You can go onto youtube and there are numerous videos on there

where black expatriates in Asia talk about overt racism and as a black woman I find this FUCKED UP TO THE NTH DEGREE! I have a right not to be portrayed as a ignorant racist stereotype and I don't give a damn WHERE THE FUCK IN THE WORLD IT IS! I wonder what Thais would say if someone used an exxagerated racist image of Asians, Oh you know, something with EXTREME eye & bucked teeth, maybe with bowlegs & glasses? How black are you, Igel? Real easy to take a laissez-faire position when it doesn't apply to people who look like you! SMDH

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

15. Thank you because I just can't! Sick and tired of white people telling me what's racist and what's

not when they don't experience this shit!!!!

[MADem]

17. +1,000

Where we stand depends on where we sit, sometimes.

Smart people can put themselves in other folks' shoes. Some people just aren't sufficiently aware to do that.

We know them when they open their mouth.

[ZombieHorde]

35. 80s movies in the US were often pretty racist against Asians.

That doesn't excuse anything, I am just pointing out that "we" have been pretty racist to them in our media.

[MADem]

38. Two wrongs have never made a right.

And yes, some of those eighties films were pretty awful....!

[ZombieHorde]

39. Like I said in my reply,

the racism against Asian folk in those movies in no way excuses anything.

[MADem]

16. You are pretty clueless if you think anti-black bigotry is just an "American thing."

And I said that as politely as I could manage.

Any time you make a human "less than"--in this case, turning a WOMAN into a DONUT--you objectify and devalue them. And when you use imagery that serves to make people of a certain color "less than," then you are slurring an entire ethic group.

It's not "our" racial sterotypes that are at issue. It's dehumanizing a huge segment of the population of the world that is at issue, and then doubling down and being deliberately obtuse about how that dehumanizing might affect that segment of the population when they see it.

Keep digging, if you'd like--or try to see it the way that someone who isn't part of the majority might.

Your comments are OFFENSIVE in the extreme.

[MADem]

22. No, it isn't "only an ad for donuts way over on the other side of the world," and for you to say

such a thing is troubling in the extreme.

It's about a pervasive attitude that says this sort of insulting objectification is "OK," that it is the norm, that it is expected. It's NOT OK, it should not be the norm, and it should not be tolerated.

Jesus, I feel like I've logged on to a wingnut website, when I read comments like that. Unfriggingbelievable...

[Cronus Protagonist]

20. + A Brazillion

The whole dust-up is a Jungian projection of the US's own dirty laundry onto other cultures.

[MADem]

23. You keep doubling down and you are just WRONG.

This is not about the USA.

This type of racism has been a problem in Asian society for a long-ass time, and it is not the "fault" of Americans.

Sometimes people need to own their own hate.

[MADem]

29. That's like saying "Wha, ah didn't mean nothin' by it when ah called Obama 'boy.'"

Just because there's no "intent" to offend does not mean that the action isn't offensive.

And one of those mealy-mouthed "If we offended we are sorry" apologies doesn't get to the cultural bigotry that is pervasive throughout the region. Blacks are not the only victims, certainly, of this racism, but blacks are the ones who get some of the most offensive visual insults.

[warrant46]

51. You are right about the Far East, Thailand and Darkie/Darlie Toothpaste

I appreciate at least one person here who sees this racism



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie

I spent 3 years in Thailand and this was the # 1 selling toothpaste

Darkie, is a toothpaste brand of Hawley & Hazel Chemical Company. The package featured an image of a wide-eyed, smiling dark-skinned black male wearing a top hat, monocle and bow-tie, very similar to the Golliwogg in England.

In 1990, after Colgate-Palmolive acquired Hawley & Hazel, the English name of the toothpaste was changed to Darlie. The Chinese name of the brand, "黑人牙膏" (in English, "Black Person Toothpaste&quot , remains the same, and a Chinese-language advertising campaign reassured customers that "Black Person Toothpaste is still Black Person Toothpaste"

The toothpaste remains popular in some Asian countries such as The People's Republic of China, Malaysia, and Thailand.The brand received a kick of both popularity and infamy in 2004, after the toothpaste, along with other Afrophobic brands were featured in CSA: Confederate States of America which showed it as a fictional brand in the alternate history the film as set in, and the credits after the film revealed it, along with most of the other brands, as being real brands in history.

[marble falls]

10. The fact they make 'cake' donuts is enough to keep me away - this only seals the deal.

[In_The_Wind]

18. The ad is really bad.

[MADem]

19. It's dehumanizing on a variety of levels.

Totally tone deaf. It's -- as I said elsewhere -- not the first time I've seen this kind of thing in that end of the world.

Thing is, they've GOTTA know. This is the 21st Century, after all; they've got "the internet" and they must realize how this impacts a global society.

[tavernier]

24. They are presently building one in my town.

They came in two months ago and ripped out every single full grown tree on the property for their parking lot. I was SICK about it... These were gorgeous big shade trees. As our county is extremely conservative about allowing any kind of tree removal for these kind of things, I'm convinced that DD fully intended to break the law and pay the fine after the fact. Bastards. I'll never go there and plan to picket when they open.

[freshwest]

36. Saw WalMart do the same thing to over hundred year old live oaks, replace them with silver maple

Which don't do well in that climate and they all just shriveled up. It's this damn make every place look the same the world over. I wanna scream. It's getting worse. Then they repeatedly butcher all the trees and bushes have to look like poodle trees in video games and take out all fhe native plants. They don't know how to keep the plants alive. @$%#$!

[tavernier]

41. Yup, drove by yesterday and that's exactly

what they've done. Half of them appear dead already and they're only tiny saplings compared to the big lovely trees that they murdered.

[Bragi]

25. Most bizarre headline of the month /nt

[dballance]

26. Seriously? That's taking up our time and Ire?

I watched the ad several times. It's stupid but I hardly see any intention of racism in it.

So you eat a chocolate doughnut and turn chocolate. That's not racism. It's just poor marketing.

Maybe they should have had a doughnut with sprinkles and the person turning into a sprinkled-faced person. That would probably not have turned any heads.

[freeplessinseattle]

27. I love obtusely ironic posts n/t

[MADem]

30. +1 nt

[Dreamer Tatum]

31. Always room for two things: 1. Dessert. 2. Rage over racism. nt

[MADem]

32. What do you mean by that? I hope I am erring in what it sounds like you're saying.

This isn't a topic to be dismissed, unless, of course, you harbor feelings of racism and think that Thai corporations are somehow "entitled" to mock and dehumanize individuals.

[Dreamer Tatum]

33. No, I am just amused by how many people feel the need to chime in.

It was racist. It's gone. The rest is just piling on.

[libodem]

34. Odd

Peculiar. And just plain weird. After the Ted Dansen incident, you'd think a wise-up would be in order. That's just not right. Ick.

[freshwest]

37. Eating chocolate increases the melanin in your skin? I think I just cured skin cancer. Bizarre, tho'

[Ecumenist]

42. SURE, it does, Cronus.... STOP TWISTING INTO PRETZELS trying to justify & indemnify

Dunkin Donuts. It was racist....PERIOD!!!

[MADem]

44. No, the message is that women and people of color can be dehumanized, and people who are

obtuse, racist, sexist, not-too-smart, or all of the above will find it "cute," or "amusing," or "sexy," or somehow infer that the newly chocolate woman has the hots for the person viewing the ad.

But hey, keep digging--why stop now?

[MADem]

46. There is nothing "beautiful" about turning a person into a Dunkin Donut.

"Judgmentalism?"

You could use some decent judgment--it's plain you're short on that, the way you double down in such an ugly and obtuse fashion.

[MADem]

48. This is the second time you've "repeated" the "knickers in a twist" comment in this thread.

Both times, you have, in childish fashion, directed the remark at me. Getting a little forgetful, are you?

So maybe you should just take your own doggone advice for once in your life, and not repeat your own self quite so often. Then, perhaps, you won't look quite so foolish when you snark at others.

Using belittling language is your stock in trade, apparently. It doesn't make you look good.

If you think my annoyance is "manufactured," you have some maturing to do.

There's a reason the ad was withdrawn, and it wasn't owing to "passe manufactured outrage." It was because the ad is offensive.

You're doing a great job showing your true 'colors' here.

[MADem]

50. You were the one mocking me with belittling "knickers" language. Twice. Now THREE times.

So stop carping about me repeating that this advertisement is offensive, because it is, while you continue to dismiss the legitimate concerns presented by it, and behave in an immature fashion, which you are doing.

And then you ice your cake--or should I say donut-- with a "colored" reference--not subtle at all. Ad nauseum indeed.


This isn't about "shame" unless you fail to see how shameful it is to treat people in a dehumanizing way. And that's what I see from where I sit.

See, those people over on "the other side of the world" were told what the problem was, and they understood the objections. They displayed the sensitivity you so plainly lack. You apparently don't have half the insight they do. At least they corrected their error. You proudly object and continue to insist that your "human being as a consumer commodity" POV is not only "OK" but you get shirty, defensive, and lash out with belittling language when you are corrected.

Thread NOT over just because you say so. You don't get to slink off without getting called on your nasty use of demeaning language.

Names will never hurt me. Your own words do hurt you, though. They're an embarrassment, and you wrote them, so you own them. And you're not deleting them, either, because these NEED to be saved for posterity:

Cronus Protagonist
49. And how many times have you repeated yourself in this thread?
View profile
Ad nauseum. Anyway, I don't have the same colored past as you. I know it doesn't sit well with you that others don't necessarily have something to be ashamed of, but hey, if it makes you feel better projecting false outrage at people on the other side of the world over a 30 second commercial, go ahead, twist them up tighter. Maybe you'll eventually squeeze some Hitler out of them.

(I hereby invoke Godwin's law).

Thread over.

[JustAnotherGen]

52. This post is why

You are one of my favorites here.

[MADem]

53. Thank you my dear!

I have NEVER seen anything like this kind of attitude or language in all my time here at DU. There's only one ugly way I can interpret this tripe. I'm just shocked, I gotta tell ya.

Talk about going WAY over the line....


There's no unringing the bell, though, no "self-delete" to brush it all away--I copied it down for the "group memory." Some nasty things need to be kept--just so we never forget.

[JustAnotherGen]

55. I agree

And I'm glad you copied those posts into your own.

[MADem]

56. Good thing I did...

The oh-so-brave-behind-the-keyboard pontificator got busy deleting, I see.

I guess a sense of shame isn't entirely absent? Or maybe it's just essential judgment, posting on a progressive board...?

[heaven05]

43. al jolson

google blackface minstrel performers to all who can't see what the fuss is about. No, MADem, you're NOT being too sensitive. Lots of ignorant insensitivity in this thread though. You have to remember also, lots of zimmerman apologists on this site.

[unclesammysays]

57. Dunkin Donuts

The company, like alot of people don't care about Black Peoples feelings. There is a difference between being insensitive and not caring. An insensitive person might apologize. The other person will not. He thinks it is comedy and if you don't laugh, there is something wrong with you.