Australian supermarket chain backs down over 'racist' cookie
"Biscuit" is the British and Australian word for a cookie. What Americans call a biscuit is called a "scone" (pronounced skon)
"Supermarket giant Coles will change the name of an in-house brand of biscuits amid claims it is racist. Coles spokesman Jim Cooper said the name of the "You'll Love Coles" brand of chocolate and vanilla biscuits, called Creole Creams, will be changed as part of the company-wide rebranding of Coles products. The name change comes on the back of claims of racism. In one of its definitions, Oxford says Creole is "a person of mixed European and black descent".
Sam Watson, the deputy director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland, told brisbanetimes.com.au yesterday: "The word Creole comes from a period when people's humanity was measured by the amount of white blood they had in their bloodstream. This is the same kind of thought that underpinned horrific regimes like the Nazis."
But Mr Cooper today disputed the racist claims and said the name Creole Creams referred to the "well-known Creole cuisine style that originated in the US".
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7 comments:
I guess we should change the name of the Elvis movie King Creole to something less offensive too. Seriously people, get a life!
People need to get a life if they have so much time on their hands that they can worry about names of food.
Does this mean all those good folks down in New Orleans have to change? What Australia needs is more public hangings of those who would change language, history, and tradition, simply to make themselves "feel" more comfortable. And when you're done with those ropes mates, send them here to the US. We sure can use them too!
This activist obviously knows nothing of what he is talking about. The word comes from the Spanish "criollo", meaning a white person born in the Americas. (The social hierarchy in the Spanish Empire was: "peninsulares" born in Spain, then "criollos", then "mestizos" of mixed race, and then "indios" at the bottom.) The word was adopted into French as "creole", with the same meaning. In Louisiana there were two types of whites: "creoles" descended from the original French settlers in the area, and "Cajuns", or white settlers expelled from Acadia by the British. But the important thing was, a "creole" was white.
However, the term then developed to mean a certain type of language. A "pidgin" was a language developed as a term of communication between two groups of people. It then developed into a "creole" when people (usually slaves or refugees) were born who spoke it as their first language.
Oxford should update their dictionary...Oh wait, they're too busy removing words.
~darko
Here in Louisiana there are thousands of people that proudly identify as Creole.
Lest we forget...what about that happy band, "Kid Creole & The Coconuts"?
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