Here’s the problem in a nutshell. If you’re a CEO of an iconic brand, do you modernize the branding of your product if it is associated with a country’s racist history? If so, how do you do this without either losing brand recognition or whitewashing the past?
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The original label |
To ensure Victorian consumers got the message that they were drinking the same treacly caffeine concentrate designed to fortify soldiers subduing the colonies, the kilted Gordon Highlander was shown being brought his drink by a Sikh manservant. [Link]
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p>Of course, times change. The sun went down on the British empire, dusky Britons moved in and took over the cornershops. They weren’t quite as fond of this label as Victorian customers were.
So, in the 1980s, a compromise was reached:
In the 1980s, the label was moved to the back and later the Sikh bearer’s tray was removed but he remained standing. [Link]
This new label was a bit bizarre. It had the Sikh servant with his fist up, like he was about to punch the Scottish officer in his face.
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The newest label |
Of course, this didn’t last either. Brown people being uppity like they are, they wanted yet more:
Recently, several Asian shopkeepers threatened to stop putting the liquid coffee and chicory concentrate on their shelves unless the label was changed. After such threats and pressure from race equality groups, the manufacturers have had the scene radically redrawn to show the two men sitting side by side. [Link]
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p>So the label was finally changed to the anachronistic image of the officer and his batman sitting down for coffee together. While this might be a useful image for today’s multicultral UK, it’s absurd to imagine that it might have happened back in the day.
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p>Now of course, the other side is crying foul:
David Davidson, Conservative MSP (members of the Scottish parliament) for Northeast Scotland, said the change was “political correctness gone mad”. He added that there was “nothing pejorative” about the original label. [Link]
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p>Actually, the image on the label is more suited to modern multicultural Britain than it might seem at first glance. To understand why, you have to look at the man on the right, the Scot. General Hector Macdonald was one of the Empire’s finest soldiers. He also may have been gay, and took his own life rather than be courtmartialed for it:
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The interim label – look at the Sardarji’s right hand |
.. while much has been written about the changing appearance of one Britain’s most enduring brands, there has been an uncomfortable silence about the British officer whose coffee break was immortalised on the bottle. The image, from 1885, of a Highland guardsman sitting outside his canvas tent far from home was based on perhaps the foremost military hero of his day – Major General Sir Hector Macdonald, scourge of Afghans, Boers and the Dervishes of Sudan.
He was the low-born soldier who turned down a Victoria Cross in favour of a commission, telling his superiors he would earn his medal later. He single-handedly saved the imperial Egyptian army from massacre.
… Macdonald, the son of a crofter, shot himself in the head in his bedroom in the Hotel Regina in Paris on 25 March 1903, minutes after reading a front-page story in the New York Herald suggesting he faced a “grave charge”. The accusation was one of homosexuality, an offence considered so serious under Victorian military law that those “convicted” were shot. In keeping with the mores of his era, Macdonald decided even the allegation was a death sentence. [Link]
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p>A fighting queer scot in a skirt, sitting down to coffee with a Sikh man who had a fist pointed at him for two decades on a coffee called “Camp” … it seems like an apt image for the modern United Kingdom to me.
Articles by Turbanhead and Manish on the same subject
UPDATE:
Here’s the image that we ended up discussing in the comments: Figurine Pillar Candleholder – India from Target
They let him sit down AND they lightened his skin. Someone send a thank-you note asap.
… so now the label is two soldiers “camping” together… 😉
Check out this statue at Target. It’s a part of their Colonial India line under the Global Bazaar collection. Bummer, I really liked Target.
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=br_1_13/602-7047121-5473444?%5Fencoding=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=B000BGLSGI
Ennis bro,
Perhaps, although during Victorian times (post-annexation of Sikh-ruled territory) it was fairly common for combined military units under British command to include Scottish officers and Sikh troops, and for both parties to be on very amicable terms, so in that sense it’s not such an unrealistic image if both of the people in the revised picture are viewed from that perspective.
Yes I know you’re probably aware of this already, but I just thought I should mention it here 🙂
Officers didn’t fraternize with their men in Victorian England, a taboo which has endured to this day. Furthermore, they definitely would not have fraternized with Colonial soldiers, which would have broken the myth of white superiority that Colonialism was explicitly founded on (I’ve seen interesting quotes on this from white Victorians). Lastly, sharing his precious coffee, shipped to him from the UK? Never. Tea, maybe 😉
If you want the image to be symbolic of the fact that there was friendship and even high regard between some officers and their men back then … maybe you can see the label that way.
Ennis,
They frequently did in Victorian India, especially the Scottish/Sikh regiments as mentioned before.
1 That’s such a sad story about MacDonald’s life. I guess the equivalent in our day would be being accused of rape, which, in its social implications, is almost as bad as being convicted of rape. Actually, the equivalent in our day might still be being accused of homosexuality. We’ve not really made that much progress.
2 The fact that Sardar-ji’s color changed when he took a seat is incredible. But a corporation trying to be intelligent about race often looks like a gorilla learning to type.
It’s said that people who like laws and sausages shouldn’t watch either being made (the processes involved are sickening). I guess the same goes for branding.
With the tent-looking thing in the background, there is something vaguely Brokeback Mountain-esque about the newest label. Looking at it from a purely capitalist point of view, I guess the only real issue is whether the change in label has a positive affect in sales and profits. If so, then the MP who has a problem with the change really has no further argument.
I meant “effect,” not “affect.” sorry.
Reminds me of that old Virginia brand of snacks, “Pickled Negros in a Jar”. After the civil war, the company’s board went into a meeting to change the label, and aside from the occasional crying baby or what sounds like a funeral, they haven’t left the room in over 150 years.
“But a corporation trying to be intelligent about race often looks like a gorilla learning to type.” I am choking on my coffee Kobayashi-san. For I have seen Miller and Harley in full gorilla mode in my professional life.
Bull’s eye on laws / sausages / branding.
Better than Superman, Etc –
What’s wrong with that Target candle holder?
You see so many of those types of things, in independently owned shops all around India. Frequently it is a buxom woman holding the candle tray. I don’t see anything wrong with this. Men and women hold diya trays all the time in India during festivals or just during ordinary home worship. And yes, male and female “domestic workers” often bring tea to Memsahib and family holding big round trays. There is nothing in this that smacks of British domination.
What’s wrong with it, o hardly-missed one, is that some people are often depicted as servers. It’s even thought, in some places, that such people are meant to be servers.
So when your caucasian suburban bobos (bohemian bourgeoisie) get their Indian-holding-a-candle artifact, they might think they are being culturally eclectic. But they are actually participating in the same old racist ideology that posits them at the top of the chain, and the Indian server at the bottom.
But it comes as no surprise that you don’t instinctively understand this.
Jai wrote: They frequently did in Victorian India, especially the Scottish/Sikh regiments as mentioned before.
Jai — do you have a citation of cross-racial, officer-enlisted fraternization in high-imperial British India? I’m suprised by this, and would like to read more about it.
Made me think of Weller’s line in The Grand Trunk Road…’The Sikhs are the Scots of India, good at war and sport’. Why anyone would want to be the Scots of Anything is beyond me.
Kobayashi, I don’t get it because in India such diya holders are all over the place and I never think it’s an Indian servant serving a white person. Rather, I always think it’s an Indian offering a diya tray to Sri Vigraha in the Mandir. That was my first thought when I saw the Target holder.
yeah. but it was calledthe “colonial” something collection.
It’s funny but pardesi gori is giving the FOB response here – if you’re living in India, you get used to these images. In India, nobody has a problem with the idea of a servant, and having such a lamp is more like having a lamp with a white butler in the US. The issue is more abroad, when it associates color with servility. That said, I don’t take much offense at any of these things. I do, however, think they’re worth noting, and sometimes changing.
Kobayashi, while PG’s opinions and manner of expressing them are frequently silly and annoying, she shouldn’t be bashed on a personal basis. I am impressed that she stays on here, and does not attack or dismiss others in retaliation.
To others: while you may want to harbour a warm and fuzzy myth about Sikhs having been treated in some exceptional manner by imperialists, the fact is that they were viewed as cannon fodder – tough and expendable soldiers for the British army. They were blacks, just like the rest of the ‘natives’. They were also valued for what was viewed as a tendency to blind loyalty. So even if there was some friendly feeling between British commanders and their Sikh men, excluding exceptional cases of true friendship – and there must have been some of those – the basis of this feeling was largely degrading to the Sikh.
No, you never.
But tell me, all that time in India, all this knowledge you gained about the culture and religion, was there something deeper, something deeper than “information” there, something that, perhaps, you didn’t grasp? There are many things that go into the making of a cultural reality. Part of it is history, ancient history and recent history. There are nuances of human experience. There is such a thing as respect-for-the-Other that doesn’t rob you of your right to independent thought. That respect doesn’t mean you agree with everything (quite the contrary) but it does mean that you see the other as having a being-in-the-world as profound as yours.
Having said all that, I recommend trying with all your heart to grasp the idea that, to an Indian living in the USA, or to an American of Indian origin, the image of an Indian in a stereotyped and menial position is unpleasant and racist. Do you cringe when you hear women referred to as “bitches” in gangsta rap? So, too, others might cringe to see a dark-skinned figurine in oriental clothes serving surburban American whites. It’s not a question of how you “never think it’s an Indian servant serving a white person.” It’s a question of “how might someone else, someone deeply invested in this in a way different from me, see this depiction?” It doesn’t start and end with you.
Try, Pardesi Gori, try.
Ennis, servants in India are paid domestic workers.
I also had issues with that whole scene for many years in India, and thus never employed a domestic worker, even though so many had offered to work for me and all the Indians around me had “servants”, even the servants have servants now coz they are to busy going from house to house cleaning that they have no time to do their own!
But it’s a job. They do certain amounts of work for certain amounts of money and then they leave. They are not unpaid servants.
I’m half way between you and Jai on this. Some of these officers went out of their way to integrate with their men – in the photos you can see them with turbans and beards. That would be unusual enough today, and even more so then. A friend told me that his father-in-law’s proudest moment as an officer was when he was given a hair net for his beard by his men.
True, these are symbolic issues, but a lot of respect is based on symbolism. They didn’t have to do this, and they didn’t do it with other troops in the empire. That said, this didn’t stop Punjab from agitating for independence long before most other regions were interested.
even if there was some friendly feeling between British commanders and their Sikh men, excluding exceptional cases of true friendship – and there must have been some of those – the basis of this feeling was largely degrading to the Sikh.
In imperial categorizations, the British tended to valorize those communities that displayed a modicum of loyalty to the imperium, eg. Sikhs, and demonized some communities that did not. For example, many Tamil castes, eg. Kallars, were categorized as ‘criminal’ castes.
Dharma Queen, I’ve hardly done anything that could be construed as bashing Pardesi Gori. I object to some of her views. I do think she’s genuinely mistaken on some things.
But perhaps you’re referring to the epithet “o-hardly-missed-one,” to which I can only say: it’s true, I hardly missed her.
Mr K, I think your critique of PG’s position is right on the money, and quite constructive. PG, listen to the man, he’s wise.
I want to step back for a second though, and analyze. I suspect that part of PG’s peculiar collision with desi culture comes from the fact that, as I understand it, she was raised hindu [Is that right?]. People who feel like they’re insiders feel like their perspective is natural. We have the same problem with ABDs pontificating about Indian culture based on their own particular (and often peculiar) family traditions. Sometimes it’s hard to get perspective when you’re closer to a subject.
This is why I get reject the critique that says that PG should shut up b/c she’s white and therefore an outsider. It’s not just Nina P whose observations I’m interested in. That said, PG, it really would help your presentation if you kept repeating the subjectivity of your observations. Your remarks come off as sweeping generalizations of the sort that would grate no matter who said them. That may not be your intent, but it is how you present.
Ennis, I have stated more than once that I clarify all my statements with statements like, “in my experience”, or “my understanding is”. I can only speak from my experience.
I know, but it gets lost in the reading. I mean this as constructive criticism on the style of your arguments.
Well, you don’t know Scotland then, wonderful country and wonderful people. Edinburgh is one of the finest cities in Europe. Lose your glib prejudices dude.
some ‘servants’ who have served my family in india in the past have taken pride in what they do. they feel like a life spent in sincerely serving others is worthy, it is a different selfless way of life. they were some of the wisest people i have met and they have taught me many valuable lessons… we really don’t see that attitude much these days. now if the ‘maalik’ has a condescending attitude towards ‘servants’ that’s a different issue. if ‘servants’ are given the respect for what they do, then ‘serving’ is a respctful job just like any other. that may have been partly what pardesi gori was trying to say. it’s about the attitude… it’s hard to take pride in what one does if their work is not appreciated and respected. that is what did not happen with the british towards indians.
it may also be that the comments here are coming from a defensive place, because as indians, we have suffered injustices and humiliation from the brits when they were here. this post has a different meaning for indians who identify with that past and who carry those emotions. pardesi gori may not identify with such emotions, but that does not make her point of view invalid, it is just different.
I stand corrected. In that case, you’re the most Scottish of all SM commenters. I was referring to the analogy itself, not the Scots.
OK….I don’t understand what you mean but hey it sounds good, analogy, not the Scots themselves.
People, please don’t shoo away PG or feel free to dis her. Ennis’s comment #25 is spot on. Her prespective is as valuable to me as any other’s. Unless it’s ban-worthy, why not just ignore her if you don’t like it. Lots of comments go unanswered.
She asks “What’s wrong with that Target candle holder?”
She says she lived a long time in India. Couldn’t one of your relatives in India be asking that same question since the idea of a servant is natural there. Sure, there is bad symbolism involved if white people put that candle holder in their homes. But you would explain that to your relative instead of rebuking him/her. Why not with PG?
It’s obvious if you read her comment (#16) that she really meant to say “I think it’s never an Indian servant…” and merely put the “never” in the wrong place.
But it sounds as if you speak for the rest of us as well (because of she being the “hardly-missed-one” instead of you being the one doing the “hardly-missing”). Esp. if others stay silent.
btw, did you guys hear about the desi couple in Amazing Race? http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race10/bios/vipul_arti.shtml
Amit
Navratan Kurma
O-deliciously-named one, I concede your point. And I agree with you, in principle, about the necessity of hospitality.
However, your fancy footwork about the placement of “never” doesn’t wash with me. And, Pardesi Gori is free to enjoy her exotifying as long as the exotified-other is free to call her out on it.
My bad.
OK so far
. This part was just like Puliogre, Mr. Kobayashi interpreted it.
The rest of #32 still stands. Her environment was Indian and she’s failed to make the effort to see what it looks like to a desi in the West. So, just correct her. Her failure to see the context is odd though, given that is in the US now. Or is she? We don’t know since she wasn’t at the LA meetup. Wa Gwan, PG?
The never was misplaced? I don’t understand. I meant what I said, that when I see diya holders of men or buxom women holding a tray, I never have once thought in my mind that this is an Indian servant serving anybody but Thakur in the Mandir.
Here you speak for everyone, I know :-). I was wrong about the “never”. Hasty reading.
I know now Pardesi, you meant it. Too bad. You shouldn’t have. You could think about what the candle holder would look like to desis, white people in the West. So, wa gwan about the meetup?
Wa gwan Thomas?
Mi fi explain wa gwan fi meetup inna da meetup thread, seen?
What will Americans who shop in Target think of that candle holder? Probably not much. Do they do much socio-cultural thinking at all when shopping?
it’s not such an unrealistic image if both of the people in the revised picture are viewed from that perspective.
Jai,
It is a mixed bag. However, few things to remember are:
1) British Indian Army was funded 100% by Indian money (the book-keeping of British Indian Army and British Army was separate) but still only had a tiny fraction of Indian officers. Towards, the end of WW II, it was largest volunteer army ever assembled, In addition to British Indian army, we should not discount the raw materials shipped and Bengal famine as a consequence.
2) Some officers had real friendship with Indian soldiers over 200 year period, some not. In fact, on the Malay front in WW II, the collapse of Allies was attributed that the officer corp had no connection with their soldiers. These friendships were not confined to Punjab regiments. I have a friend whose father was a Brit officer in British Indian Army who knew Urdu very well.
They (Indian soldiers) were also canon fodder – as were other colonials.
3) All this time, main Indian subcontinent soldiers were called sepoys but a Gurkha was a riflemen. They (British Indian Army) had identified the importance of a Gurkha soldier and his less emotional connection to main subcontinent very early on.
4) True, in the recently de-classified papers, it shows Churchill had promised Muslim officers in British Indian Army that the Pakistan question would be sincerely looked in to once the war was over. At that time, muslim % (Punjabis, Pashtuns) was very high in British Indian Army. From that prespective, quite fair to those officers.
Jai,
Also, it was Lord Kitchener who pushed for overhaul of British Indian Army, a career soldier. One of the recommendations was to have Indian officers.
Nothing to do with Victorian ethos.
Lord Kitchener????
The famous calypso singer from Trinidad must’ve named himself after that guy.
Mi fi explain wa gwan fi meetup inna da meetup thread, seen?
Seen, seen.
No, they don’t. That’s the problem. Most people offend not deliberately, but by not thinking and not seeing how their own words/actions might seem to someone else. That’s fine too. No one is born perfect and can learn. The real problem is when people start defending their right to not think about how they are hurting others and calling others “too-sensitive” or in some cases, saying “I’m not offended by it. Therefore you shouldn’t be”.
Ikram,
There are multiple sources but the best citation I can refer you to is one from The Times newspaper (UK version), which reviewed several books on the subject earlier this year, some of which involved historical military matters in India. The online version of the article can be found here.
Quote:
“He also examines the complex but warm relationships that often existed between British units and Indian ones, for example showing how during the mid-nineteenth century, including the 1857 uprising, Punjabi – that is Sikh – troops and Scots soldiers fraternized, and how Arthur Lang noted that “after the pipers had finished playing I found knots of mingled Hielanders [sic] and Sikhs and Afghans each jabbering away in his own language, not in the least understood by one another, but great friends”.”
There are various other sources of information available too but you’d have to delve into Sikh historical records from those times. Google around for it, or check out any books on the subject at the largest bookstores (such as those listed in the Times article above); there’s often a wealth of information on the subject within books on the British Raj period, especially those including chapters on the period immediately after the Anglo-Sikh Wars and the annexation of the Sikh territory, the events of 1857, and of course the later post-Victorian era involving the First World War etc.
Ennis’s post #22 is also spot-on and extremely relevant. There are also records of British officers essentially becoming honorary Sikhs in the spirit of the soldiers under their command.
Kush,
Thanks for your messages. You’re absolutely right, although for clarity I should mention that I was talking specifically about the Victorian period and was just responding to some of Ennis’s earlier comments. I do agree that, overall, relations between British and Indian troops (and the two ethnicities in general) became much frostier during Victorian times, especially from 1830 onwards, so the comparatively friendly relationship between Sikh and Scottish soldiers was an anomaly and contradicted some of the more distasteful racial-based elements of Victorian attitudes which were arising at the time.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?
Kurma, face it. Most people in this world are simple, too simple, simplistic.
They are not analytical intellectuals with alot of world wide experience, cultural experience.
They are born, grow, eat, sleep, mate, and endeavour for self-preservation.
Why should we expect any different?
I no longer expect PC behaviour or cultural sensitivity towards myself when in India or anywhere else in the world.
To expect Target shoppers to think on such things while shopping is expecting way to much out of average, ordinary eaters and sleepers.
Why anyone would want to be the Scots of Anything is beyond me.
If it’s not Scottish, it’s CRAP!
🙂
(Though seriously, that quote is itself a fine example of English ethnocentric normalization extending well into the deep past when they were still colonizing and condescending to Scots and not Sardars. The kilt is exoticised in its own way.)
This is all getting a little overwrought. I feel like the tone around here has been steadilty getting meaner and more uncivil. As a regular commenter, I take my share of the blame–I’ve been very irritable and snappish lately, and since this is one of my few outlets in the day, maybe I’ve contributed here. I apologize. But please. Let’s not turn your clever pseudonyms into an excuse to be rude.
I haven’t been following all of Pardesi Gori’s adventures around here, and while I remember disagreeing with her about the nature of exoticization I also remember being deeply uncomfortable with how her experiences with racism were reacted to. That feels as “unsafe” and “hostile” to me as many of the situations we routinely decry. We’re all humans here, don’t forget. And frankly, I agree with her this time. When I see a woman holding a diya, or those stickers of women doing namaste, I don’t think “brown person serving white person” or even “woman serving man”—I think woman serving Deity. And also, such an old, old style of decorative art that it almost doesn’t mean AYTHING. I’d have no problem with that diya at Target–unless it’s not made in South Asia. That would annoy the hell out of me, just like “Mexican” chia pets made in China annoy me.
so the comparatively friendly relationship between Sikh and Scottish soldiers was an anomaly
Partly, it could be both were really outsiders fighting for the King/ Queen.
On BBC America, I had heard a historian saying more Scots have died fighting for Great Britian than English in Great Wars. Economics was his reason.
I have been to Edinburgh Castle – They have section devoted to Indian soldiers in their memorial. You might seen it.
http://www.target.com/gp/browse.html/ref=in_br_display-ladders/602-0915541-5170212?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=16282591
ROTFL!
Uh, on the Aunt Jemima problem, why can’t camp just throw out the whole thing and put something else instead of lightening the Sikh, seating him etc. I understand, they want to project how old they are and don’t want to lose brand loyalty etc. Perhaps a picture of an old ship or something along with an “Estd. 1885” sign could do the job?
I never could see while in Desh why exactly the darbaans outside luxury hotels are turban wearers (nor, I admit, did I think very much about it, I just thought something like – monks wear saffron, politicians wear gandhi topis and darbaans wear turbans). In South India, for instance, no one normally wears a turban. This post and the pictures provide the answers. It’s amazing how much of the Raj remains in the collective Indian psyche and how much Indians want to have all the things that the British rulers had.
Pardesi Gori:
You’ve been called out on exotifying many times, so allow me to help you. Exotifying is bad. It’s like treating someone like a rockstar, which is very very bad. You see, chicks want to sleep with rockstars because they’re, well, rockstars–rich, famous, popular, etc–not because of who they are as individuals. They even want to sleep with them before knowing them as individuals. This is very very bad because it leads to a life of indulgence, sex, drugs, alcohalism, depression, and death…as one can see with keith moon, jim morrison, Kurt Cobain
etc.
These fellows were the victims of exotification. similarly, desi males are loved for the culture they represent, not for who they are as individuals. i can’t tell you how many times i’ve felt colonialized while having sex with a granola chick; it’s sexual imperialism i tell you. worse still, it’s racist.
How so, you might ask. After all, doesn’t the racist hate other cultures not love them? Yes, old fashioned racists do, but multiculturalists have discovered all sorts of new racists. old racists used to hate foreign cultures, new racists embrace them. old racists wanted racial preferences, new racists oppose them. old racists thought race determines character, new racists think race insignificant. old racists would never marry someone of another race, new racists are enthusiastic to do so.
of course, criticizing other cultures may also get you in trouble even though this is more like old racism, which is rarer but still out of fashion. you must find the balancing act; there is a thin line between love and hate they say. You don’t have much leeway to say the least. good luck navigating.