Companies being faux woke by changing overtly racist names that have been around for decades

Confectionary with a side-order of bigotry isn’t as palatable as it once was.

Chicos and redskins have been renamed after being deemed racist.

The year 2020 was the year we fought racism by renaming lollies.

It was the least we could do. Confectionary with a side-order of bigotry isn’t as palatable as it once was.

Once upon a time we snacked on Red Skins and nibbled Chico babies, but the popular sweets are now called Red Rippers and Cheekies. Nestle announced the change last week, saying the old names are “out of the step” with its values.

Fair enough.

But I think it’s funny they’ve changed the name but not the product. Isn’t the bigger issue why we are willing to eat lollies shaped like little naked black babies – often starting by biting off the head?

And I do have a problem with the company – which has been criticised for these names for at least 30 years – for trying to get kudos for the speed of its response to the issue.

Same goes for Uncle Ben’s rice, which only changed its name in the US (but not here) after it was shamed into it.

I agree with Uncle Ben’s name change, but perhaps people also need to question why they want to eat parboiled converted rice in the first place.

Yep, time was up for Uncle Ben’s, Red Skins, Chicos and Coon cheese as well.

However, there’s a lot of faux woke going on, with many companies caving in and saying the overtly racist name they’ve had for decades don’t reflect their values.

Red Skins will be known as Red Ripper and Chicos will become Cheekies. Picture: Supplied

And yet the same company was happy with its racist values for the past 100 years and they’ve made squillions of dollars from Black Boy biscuits or Picaninny pies or Gin gin.

Same goes for Darlie toothpaste. The company which makes it says the brand is “evolving” but they’ve been saying that for 35 years and the product still has a Chinese name that means “black person toothpaste”.

There’s also the question of where to stop with the name changing. Once offence is applied as a public test of acceptability, where do you draw the line?

Do we also change the names of Lady Finger biscuits, Stinking Bishop cheese, Priests’ Choker pasta and Limping Susan, an okra dish?

And should we also stop food trucks from having names like Slap Yo’ Mama, Shrimp Pimp, Road Kill and Shut Up and Eat?

What about overseas spelling and translation disasters which give us products such as “shrimp flavoured crack”, “only puke” and “pee cola” on the shelves of import grocers?

And what should we do about UK brand Mr Brain and its popular line of “faggot” meatballs?

Facebook thinks the term faggot should be banned.

The social media giant lets clips of beheadings stay on its site, but blocked a man who declared that he “liked faggots” – the pork offal kind, not the people.

And there’s my childhood faves — Golden Gaytime ice creams.

The Aussie ice creams regularly pop up in lists of the world’s most discriminatory food names, but there’s been no major push for them to be renamed here. In fact, the company has long played up the name’s other meaning thanks to the tag line “It’s hard to have a Gaytime on your own”.

It’s great the Gaytime has survived so long, because the PC police can get a little too worked up at times.

Off the back of changes to Chico lollies, there have been calls for Chiko rolls to be renamed as well. Some folk aren’t bright enough to realise Chiko rolls are named after chicken — maybe because there’s no chicken in them?

Sometimes it takes an extra passionate person to bring about change. Tony Magrathea from Dicky Beach in Queenslandld has been trying to get place names such as Mackay and Townsville changed because of their links to UK slave traders. Good on him. But you’d think he’d start with changing his own town’s name, wouldn’t you?

And you have to have a replacement name before you remove the old one.

A pub in Bristol, England, recently changed its name from The Colston Arms, named for a 17th century slave trader. It’s now temporarily known as Ye Olde Pubby McDrunkface.

In any case, sometimes the new name isn’t much better than the old one, as Nestle has discovered since unveiling the new name for the Red Skin.

A few people have pointed out that Red Ripper is the name of Soviet serial killer

Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo, who assaulted, murdered and mutilated at least 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990.

You’d think one of Nestle’s 5000 Aussie employees would know how to use Google, wouldn’t you?

SUSIE O’BRIEN IS A HERALD SUN COLUMNIST

@susieob