Redskins and chicos survive despite racist overtones

IS a Redskin an indigenous American or something to chew on and do little chocolate baby lollies offend you or are they delicious.

Redskins, chicos - is food racist?

IS a Redskin an indigenous American or something to chew over and do little chocolate baby lollies offend you or are they simply delicious.

The racial overtones of Redskins lollies, featured as an ingredient on last night's MasterChef lollybag cake challenge, revives debate over the naming conventions of some of our favourite chewy treats.

The original Redskins wrapping featured a feather-bonneted indigenous American with a bright-red face, but that disappeared long ago.

The chocolate-flavoured and brown-coloured jelly babies we call Chicos, would also be unlikely to see the light of day in the politically conservative US.

"Public standards, apart from politics, in civility have changed dramatically over the years," said social historian Professor Janet McCalman, from the University of Melbourne.

Professor McCalman rejects the term political correctness, preferring community standards of civility, which she says extend across a whole range of things.

"If you really want to dig, there are all sorts of stereotypes which exist in advertising," she said offering attractive blondes, red-headed children, "cheap" Scotsman and public health dangers "caused" by Asiatics as examples.

"We are a lot more sensitive about what you can or cannot say."

But before falling victim to political-correctness in the late 1970s, American sweets included Cherry Chan Candy and Candy Crafter Peppermint Coolies featuring a Chinese face under a conical hat.

A Canadian tourist was shocked to discover Eskimo lollies on sale in New Zealand, saying the word Eskimo was unacceptable in her country and the indigenous people of Canada preferred Inuit. Meanwhile, while they are not food, Maori cigarettes are sold in Israel.

Scottish shortbread, Welsh rarebit, Irish cream, Kiwifruit are a whole other debate.

* Redskins - considered an offensive term by native Americans.

* Chicos - a chocolate-flavoured and chocolate-coloured jelly baby some consider has racist overtones, offensive to people of Latin-American descent.

* Fags - the fake lolly cigarette was renamed and rebranded as Fads. The name was also considered offensive by homosexuals.

* Jewfish - now know as mulloway. In WA they fish for a species known locally as dhufish.

* Long or short black - What we know as a strong shot of coffee, most commonly found in Australia, New Zealand and Brazil, is know in the US as Caffe Americano.

* Coon cheese - While the term is highly-offensive in the US, ironically it's creator is one Edward William Coon of Philadelphia, who patented a fast maturation method for cheese.

* Scalliwag biscuits - formerly known as Golliwogs, images of blackfaced, curly-haired cartoonish characters have been offensive for decades, but were revived in a skit on the now-defunct Hey! Hey! It's Saturday.

* Gaytime - Sydney chef and gay icon Christine Manfield deliberately chose the name of this ice-cream and re-created it as a dessert at her now-closed Universal restaurant in Darlinghurst.

* Kaffir lime - Kaffir is a derogatory Afrikaans term for black Africans or whites who associate closely with blacks. For this reason, some South Africans refer to the fruit as K-lime.

* Coles changed the name of its own-label biscuit Creole Creams after a Queensland academic advised the word Creole had been used in a racist way to describe a person of mixed European and African ancestry.

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