Uncle Ben's Rice To Change Branding Due To Racial Issues

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Clearly people believe it, it would be worthwhile to have it placed in context.

There were elements of slavery as practiced in the Americas that could be described as innovations, so the claim isn't entirely wrong even if it sounds wrong because of how large of oversimplification it represents. Thomas Jefferson personally contributed to some of those innovations.

I suspect the lack of realisation goes across the board... how many people consciously think of working conditions and workers lives in east and south Asian textile factories whilst purchasing T-shirts on the high street?
How many people consciously acknowledge the enslavement of Congolese miners whilst sat in their GP’s surgery watching the doc enter the details into their nice shiny flatscreen computer?

I certainly don’t: and I’m aware of these things

It’s too much and too large for a single individual to feel intrinsic personal responsibility for... and in as much that none of us choose to be born into this world, this civilisation, it’s not really fair to expect humans to consciously feel so & act upon.

I’m not fully convinced that boycotting is an option: take the rare earth metals from the Congo for instance, to boycott that you’d have to forgo all personal telecommunications & computing... and all interaction with businesses, charities and government agencies that use such devices professionally: down to and including the plumber who contacts clients via smartphone when your toilet cistern fails.

Where the option of personal abstention is so foreclosed, the recourse I’d rather see utilised is fully political action: that is renewed anti-slavery campaigning, but this time targeting the legal/tax/tariff status of the importation of the products of slavery/quasi-slavery... and functioning regulation (hence legalisation) of all currently illegal domestic industries utilising slavery/quasi-slavery.

But that would take a generation or more, has no guarantee of success and is unlikely to produce a big singular “victory! We did it” moment.

Oh...the "Cream of Wheat" guy.

Yeah.

Well...I hope they keep him because he looks like what he is. "A master chef". Both the person and the persona. The character, and (apparently from the linked article) the real guy who modeled it, were culinary black belts, who just happened to be Black. Not a bad Black stereotype of the Aunt Jemima kind.

I saw an article saying the cream of wheat guy will probably be canned as well.