PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2008-03-24 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • AriZona Sweet Tea Label (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • In December 2007, an e-mail exhorting folks to boycott products manufactured by AriZona Beverage, a New York-based company that makes flavored iced teas and energy drinks, began circulating in the online world. That call to arms decried the image depicted on the AriZona Southern Style Sweet Tea label as conveying a racially insensitive message. (For those not familiar with the term, sweet tea is iced tea that has been sweetened): Example: [Collected via e-mail, December 2007] The controversial label showed a white, multi-columned plantation-style house framed by lush green trees, with a man and woman holding hands on its veranda and a woman carrying what appeared to be a basket standing in the driveway leading to the house: A closer look shows it's impossible to determine the race of any of these three figures. If any of them could be said to be darker-skinned than the others, it's the man standing on the porch holding hands with the woman in blue, a posture that presents him as one-half of the couple that owns the house. The figure the e-mail described as a Black woman Dress like Aunt Jamama walking away from the house is not clad in the manner of the stereotypical mammy figure (bright red or yellow dress, large white apron, red, yellow, or blue kerchief tied tightly to her head) — she is instead costumed as a fair- to well-born lady of the 1800s. Notice the high-brimmed bonnet meant to frame the face and thereby showcase the wearer's features. Also notice how the voluminous skirt of the dress stands out from the figure's body, thereby confirming the presence of hooping beneath it. African-American slave women neither wore decorative bonnets tied with ribbon nor hooped dresses. While the controversial label does not show a picture of a Plantation! (which would be a picture of a large farm), the house it depicts is of the antebellum style, a type of grand home strongly associated with the slave-supported plantation lifestyle of the pre-Civil War American South. It is therefore a visual image that conveys strong negative connotations to African Americans. AriZona Beverages is in the process of changing the labels on its Southern Style Sweet Tea to something far less objectionable than a plantation-style house. Its new label shows two paddle wheel boats steaming down a river on a moonlit night. Regarding the change and the reason for it, the company has posted the following statement on their web site. (Because the AriZona site is done entirely in Flash animation we can't provide a direct link to the company's message; to reach it on your own, go to drinkarizona.com, then under the About tab, click Recent Concerns and then click the Read More hyperlink offered in the AriZona Sweet Tea Concern area.) (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url