I just got back from Uncle Giuseppes, a small Italian supermarket chain on Long Island, I was at the East Meadow store. I like shopping there, they're a little pricey but the quality is high and it's a clean store, and it's also just a few blocks from my home. I wanted some nice steaks to put under the broiler tonight.
Uncle Giuseppes
When I got up to the register I couldn't believe my eyes...
Up at the register they have a several boxes of Italian candies--they're in the "box packaging" and you just take a candy bar or pack of mints, etc from the box and pay for it with the rest of your food. They had at the register a box of Italian licorice tins called "Tabu". I was stunned to see on the box packaging a blackface image--a minstrel show image. I thought it was extremely offensive and I talked to the store manager about it.
He said they had been selling the product for years and that it was Tabu's imagery and if I had a complaint I should contact them. He apologized that I was offended by it but he and another fellow, whom I assume was an co-manager, seemed to think nothing of it. The co-manager said he wasn't offended by it.
If they want to sell this licorice candy that's their business, but take it out of the offensively printed packaging. I mean really, it's black licorice, it's called TABU and it has a minstrel image on the box. I think it's disgusting, if not intolerable, to use minstrel clipart to sell anything.
What should I do?