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The labels on Robertson’s jam used to include golliwog tokensĪs brands start to more carefully audit the origins of their logos and packaging, there have been calls in the US for Chiquita bananas to reconsider its trademark stereotypical Latin American woman with a basket of fruit on her head, and for Colgate to withdraw Darlie toothpaste, which is only sold in Asia. The packaging was adjusted in 1992 to remove the offending image, and the name was changed later to Giant Bars. Launched in 1957 and sold right until the 1990s, Golly Bars were made all the odder by the fact that the ice cream inside the wrapper was a rectangle of plain vanilla, around which some genius in the marketing department decided to stick racist wrapping.

No discussion of offensive brands is completely without mention of Trebor Blackjack sweets, which sported a golliwog on the wrapper until the 1980s, or the proudly Irish HB Golly Bars. That gem was removed from the station's archives in the past week.

#GOLLY LOLLY SERIES#

The BBC series was axed in 1978 – four years before RTÉ broadcast Twink doing a skit in blackface, performing as 'Gladys Day and the Pits' on The Live Mike. The Lyons Tea ‘Minstrels’, in an ad shown on Irish television The trope gave birth to a crude stereotype that lodged itself in popular culture, where it remained for at least the next 150 years, its manifestations famously including the two-decade run of the BBC's Black and White Minstrel Show. Here's a quick refresher for you, Unilever: minstrel shows date back to the character of Jim Crow, which was created by the white performer Thomas Rice in 1828.

Unilever's UK website also makes unqualified and unapologetic reference to the 'iconic' minstrels campaign. 'The iconic 'Minstrels' and the very popular car giveaway were part of the brand's advertising campaigns during the 1970's,' the website declares without so much as a footnote about the problems associated with the 'iconic' little chaps.

The jaunty, and deeply offensive, dancing minstrels may have been excised from Lyons Tea's ads and packaging after Unilever bought the brand, in the 1990s, but they're still on its website. All have been prominent in Irish shops and in Irish advertising. Here’s looking at you, Lyons Tea, HB’s Golly Bar ice cream and Robertson’s jam, which abandoned its golliwog logo only in 2001. It’s not only much-loved US brands that have promoted racist tropes or problematic imagery. The Aunt Jemima character is an African-American woman originally based on a minstrel-show performer. Mars is removing the image of a black farmer from its Uncle Ben’s products, and has said it will review the nameĪnother US company, Quaker Foods, which is owned by PepsiCo, said it would rebrand its Aunt Jemima pancake syrup – which is not sold in Ireland – because it was 'based on a racial stereotype'. The Uncle Ben’s repackaging is part of a wave of corporations taking stock of their brand identities, amid a global moment of reckoning on racial inequality. 'Now is the right time to evolve the Uncle Ben's brand, including its visual brand identity.' The character is out of step with the times, it admitted this week. Mars is removing the image of a black farmer from its Uncle Ben's products, and has said it will review the name. If proof were needed that systemic racism hides in plain sight, it’s right there on our supermarket shelves.

Golly lolly