Darkie Toothpaste

I was doing a little research this evening, don’t ask me into what, and uncovered a little ditty called “Darkie Toothpaste”. Darkie is apparently a brand going way back (historical back, yo) which draws upon years and years of blatant racial stereotyping performed by the Chinese. The message here is: Black people have nice white teeth, and if you want nigger teeth, brush up with Darkie! American readers please note the obvious similarity to Aunt Jemima or Uncle Ben’s. The commentary provided by young Asian and American readers of the site is priceless:

Among the pleasantries:

Well, I don’t know if “Darkie” is racist-RACIST, but it’s definitely offensive. Imagine, say, a black hair dye that shows a really stereotypical Asian person–SUPER-slanty eyes, buck-toothed, thick glasses, etc.–and it’s called “Yellowie” or “Chinky,” and you get the idea. It’s always easy to say, “Ahhh, that ain’t a big deal,” if your group’s not the one being made fun of.

The above written by a user who goes by the tag, Da Xiangchang, who I’m pretty sure is a character from Street Fighter. Really interesting reading if you ask me. The real gem here is that this guy who put together the thing on Darkie referenced a website called: Toothpasteworld. Toothpasteworld is an amazing look back at one dentist’s massive collection of novelty toothpastes, which by some measures, numbers over 1400 distinct tubes of toothpaste. A truly noble pursuit.

As Sexy As You Can Imagine

Because nothing much else needs to be said about the Zionist S&M Gimp (Courtesy of the BBC):

Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador after he was found drunk and naked apart from bondage gear.

Reports say he was able to identify himself to police only after a rubber ball had been removed from his mouth….

Haaretz website reports that police found Mr Refael in the Israeli embassy compound where he had been found bound, gagged and naked apart from sado-masochistic sex accessories.

The Politics of Failure Have Failed

In the wake of Bush’s trip to South America, sparking huge demonstrations during his arrival to Brazil, I’ll share with you some prime pictures from the ‘World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime‘ protests that occurred in Washington in early February.

   

Take Time

Hello friends and foes, one and all! First and foremost, PBH has seen some major revisions and tweaks recently that we hope will upgrade and facilitate the enjoyment of using this site. We have added some new regular contributors including Expo with Alec, Lucian, Eric, Jesse, and Kit still contributing regularly. Sexy and Disgraceful has also been fine tuned for everyone’s pleasure as well.

Secondly, as we grow larger, PBH continues to look for new contributors for our site. We are particularly interested in someone fluent in international relations or blog ‘punditry’, but honestly, anyone can sign up. Literally, anyone can sign up, and we encourage you to do so.

Thirdly, we appreciate the comments and feedback. Comments no long require email addresses (though we’d never spam you to begin with) and we have tried to facilitate commenting in general. Commenting not only promotes discussion but encourages the writers for PBH — if we are stimulating your cortex or making you laugh enough that we induce your involvement, we’re doing our jobs!

Anyway, from all of us at PBH, thanks for checking out our site. We’ll continue to update and upgrade, and we look forward to continued patronage.

Daily Sign of the Apocalypse

Lisa de Moraes writes in today’s Washington Post about the most recent sign that a) network TV is a few feet further into the grave than Hollywood movies b) creativity has resorted to plagiarism c) Jesus will be flying down to Los Angeles in a hovercraft with Buddha to personally punish anyone involved in this project.

What is this project? Oh, just the fact that ABC has picked up a pilot based on the Geico commercial that features three Cavemen who are picked on by society at large for being cavemen. The basis of the sitcom is that:

the three cavemen live in the suburbs of modern-day Atlanta (which perhaps the network feels is closer to the Paleolithic era than, say, Manhattan). There, they suffer from the prejudice of others, in much the same way they have since Geico first claimed in its ads that its Web site is so easy to use “even a caveman can do it.”

…The idea of a “Cavemen” sitcom is not unlike the scathing social satire ABC aired from spring ’91 to summer ’94. “Dinosaurs” starred gigantic puppetlike reptiles and included an episode in which a dinosaur about to join the Young Males Carnivore Association (YMCA) decides to become a herbivore, for which he’s called a “herbo” and booted for going against the laws of nature.

Yes, broadcast networks used to be able to get away with stuff like that. And dared to….

The ABC TV Studio spokeswoman said she’d never had so many e-mails from the general public about a project, including some who think they are naturals for the roles because of their physical resemblance to, um, cavemen. One guy wrote in saying he had a series of caves under his house and invited the network to shoot the series there.