As you may have heard, a whole lot of companies are taking this moment

[conuly]

to change their racist branding or, for companies such as Band-Aids and Capezio, to adding an appropriate range of skin tones to their products.

This is long overdue, of course, and I'm more than a little disappointed that they're not saying that more loudly. "Oh, wow, look how time flies. Yes, we know the right time to do this was - what, 50 years ago? Longer? - uh, a really long time ago, but we're getting around to it now!"

The lack of honesty galls.

Comments

[fred_mouse]

Even more frustrating for both Band-Aids and Capezio, is that at least one of their competitors has been doing a better job for Some Time. (I'm failing to remember which brands, but I can remember multiple skin tone sticking plasters coming out a while ago, and some years back there were ballet shoes in multiple tones).

[cynthia1960]

This.

[silveradept]

Indeed. It smacks pretty heavily of someone in marketing making the decision to do it instead of doing it because you believe that everyone deserves to have things in their skin tone.

[conuly]

There's worse reasons to do things, I suppose.

[siderea]

Re Capezio: yes and no. Capezio didn't make pointe shoes for the more highly melanated because ballet, as a social institution, was incredibly racist, and deterred what few black girls ventured into the study of ballet from progressing to the point one goes en pointe (around age 13 or so). It has just been in the last two decades that the walls of racial exclusion have started coming down in ballet. Misty Copeland started climbing the ranks around 2000, and was named a prima of ABT in 2015, and Michaela dePrince became famous as a student in 2011 when she stared in a documentary. Last Christmas the New York Ballet had it's very first black Marie in the Nutcracker. The walls have been finally, finally falling, and in response there has been a flood of little black girls into ballet classes.

And now they're getting to the point they're going to need toe shoes.

Capezio is not selling dancewear for darker-skinned dancers because they are woke. They're not even doing it as a publicity stunt. Capezio has had it brought to their corporate attention that there's now a market for those products, and enough of them will move that it's worth their while to manufacture and sell them.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I seem to recall Band-Aid did this once before (probably with just one other color than the peachy taupe) before stopping again. That probably was late 70s-mid80s.

[archersangel]

i saw somewhere they tried in like 2005 (maybe?) but they dropped it due to lack of interest.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Perfect Blend apparently was a 2005-2008 product. I am digging to see if there was another go because I know this came up earlier, like back when they were first printing novelty characters.

Thing is, I know how shelf stocking works, and it wasn't lack of interest. It was lack of awareness by potential customers and self-fulfilling prophecy by the stores and distributors.

Huh, the clear ones were introduced in 1957.

[the_siobhan]

I was talking to a co-worker shortly before lockdown and he suddenly interrupted me to yell "WHERE DID YOU GET THAT!" Turns out he was pointing at a bandage on my arm that was brown instead of pink.

I went home and looked up the box for him and it was a store-brand knockoff. Most of those are made by the exact same manufacturers, so the fact that they are willing to sell darker shades but not under their actual brand name has even worse implications.

[greghousesgf]

this also reminds me of what used to be called "flesh" colored crayons having a name change to "peach".

[ayebydan]

Yeah that was my reaction. Good but....really.

[archersangel]

if i recall the clear band aids were a way to address the issue of not having a variety of skin tones for their bandages. but i could be wrong.

[conuly]

Yeah, but does anybody seriously prefer plastic bandaids to fabric ones who doesn't have a latex allergy?

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

The fabric-y ones are newer. Weren't they sorta papery before the more vinyl ones?

[conuly]

Hm... when was this?

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I feel like there were some changes in the 1970s regarding the formulation of the strip; note, some of them may have been drugstore brand ones just popped into the metal tin. Also, I wouldn't say every Band-Aid I met was manufactured during the same administration it was used in.

There was a fair amount of "Bomb shelter supplies? Let's use them." going on in schools too.