It's true that some (not all) of these brand names were plain offensive. I'm a bit taken aback by Uncle Ben's rice though. I'd never heard that "uncle" thing being used to avoid using "Mr." To me, the portrait always simply represented a friendly, smiling uncle. Also, if we're calling him Ben with a single 'n', he wouldn't be "Mr Ben" anyway. Ben is conventionally a first name. Benn is a surname. And maybe his attire COULD represent him being a servant. It could equally suggest a successful businessman who runs his own rice empire. Has anybody, ever, seriously looked at a packet of Uncle Ben's rice and said "I can't buy this, it has a picture of a slave on it?" At this rate they will have to remove all black people and all ethnic themes and designs from packaging altogether, and I'm sure that's not in anybody's best interests.

'tis said that when America sneezes, Britain catches a cold - and so it is being shown to be true. So some obscure reference to times long past in America, which I'd bet most Americans are not aware of, causes product branding to be redesigned here in Britain. Why should this be occurring now? My theory is that Blairs dream that half the world and its dog should have a degree is in large part to blame. Universities have become temples to PC and after having been indoctrinated for a number of years, students are excreted into the real world with degrees of little value. They have a choice = they can either flip burgers in the likes of McDonalds for little pay, or they can worm their way into institutions pandering to the perpetually offended, where six figure salaries are not uncommon.

Remember right or wrong these issues have been picked up mostly by activists who aim in life is to go looking for these issues. Vast majority of people are not that bothered one way or the other yet companies listen to these activists. The bottom line is they are more worried about product sales than anything else. Dont worry about the low pay of the 'employees' their suppliers employ. Some of these might have some merit but others are nonsensical.