Munch a Bunch of Fritos’
The Doolin Family: Mary Kathryn and Charles Elmer Doolin and their children (from left), Kaleta, Charles and Earl. Courtesy Kaleta The Grinder – CHARLES ELMER DOOLIN – |
Enlarge“It has it’s roots in Classic American Racial Psychosis disorder, says racial psychologist and researcher Dr. Louis Sidney Jacobs who has launched a campaign encouraging inner-city boys and girls to turn their noses up at Cheetos and all Frito Lay products.
“Cheetos’ new advertising campaign feeds from and to that racial psychosis in whites that says any perverse and reprobate behavior is acceptable.”
The advertising campaign Jacobs objects to promotes Cheetos’ new OrangeUnderground concept.
“Not only does it encourage random acts of rudeness and inhumanity, the name is a racial slight against the historic Underground Railroad, the system through which many of our ancestors found their freedom and, too, the system through which many of our ancestors died.
“The members of my organization believe this racial slight is intentional. Frito Lay has a history of racial insensitivity in its advertising campaigns. “
Jacobs is a member of the African American Association of Psychology (AAAP).
To accomplish his goal, Jacobs has teamed with Underprivileged Media and Ghetto Bragging Rights.
Both of whom, he says, have agreed join his anti Cheeto Campaign until the company cleans up its act.
Ghetto Bragging Rights publisher Kirkland Perkins says Cheetos can’t get its act clean enough for him or the GBR community, though.
“Since launching the campaign across the GBR network, our community members have responded and finds Frito Lay and Cheetos contemptible,” Perkins said. “Even if Cheetos cleans up its campaign, I don’t believe its products will be welcomed back.”
READ CHEETOS RACIAL HISTORY:
It was in the ’60s that the fortunes of the racist spokestoon began to decline, in large measure because of changes brought on by the civil rights movement. The beginning of the end can be marked by the debut of Funny Face, Pillsbury’s answer to the Kool-Aid craze. The brand was launched in 1964 and originally included these ill-advised goofballs. There is no record of a public outcry, but a year later, the two were quietly swapped for Choo Choo Cherry and Jolly Olly Orange.
This brigade of ruffians culminated with one of advertising’s more memorable cash machines, the Frito Bandito. Armed, oily, and ravenous for your cronchy corn chips, the Bandito was a stickup man-slash-con artist with a ferocious appetite for his favorite salty snack. Introduced in 1967, he was a massive hit with kids. Quickly, though, he became a target for the Mexican American Anti-Defamation Committee, which wanted to end the ad world’s love affair with south-of-the-border criminals. The group threatened litigation and filed a complaint with the FCC.
So, Frito Lay ordered a makeover. An ad firm was told to tidy up the Bandito, fix his teeth, and change his expression from sinister sneer to rascally grin. His guns were holstered, too, a response to the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Cartoon legend Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.) provided the voice of the teeny outlaw, who had his own theme song about the joys of Frito thieving. But the MAADC was unmoved and prompted several television affiliates to ban the Bandito. In 1971, a House subcommittee made him the star of hearings about ethnic defamation on the airwaves. It wasn’t long before Frito Lay pulled the campaign.
Fritos turned 75 this year, and the company issued a commemorative bag featuring an old mascot, the Frito Kid. Not surprisingly, the company did not choose to revive its old corn-chip revolutionary, the Frito Bandito.
Underprivileged Publishing supports the 