This story is about a bunch of free enterprise hating, politically correct thugs who want to destroy a hard working, job creating, small businessman's freedom to sell bars of soap with nostalgic brand names such as "Darkie," "Kolored Kids," and "Coon Chicken." The good news is that many of Indiana's liberty loving citizens are steadfastly defending their neighbor's God-given right to profit on America's great heritage of cleanliness and racism.
Noblesville, Ind. — The controversy over soap with racist labels being sold at a Noblesville store continues. In addition to those who are offended by the store selling these items, there is also growing support for the vendor who has been ordered to take the soaps off the shelves or face eviction.
Are they just a light-hearted look at history or not? General Store owner Gary Dewester remains steadfast neither the soaps nor himself, are in any way racist.
After hearing about the soap, Carolyn Gentner bought two bars including one labeled "Kolored Kids."
"I don't think they're offensive, I think they're nostalgic," she told Fox59 News. "I believe if this is going to be an issue, we should be in Kroger for selling Aunt Jemima syrup."
Supporters tell us they want people to see the soap and Gary's store for what it is: trinkets of American History for sale.
Clay Hicks is a student at IU and knows the Dewesters personally. He spoke to Fox59 via Skype Thursday:
"They're good people and they've never shown any signs of racism before that any of us have seen," he said. "The soaps are antiques. He owns an antique store. If he had gone home and made the soaps and wrote racist things on them in his basement and then tried to sell them, that would be a different story but these are antiques."
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Courtney Van Velse writes: "We live in a free country where we can buy and sell as we wish, if we took everything off the market that offended someone, we'd probably not have many things left!"
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Gary says he's now sold out of the soaps. After hearing about the story, people have driven as far as two hours from Evansville and down from South Bend to buy. Gary said a black woman bought his last nine bars, calling the soap "funny" and "cute."
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Fox59 spoke to two national experts Thursday on Black Americana and both tell me these kinds of soaps with these labels NEVER ever existed in our history. These aren't reproductions but what are called "fantasy items" printed purely for profit.
[Fox59.com] via [The Awl]
@J.,
ReplyDeleteVery good point. Most Americans today think of the KKK as an organization primarily located in the deep south. In truth, nowhere did the Klan gain more actual political power than in Indiana of the 1920's. At the Indiana Klan's apex of power, over 30% of the white male population of the state were dues paying members.