Every time I walk by the coffee shop Lucaffe, at Queen and Boulton, the "Uncle Remus-like" white-toothed, barefoot, smiling chubby black guy that part of their icon (his image is on everything) makes me cringe. It's like walking by a black lawn-jockey statue, but seriously worse because it is so huge and obvious. Okay, the company is Italian, so Italian in fact that the English on their site is well...less than perfect. I'm guessing that the mascot from the Italian perspective is either a) considered hip and kitschy, political correctness be damned or b) is the original logo from eons ago and they think that it is now hip and kitschy, political correctness be damned.
Either way, it doesn't play out well here in East Toronto. The fancy schmancy place (they have put a bundle into it) is a ghost town... always. On a strip where a new coffee place opens every few months to standing room only, this is unusual. I think we'll be saying "Ciao" to Lucaffe in the next few months and maybe I can walk by this corner without embarrassment once again.
2 comments:
Hi, I agree with everything you say. However, I would like you to go one step further and write about WHY and HOW it disturbs so much. What is it about racist imagery that is so unsettling in this space and time (and affects the body too). Also, to reference (or completely misinterpret!) the postcolonial scholars of culture (Said, Bhabba, etc?), don't images such as these 'achieve' something in a white settler society and thus can't really be banished?
Okay Lys,
someone is obviously full-in thesis mode : )
I don't have the energy or desire to go there... this isn't an intellectual excersize as much as a rambling on my part.. .but yep, so true (and yep, I read and quoted Said and Bhaba in my thesis)
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