…and vexes a managing director of a multi-national corporation in the process.

In a story last month on this site, I commented on the wildly inappropriate use of name, slogan, and imagery for a steel wool product sold in Lebanon called “Negro Steel Wool.” After my initial repugnant shock surrounding the impudent marketing of a such a racist product, I calmed down for a second and decided to do some investigative bloggerist work, which included online searches and correspondences, to uncover the answer to my queries.

First, here are the fruits of my investigative googling labor:

1. The location of the product’s website welcoming the site visitor to the “Middle East’s Number 1 Steel Wool”: www.negro-steelwool.com

2. Following suit with the blatantly racist packaging, the Arabic-language TV ad for Negro Steel Wool spares no punches when going for a jingoist knock-out hit.

3. Over 100 years in business, here is the website to the product’s parent company, a German-owned Oscar Weil: www.oscarweil.com/en

As I put all the puzzle pieces together, that “Negro Steel Wool” was in fact the very same product manufactured in Germany for the last 100 years, and then repackaged with inflammatory racist imagery, I reckoned that someone needed to do some ‘splain about this disconnect. So, as has become the all-too-common result of marrying my nagging precocity with my limitless audacity, I decided to delve deeper into the investigation by making good on the “contact us” invitation.

Unfortunately, I did not record my initial inquiry. However, based on the exchange between me and the Oscar Weil’s Managing Director Stefan Grüb, I am sure you will get the gist of my line of questioning. The correspondence starts out with his email back to me literally the day after I pushed “send” button to the message:

Dear Mr. _______,

Many thanks for your inquiry and your interest in the NEGRO brand.

To answer your question: The brand NEGRO was created and launched in Lebanon almost 60 years ago. Today NEGRO is the leading brand for steel wool products in Lebanon as well as in several countries of the Middle East region.

In case you need more information please do not hesitate to ask.

Best regards
Stefan Grueb

OSCAR WEIL GmbH
Managing Director
Stefan H. Grueb

Dear Stefan Grueb,

Thank you for your response. I still have a few questions regarding
your product:

Is there no discussion about how blatantly and disparagingly racist
the whole product, from its imagery to the use of the phrase “slave loofah,” (3bd-the epithetic equivalent of the N-word in Arabic) is?

I see on your site that the same product sells under a different name, image, and packaging scheme in Germany. Why continue to advance hurtful racist language and imagery to sell steel wool-especially since the same product doesn’t require such branding in Germany?
Although hardly excusable in the time of its inception in the 1950s, I am utterly perplexed as to why and how, in 2010, branding a steel wool household cleaner in such a manner could ever be regarded as
appropriate in this zeitgeist.

peace,
m

Dear Stefan,

I would appreciate an answer to my questions.

peace,
m

Dear Mr. _______,

We appreciate your point of view but it is not ours. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Arabic World like the NEGRO products and use them at home. Will you criticize their preferences?
Will you become their judge only because you are of a different opinion?
Do you care about the US brand UNCLE BEN´s rice in your country? Or are you possibly one of the consumers?

So please keep cool. There are so many real important and severe problems in this world we could care about.

With best regards

Stefan Grüb

Although Stefan is fair in bringing up the wildly racist packaging of American food companies like Uncle Ben’s and Aunt Jemima’s, comparing Uncle Ben to a Black magical genie named “Negro” who’s “slave hair” is equated to steel wool is ludicrously disingenuous. Additionally, such a claim can easily be seen as a smokes and mirrors tactical move, one that was out of context, to take focus off of my main concern: why they decided to change the packaging specifically for Middle Eastern consumers? If the packaging was in fact created exclusively for a Middle East market 50 years after the product’s initial conception in Germany (in 1899), is Oscar Weil any better or released from culpability for exploiting racist sentiments for a perceived profitable edge? Why not stick to their generic or other packaging/branding schemas for a product strongly reputed for its quality? Why did or does culturally-specific packaging matter? Am stepping over cultural boundaries raising ruckus about this product from the safe distance of the states?

Since I never really received an answer to my question about why the repackaging was necessary, I am compelled to write up a statement of condemnation to the company for the use of the name “Negro,” slogan, product imagery and TV commercial. Who’s with me?

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