Japan Beverage Firm to Drop Racially Offensive Trademark

A Japanese beverage maker will stop using a trademark portraying a top-hatted, thick-lipped black man sipping a drink through a straw because some customers find it racist, the company announced today.

Nobuaki Hashimoto, spokesman of Calpis Food Industry Co., said the company will discontinue the 65-year-old trademark by the end of the year. The logo appears on labels of the company’s top-selling soft drinks and on advertising billboards across the country.

“In an age of internationalization, we cannot continue to use the trademark if it gives unpleasant feelings to consumers,” Hashimoto said.

Calpis Food Industry began reconsidering the use of its logo in February because of increased interest in the issue of racial discrimination in Japan. In January, Japanese publishers stopped selling “Little Black Sambo,” one of the most popular children’s books in Japan, because of the racist connotations the book carried.