This Exists: Local News Crew Go After Small Business About Racist Soap

video

by Ray Rahman | 6:13 pm, December 14th, 2010

» 16 comments

Local news crews spent last week descending upon an Indianapolis-area shopping mall, perhaps to buy some stocking stuffers. What they found instead, however, has sparked a controversy for in the region: a mom-and pop selling “racist soaps with inflammatory labels.”

Gary and Kim Dewester, the owners of the general store, are fiecely defesnive of their soap selection, which include non-Proctor & Gamble brands with unfortunate names like Kolored Kids and Darkie Shaving Soap. They said to a local Fox affiliate that the soaps aren’t racist but “nostalgic, representing American history.”

And they’re not fond of their new media attention. When pestered by a local NBC affiliate, Mr. Dewester said,

You guys keep sticking cameras in my face. I have a right to sell it. It’s my right to sell it and I understand some may not approve of that but I don’t approve of a lot of other things. … I sold out of it all yesterday. People were disappointed they couldn’t buy it. I had people from South Bend, Evansville and Peru here and I was more than happy to sell my last nine bars to a black woman from Indianapolis.”

The store owners, both of whom are also public defense attorneys, are coming under fire from their town’s mayor and Indiana State Senator Luke Kenley, who co-owns the mall that houses the shop.

You can watch the racist soap opera that’s gripping Indianapolis in the video below. Buzzfeed is currently split on how the soaps affect American race relations. Also, that’s a weird sentence. [Via Buzzfeed]

Buzzfeed, Indianapolis, local news, Racist soap

Moderate

I had no idea that public defense attorneys would be selling soap for Kolored kids, next we will be having barber shops for kolored people.
understate

republicans
hello11

I strongly recommend you __ Ag’ele’ssbb’w.℃oM for single girls, men to find real love… My friends found true love there.. I hope that will happen to me
Kermit

Leave it to fox to put this crap out there!
timzank

Kermit said:
Leave it to fox to put this crap out there!

Are you retarded? A local tv station, a fox affiliate, “exposed” it. Or are you in favor the guy selling “kolored kids” soaps??? Which is it?
Helix

I’m afraid the Nazi party already did this one “better” for the all time most offensive soap award, way back in WWII Germany. While the soap was not produced industrially, the Danzig Anatomical Institute went over the lines of good science a wee bit. If you are not easily revolted , click the wiki and read to the bottom for the offensive details.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_made_from_human_corpses
Tucker P.

I saw this and got hungry for pancakes ….
Kermit

timzank said:
Are you retarded? A local tv station, a fox affiliate, “exposed” it. Or are you in favor the guy selling “kolored kids” soaps??? Which is it?

Fox feed of this crap just like most of it viewers…..
Magister

Kermit said:
Leave it to fox to put this crap out there!

WXIN (Fox 59) is owned by the Tribune Company, in other words, Sam Zell and the reporter is obviously against the idea of selling the soap. As is the reporter for the Indianapolis NBC affiliate (WTHR), which is owned by the Dispatch Broadcasting Group, a division of the same company that owns the Columbus (OH) Dispatch, the Wolfe family.
Magister

BTW: I don’t know the history of soap and their labels, but if they are historically accurate, then they’re like the old Aunt Jemima labels during her “Mammy” period along with lots of old products and advertising. Though if the guy just made them up, then I can see where there’s a problem.

As for who might purchase the products, I really don’t know.

If they are actual replica products, then I could see them going to a few collectors, but not enough to support a brick and mortar stock and because the guy never says in two different reports that they were marketed by XYZ in the early 20th century, I strongly suspect that they’re invented. This would mean that they’d have no collector’s value, whatsoever and would be purchased by people whom I believe are likely racist.
The Real Royal King

Michelle-in-Utah was pleased to see this as she is still not finished with her Christmas shopping. It’s a good thing she is a FOX devotee.
omega919

1. The scariest thing is that these two seem to LEGIT not see anything wrong with what they’re doing, and have NO CLUE how anyone could be offended.

2. You can’t call out Fox, when it was a Fox station for uncovering this. Also, there’s a BIG difference between a Fox O&O station and a Fox affiliate, which this station is.
More Liberty

If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.
MiddleRoader

As much as I abhor racism, I’m not sure this is the case here. Being the fact that their store is about (not sure if it would be considered as antique) things of old. I can see the bars as being a collectors item. Not for the racism fact but for the collection of things of old. And at least the woman came across to me as sincere that it was not about being white and/or black. I’m not black so I suppose I can’t understand the possible offense they might feel. But as a collector of old and odd things, I can see myself buying this as a collection item from the past only.
Nachi

Either way, Indianoplace is right in the heart of Northern Hillbillyism.
OxyCon

I hear they had another drawer full of Uncle Ben’s Rice, Aunt Jemima pancake mix and Al Jolson DVDs.