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Canberra, Australia - Fast food giant KFC has pulled an Australian television advertisement after it was branded racist in the United States.
The ad depicts a white Australian cricket fan subduing boisterous black West Indian fans by sharing his fried chicken.
"Need a tip when you're stuck in an awkward situation?" the Australian asks. "Too easy," he adds after the West Indian supporters surrounding him give up their celebrating to eat his KFC.
The spot, which foreshadows a much-anticipated clash between the two fiercely competitive cricketing nations, ran for three weeks without raising a ripple of complaint in Australia.
But when the ad spread via the internet to the United States, some complained it played on a derogatory stereotype of black Americans. Minstrel shows, which portrayed demeaning caricatures of blacks in the 19th and early 20th century, often showed them eating fried chicken.
There is no such association in Australia.
"These people, they're so unruly and uncivilized and so rowdy, jumping up and down," US radio announcer Ana Kasparian said in her criticism. "They just can't sit down unless you give them some... fried chicken."
KFC, which is a sponsor of cricket in Australia, said in a statement Thursday the ad was meant to be "tongue-in-cheek."
"We have been made aware that a KFC commercial being shown on Australian television has apparently caused offense, particularly in the United States, after a copy of the commercial was reproduced online without KFC's permission," the Louisville, Kentucky-based company said.
"While we believe this lighthearted commercial has been well understood by Australian cricket fans, to avoid the possibility of any further offense being caused by the advertisement either here or online overseas, KFC will cease running the commercial immediately," it added.
The controversy over the ad puzzled many Australians. On Friday, the Australian newspaper The Age posted a survey online asking if the ad was racist. Of the more than 6,600 votes, 86 percent selected "no."
And on Saturday, columnist Rebecca Weisser of the national newspaper The Australian penned a tongue-in-cheek piece mocking the suggestion that the ad proves Australia is a racist country.
"Australians, clearly, are just too pig ignorant to realise just how offensive was this ad," she wrote. "A full 85% of them couldn't see what was wrong with it and claimed it was all a misunderstanding, that Americans don't understand anything about West Indians or cricket."
Weisser pointed to a comment posted on the online video by a user named "TrueUSMarine" who wrote that all Australians are "morons" if they can't understand why the ad is considered racist.
"No sign of racism there," Weisser wrote.
- AP
