Paint Company Benjamin Moore Under Fire For Having Racially Offensive Paint Colors

7/1/2014

Former Benjamin Moore employee Tucker Clinton is filing a discrimination lawsuit because he’s offended by the way the 131-year-old company ‘allegedly’ named two of their paint colors.

From the Daily Caller:

A black man in New Jersey has filed a lawsuit against his former employer, Benjamin Moore Paints, which he says named one of its paint colors after him and then fired him when he complained.

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Tucker worked on a project to create a new line of paint colors. One of the shades was given the name “Tucker Chocolate.”

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The company already had a color named “Clinton Brown.” 

However, Benjamin Moore’s website describes “Tucker Chocolate” as “capturing the 1798 color requested by St. George Tucker for his home facing Courthouse Green.”

Just because one person is offended by the color “Tucker Chocolate” does not necessarily mean the company intended to offend. Benjamin Moore has more than 1,000 different colors of paint to choose from, and many of them, though clearly not racist, could be argued as such:

1.“Fiesta Yellow”: Spanish speakers will be furious to find their word for ‘party’ is being trivialized as a paint color.

 2. “Apache Red”: Perhaps the U.S. Copyright Office should look into this one like they did with the Washington Redskins.

3. “Confederate Red”: This could be taken as racially offensive, although the Confederate Flag is actually bright red, not a darker shade like the color Benjamin Moore sells.

In other words, almost anything, if taken the wrong way, could be perceived by someone as offensive. 

Yes, even paint colors.

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