As a black American who studies issues such as the "Brown Sugar" contrioversy above. I think the problems of ethnic insensitivity with this title arise from 3 primary historical tendencies (at least here in the U.S.): 1. The tendency to regard all things WASPish (i.e. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) as the unmarked and normative categories and anything non-WASPish as marked and aberrant. Thus, DAZ, Poser, and all businesses and institutions who market products aimed at or depicting WASPs images can market them as normative (i.e. ordinary, neutral, and supposedly universal) items. Other non-WASP products, therefore, become marked as abberations. (Compare the earlier cries for more body-types in this forum several years ago.) Here in the U.S., we call these things "ethnic"--They are either non-White, non-Anglo-Saxon, or non-Protestant.(This is why both the German and Irish immigrants at the turn of the century were labelled as "ethnic." They lacked only the moniker of being Anglo-Saxon and/or Protestant.) One can fault DAZ's marketting strategy here only for being uncritically consistent with the American tendency to believe that things white are necessarily unmarked, that is to say, neutral, ordinary and pure. (Strike 1) The second uncritical assumption that the "Brown Sugar" marketing ploy makes is the colonialist one. "Brown sugar," of course, references the colonialist history of the Carribean and American Southeast where British, French and American plantations imported African slaves to grow sugar. "Brown sugar" thus, synechdotally equates the African people with the product of their labor. This equation also recalls (and I think glorifies) this colonialist history. Many blacks, knowingly or not, use the term ironically (as we do others such as "nigger") to deflate this glorification of an evil history. While possible, it is much harder for whites to imply such an ironic usage b/c of the obvious problem of verifying their ideological stance on the issue. This, I think, is why blacks can call ourselves "niggers," but others, esp. whites, are generally not allowed to do so. (Strike 2) And finally, using the strategy of calling representations of blacks "Brown sugar" signals a potentially devastating implication (as with the plantation owners' use above) that undermines the uniquely human status of blacks. We are commodities, like sugar, cattle, or cotton who can be bought, sold, or traded without regard to our rights as rational intelligent beings. I haven't often heard of WASP women being openy regarded as "white sugar." And even the use of "sugar" as a term of endearment carries with it a sense social and emotional connection not found in calling someone, "brown sugar." Someone we can "sugar" remains intimately human. Someone we call "brown sugar" is alien, impersonal, and commodified. It lies at the intersection of sexism and racism. (Strike 3) Thus, for these reasons, I think DAZ (and the entire community actually) should rethink its marketting approach to promoting "ethnicity." To continue with these practices implicitly or explicitly, buys into the terrible history of murderous colonialism and racism that most of us reget and reject. this being said, I like DAZ, whether they are in Utah or not. --lordbyron