Beaner's Coffee

This media image that I chose is an icon that thousands of people see everyday. Beaner’s Coffee is a nationwide chain of coffee shops. Recently, Beaner’s Coffee has changed its name to Biggby Coffee because of the derogatory nature of the name Beaner.
The name “beaner” has been a derogatory slang word for Mexicans for a long time; it would be like calling a white person a “cracker.” On Toledo’s KISS FM 92.5 radio station a few days ago, the morning show did a little report about the recent name change of this favorite coffee stop. The morning show hosts had callers call in to discuss what they thought of this name change, and also had one of the hosts out on the street asking Mexican Americans if they felt offended by the name Beaner’s Coffee. Granted the morning show was also trying to poke fun about the subject, but this coffee shop changing its name does bring up an interesting topic. In the past several years, different team names have been under intense scrutiny for there seemingly derogatory names, some have even been forced to change their names, such as the Miami of Ohio University Redskins, changed their name to the Miami Redhawks. There is also the University of Illinois Fighting Illini, which have had a lot of news time for their name and especially the mascot, and also the NFL’s Washington Redskins, NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks, along with several others.
So should all public names that could have some aspect of being derogatory towards a certain race or ethnicity be banned from used or changed? I do not think that these names should be changed, because if you change one and make a big deal of one then people are going to start making a big deal about every little thing. According to a few Mexican Americans who were interviewed on the KISS FM radio station, until this made the news, they never thought that Beaner’s Coffee was derogatory towards their race. Also according to the broadcast, “…we might as well change Cracker Barrel’s name because people could take it as being derogatory towards whites…”
This topic relates to several readings from class about how people have the power to influence how other people think about racial topics. If no one had mentioned that Beaner’s Coffee could be taken the wrong way by a Mexican, then Biggby Coffee would still be known as Beaner’s Coffee, which the public grew to love.