Cleans whiter than...uh...black?

For some reason I can't quite fathom, here in China there is a brand of toothpaste known as "Black Man," with a beaming minstrel-esque black guy with a top hat as its logo. Why? God only knows. Whenever I see my black friends, the first thing that pops into mind is not "oooh, pretty teeth." I'm not quite sure what the first thing is actually, but it's certainly not dentistry-related in any way, shape or form. That's not to say that black people don't have nice teeth (says he, backpedalling furiously from anything that could be seen as non-PC), but it's hardly a distinguishing feature. Generally there's a slight negative attitude towards black people throughout most of China. Every one wants a happy-go-lucky blonde Aryan who'd look right at home in a Hitler Youth jamboree (yep, that's my last shred of political correctness gone to the dogs...), but black people seem to have a harder time of it, especially out in the provinces. And as for the ABCs, BBCs (American, British born Chinese), well, I wouldn't like to be in their shoes. They're seen as being the worst of both worlds I guess -- they don't look foreign and they can't blend in either. Although they seemed to have a lot harder time in Taiwan than here on the mainland. This is just the reality (in my eyes) of racial attitudes in China today. I hesitate to use the phrase "some of my best friends are black people/ABCs/insert-ethnic-group-here" because it's so often over-used by nutters, but there's not much else I can say really, except that when I say it I really mean it. I'll shut up now before I dig myself even deeper into a color-coded quagmire. Oooh! Look at that pretty alliteration! PS Is there a more politically-correct term than "blacks"? It always feels rather grating to write it