USA: Miller beer, which is celebrating the "50th Anniversary of Rock n Roll" by bringing out eight commemorative beer cans featuring images of some of the greatest legends of Rock n Roll, has been reportedly accused of being racist.

According to the Independent, faces of rock stars like Elvis Presley, Alice Cooper, Blondie and Eric Clapton adorn the beer cans while the black artists like Chuck Richard, James Brown and Ray Charles, who are said to be the pioneers of Rock n Roll do not feature anywhere.
Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University, called the absence of black stars "beyond conspicuous",

"It would be like doing a set of cans of six great Impressionist painters and not including French people on it," he was quoted as saying. However the promoters of the beer denied the allegations by saying that they had only taken artists who had featured in the Rolling Stones Magazine and the expulsion of the black artists was not deliberate.

21 August, 2004