The Morning My Pancakes Woke Up
Quaker Oats (a subsidiary of Pepsico) is pre-emtively charging itself with racism for the use of a black woman's face on their "Aunt Jemima" pancake syrup, and pancake mixes. Better to charge youself than to have a cadre of wokesters do it for you.
Before going any further let me make one thing very clear. The Aunt Jemima brand image is rooted in racist stereotypes of mammy figures and needs to give up those roots. Quaker is quite right to be concerned with charges of racism and quite right to do something about it. Whether or not this is a fate acompli is somethin I'll take up as we go.
When it comes to fighting racism it occurs to me that if we are concerned about pancake mix logos, there may be a few other issues we've skipped over, such as police brutality, voter supression, employment discrimination, housing discrimination, and...... you get the idea. On the other hand, everything is connected. Maybe we can't really deal with these other issues while using mammy figures on our pancake syrup. So, while there may be more important issues this does have an importance of it's own. Racism is racism and must be fought whereever it is found.
As I see it, there are two elements involved in the racist trope of Aunt Jemima. One is the image of a black woman, the other is the name Jemima.
The immage has changed a half dozen times over more than 100 years. It started off with a minstrell show charicature of a black mammy back when most (white) people were unconcerned with such stereotypes. To see the logos over the years follow this link
https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Aunt_Jemima#1889.E2.80.931912
Over time, the logo has changed but for the most part maintained something of a mammy image, at least up until the last change.
Note that the image used since 1989 is simply a black woman. No head scarf no funny lips, nothing that suggessts mammy. It may well be that Quaker has changed to logo so much that it is no longer a racist trope. I see a black woman with nicely done hair, an earing, and a white collar, suggesting her blouse is white. There is not the slightest hint of her socio economic status. She could work as a housekeeper at the local hospital, but she could just as easily be a hospital administrator. I'd suggest that the logo has given up it's racist past. Simply having a black face on your packaging is not, in and of itself, racist. I'm sure that won't be good enough for the woke community though and I expect the image will disappear altogether. Then there is the name.
Jemima. We'll kick this around for a few minutes, but in the end there is no rehabilitating the name. It's not as bad as Sambo's (what is it with racism and pankakes? ) but it's irredemable.
Jemima of course is an Arabic name, and also a biblical name. Jemima was the eldest daughter of Job. A quick look at famous people named Jemima shows a handful of actresses, an Australian racewalker, an Irish novelist, and, of interest to the wokesters, an American female preacher who styled herself genderless (Jemimah Wilkonson, 1752 to 1819)
But no list of famous Jemimas, current or historical, will save the name. At least in the US, it has that "mammy" ring to it. While I don't doubt there are some African-American women named Jemima, and some of the are probably Aunts, I do doubt that the name will survive.
If it were left to me to decide I'd declare that the current logo is free of racial stereotypes, change the name to Aunt Jenny, and call it good. And that is probably why I'm not an executive with a Fortune 500 company. It will be interesting to see what Quaker does with the brand.
Before going any further let me make one thing very clear. The Aunt Jemima brand image is rooted in racist stereotypes of mammy figures and needs to give up those roots. Quaker is quite right to be concerned with charges of racism and quite right to do something about it. Whether or not this is a fate acompli is somethin I'll take up as we go.
When it comes to fighting racism it occurs to me that if we are concerned about pancake mix logos, there may be a few other issues we've skipped over, such as police brutality, voter supression, employment discrimination, housing discrimination, and...... you get the idea. On the other hand, everything is connected. Maybe we can't really deal with these other issues while using mammy figures on our pancake syrup. So, while there may be more important issues this does have an importance of it's own. Racism is racism and must be fought whereever it is found.
As I see it, there are two elements involved in the racist trope of Aunt Jemima. One is the image of a black woman, the other is the name Jemima.
The immage has changed a half dozen times over more than 100 years. It started off with a minstrell show charicature of a black mammy back when most (white) people were unconcerned with such stereotypes. To see the logos over the years follow this link
https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Aunt_Jemima#1889.E2.80.931912
Over time, the logo has changed but for the most part maintained something of a mammy image, at least up until the last change.
Note that the image used since 1989 is simply a black woman. No head scarf no funny lips, nothing that suggessts mammy. It may well be that Quaker has changed to logo so much that it is no longer a racist trope. I see a black woman with nicely done hair, an earing, and a white collar, suggesting her blouse is white. There is not the slightest hint of her socio economic status. She could work as a housekeeper at the local hospital, but she could just as easily be a hospital administrator. I'd suggest that the logo has given up it's racist past. Simply having a black face on your packaging is not, in and of itself, racist. I'm sure that won't be good enough for the woke community though and I expect the image will disappear altogether. Then there is the name.
Jemima. We'll kick this around for a few minutes, but in the end there is no rehabilitating the name. It's not as bad as Sambo's (what is it with racism and pankakes? ) but it's irredemable.
Jemima of course is an Arabic name, and also a biblical name. Jemima was the eldest daughter of Job. A quick look at famous people named Jemima shows a handful of actresses, an Australian racewalker, an Irish novelist, and, of interest to the wokesters, an American female preacher who styled herself genderless (Jemimah Wilkonson, 1752 to 1819)
But no list of famous Jemimas, current or historical, will save the name. At least in the US, it has that "mammy" ring to it. While I don't doubt there are some African-American women named Jemima, and some of the are probably Aunts, I do doubt that the name will survive.
If it were left to me to decide I'd declare that the current logo is free of racial stereotypes, change the name to Aunt Jenny, and call it good. And that is probably why I'm not an executive with a Fortune 500 company. It will be interesting to see what Quaker does with the brand.
Comments
Post a Comment