JUST IN: Quaker Oats is removing the name and image of Aunt Jemima from the brand in effort “to make progress toward racial equality.” https://t.co/fzxik9pavg
What do you call a person who can’t stand to look at a black face even on a bottle of pancake syrup?
“What do you call a person who can’t stand to look at a black face even on a bottle of pancake syrup?”
…. a leftist?
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Meanwhile, old white dude still advertising Quaker oats…
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The old Aunt Jemima image was a minstrel stereotype, but I think the updated image is unproblematic. It’s a pity that they didn’t update the name when they switched to the modern image. No one is named Jemima these days. If they had changed it to Aunt J. or Auntie J. when they changed the image it would have been fine.
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” No one is named Jemima these days”
It’s still a name in good standing in Britain (and some former British colonies):
Jemima Abey, British actress
Jemima Goldsmith (born 1974), English journalist, editor, heiress and activist
Jemima Kirke (born 1985), actress
Jemima Montag (born 1998), Australian female racewalker
Jemima Osunde, Nigerian actress, model and presenter
Jemima Parry-Jones (born 1949), British authority on birds of prey, conservationist and author
Jemima Rooper (born 1981), English actress
Jemima Sumgong (born 1984), Kenyan long-distance runner
Jemima West (born 1987), Anglo-French actress
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jemima
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Interesting. None of these people were on my radar.
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“old Aunt Jemima image was a minstrel stereotype, but I think the updated image is unproblematic”
The name maybe came from minstrel shows (Fun fact: all black minstrel shows for black audiences pre-dated and outlasted the white form)
But the character came from the Mammy archetype which also pre-dated and outlasted white minstrel shows. It wouldn’t be good if that were the only image of African American women in popular culture but trying to erase it seems (to me) to be just as wrong.
It’s also a posthumous slap in the face to the women who were the models, like Nancy Green
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Green
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