Our dear Aunt Jemima has departed us recently. She ceased to exist in print, and with her she took the Land O Lakes Native American woman, Uncle Ben, and the Washington Redskins. These poor victims of militant “Progressives” have given us many things, including full stomachs and entertainment, but they will leave us with a legacy that will hopefully not be forgotten. Their legacy is actually quite sad, really. Their legacy is that minorities can be the successful, well known face of great products and organizations, and for their trouble they will be torn down by those who think they know what’s best.
In today’s world, we are all told to “Think about other people!” when it comes to masks, language, dress, and the like. Those same people who are shouting, who are riding into town on their high horses and think of themselves as saviors of the modern world, are constantly working on their own agenda. Forget what’s best for everyone else, it’s only important when WE, the Great and Socially Conscious, deem it to be so.
The problem with being super sensitive to the feelings of others is that you are still alienating someone, and usually it’s the person who matters (or should matter) the most. For example, our dear Aunt Jemima in her modern form can be traced back from an actual woman who made a living being the walking embodiment of this pancake guru. The modern version of the Land O Lakes “Butter Maiden” was illustrated by a Native American, who took the original idea and added new details to reflect this illustrator’s tribe. Uncle Ben was named after a famed rice farmer known as “Uncle Ben” and his look was modeled after a maître d’hotel who was around where the inventors worked on their idea. The Redskins’ logo was based off of a Native American chief.
Oh, but you may say to yourself, the name “Redskins” provides room for a problem. Congratulations, my socially minded reader! You are correct. Let’s take a look at the name from a different angle: who considers “Redskins” as a derogatory term? It could easily be seen as such. But so is that pesky n-word that somehow keeps finding itself used many, many times in many, many songs. Is context important? Maybe. But what about time? My grandfather would attest that the name “Coon-ass” is derogatory, when many younger people from our Southern Louisiana culture wouldn’t think twice about it. So where do we draw the line? How do we determine what’s bad and what’s good? (Side note: I should add that I am not trying to compare the badness of the n-word with coonass and redskins. I am well aware that the historical context. That’s not the idea of my argument, before anyone goes and tries to rip my words out of context.)
Here’s the thing: I wouldn’t want some sports team from Oregon or Ohio to be named the “Coon-Asses” and then their mascot be some crude caricature of the Cajun people. But if these mascots were true to Cajun culture, it would still be weird to me but it would not necessarily be offensive. The son of the creator of the Redskins logo has said, back in 2014, “It needs to be said that an Indian from the state of Montana created that logo, and he did it the right way. It represents the Red Nation and it’s something to be proud of.” And he would be right. The other side of that is the context of these names and images. While Aunt Jemima may have had racist beginnings 150 years ago, the company had changed the look and context it present Aunt Jemima to remove those ugly undertones. The end result being people who never thought once that Aunt Jemima was meant to be racist, but thought that she was darn good at making syrup.
The worst thing to think about is that we are moving quickly into a gray, bland world in which the only people available to be the faces of different companies or products will be white people and animals. Can you imagine in 30 years, some minority child asking his or her mom why there is no one on the shelves of grocery stores that look like them? And the sad answer will be that everyone’s supposed to be equal and proper and politically correct. 2050, roughly 90 years after the Civil Rights Act, people will be sitting down enjoying some Quaker Oats syrup and talking about how they used to have a well-loved black woman face on the bottle instead of the white Quaker man.
So rest in peace, Aunt Jemima, and please pray for the betterment of the progressive movement and continuity in your pancakes.
Sources:
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/06/29/aunt-jemima-quaker-oats-rebrand
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/uncle-ben-s-change-its-branding-part-parent-company-s-n1231329
Bayou Observant 