upset that local tesco has started selling Aunt Jemima

[pettywitchinlondon]

Yes I know I don't have to buy and nore does anyone else but its a brand with such a racist past about bringing the taste from the plantation home with you and now that slavery is outlawed you can't have a black slave cook so buy this instead. I do think such toxic brands should be killed off.

I seem to recall 'Aunt' or 'Uncle' were quasi-respectful but actually quite sneery, patronising terms white slave-owners used to refer to a slave who'd been in one place for a long time, was almost embedded in the white slave-owning family, & had a high status within the slave community?

Like Uncle Tom.

I think the objection is that the brand was originally being sold to white consumers as a nostalgic throwback to days when their forebears might have had the convenience of a slave cook to do that sort of homely, non-posh cooking for them.

Plus it certainly seems the company was white owned & run, & AJ was a fictional construct - as opposed to, say, Levi Roots marketing Reggae Reggae sauce with his own image, personality etc as a key part of the brand.

Ocado have been stocking it for a long time.

Not sure what to think.

It clearly does use a sort of stereotypical 'Mammy' figure on its branding. Cant deny.

DH's black American family used to give me bottles to take home to the UK when we were on holiday years ago. Its a mainstream brand in the USA still.

Should we also ban Levi Root's Reggae Reggae Sauce then? Is that racist?

Hattie McDaniels not Lena Horne.

I don't follow, whether?

How is reggae racist?

Whetheronot, are you serious?

Uncle Ben's has a similar past, but it's been on supermarket shelves since I can remember.

It is nothing like calling something 'gollywog sauce'. Ridiculous statement.

I hadn't thought of Uncle Ben. Seems less offensive somehow. Why I don't know.

Christ on a bike - here is proof positive that some people spend their days and nights looking for something to be offended by.

You are not being unreasonable OP. horrible 'Maammee' stereotype.

No. it's not about offence. It's just it's one of those marketing tricks that are a spotlight on the past. Like when you see old cigarette adverts.

Agreed, OP. Outdated at best.

What happens when you see old cigarette adverts? Do you need counselling afterwards or something?

Don't be silly.

Um, ok, twinkle, why not?

'Aunt Jemima' refers to a racist sterotype. So do Gollywogs.

I don't get the difference, except one is well known in the UK and the other less so.

Of course it is like calling something gollywog sauce; it buys into the same offensive racial stereotyping.

Levi Roots stuff is just a brand invented by a black guy. Nothing racist about that at all.

Can people really not see the difference?

No. One refers to a particular stereotype, one uses an insulting term. Not the same.

I think Uncle Ben was an actual rice farmer. 'Aunt Jemima' was a stereotypical 'mammy' figure (a slave) used to promote a product owned by white people. Personally I wouldn't buy it (I don't buy pancake mixes or syrup anyway).
I agree with the OP, I'm surprised Tesco are stocking this.

Which is the 'insulting term', stitch?

I think Uncle Ben, like Captain Birds Eye and Betty Crocker are all made up.

It's laughable that anyone could think a brand name Aunt Jemima is as racist as one called Gollywog Curry.

Gollywog of course.

stitch, they're both insulting terms. We just don't have familiarity with 'aunt jemima' as a term in the UK, but (as others have said upthread), in parts of the US it's sufficiently ingrained as a racist image that people would be very judgy about using 'jemima' as a girl's name.

Is not just like Aunt Bessie, in the UK? A homely mother figure to make people ignore the fact that they are eating processed food? People of all races eat syrup and use packet mixes as far as I'm aware. Surely, if it was so offensive people in the CR movements in the US would have lobbied about it, as people did re marmalade here.