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.

Jeanne, I didn't know that about the US.

"Gollywog of course."

Err... You do know that it's an insulting term because it's a racial stereotype, don't you?

Uncle Ben has been rebranded to become the CEO www.theguardian.com/media/2007/mar/30/marketingandpr.race and was based on a real farmer and his good rice

Aj remains exactly the same as it was when it was first invented - a black slave. Big difference.

stitch I did find a reference to Uncle Ben being a real rice farmer. That was just on a quick google though, haven't got time to research it properly.
I think some brand names are based in reality (baxter soups, eg).

They probably did lobby about it. I'm basing that on some quick googling. It's clearly an interesting story. OP, thanks for posting.

Tetherend er...yes.

stitch - YY, nor did I (and, actually, nor did a friend of mine from Michigan either), but it is so.

But you can see visually how similar it is to other racist images. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Jemima

here is proof positive that some people spend their days and nights looking for something to be offended by

Tell that to the curator of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia Bet you wouldn't to his face!

Its a company that for the majority of its 125 year history used the stereotypical images of black women and refused to pay them royalties for it. They used overtly racist slogans and marketed their products as the next best thing to the good ole days when you could have an actual Black Mammy in your kitchen cooking your pancakes , rather than just a box of Aunt Jemimas.....

If you don't see the problem, you're at best incredibly ignorant.

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

And here proof that some people will stick their fingers in their ears and go "la la la I can't hear you la la la" rather than attempt to see things from another point of view.

It is pretty damn clear to anybody with any cultural knowledge and sensitivity to see why people find this offensive.

Twinkle

It might be to UK based people but it's originally an American product and it has been considered racist there.

I don't think Americans are overly familiar with the term "golliwog" either but that doesn't mean the term isn't offensive here.

I do think such toxic brands should be killed off.

That's what the OP says. How?

By law?

Or by individual buyers choosing not to buy them?

The Uncle Ben packet is reminiscent of Uncle Tom, Jim Crow, the mammy in Tom and Jerry, or all the rest of it, but we like them when we are being lazy and we will go on eating them.

Sorry stitch, I must have misunderstood you- I thought you were saying that only one (golliwogs/Aunt Jemima) was a racial stereotype. Apologies if that was not the case.

I don't really get why it is so strange to some people, to say you don't like packaging and the message it sends.

Put it in perspective. Companies spend huge amounts of money deciding whether or not to rename Marathon or to change a wrapper from purple to silver. The fact that they don't bother to change an image and a name like this is really absurd in that context, isn't it?

Aunt jemima a ways back....

JeanneDeMontbaston
Companies spend huge amounts of money deciding whether or not to rename Marathon or to change a wrapper from purple to silver. The fact that they don't bother to change an image and a name like this is really absurd in that context, isn't it?

Exactly. But it is only offending a minority of black people and they probably aren't the target customer anyway, so who gives a shit.

In 1989, the image of Aunt Jemima was updated by removing her headband and giving her pearl earrings and a lace collar.

1989

Interracial marriage has only been legal since the late 60s in the US, I think? Roughly the same time as male homosexuality was decriminalized over here. Amazing both how late things happened and how much has (and hasn't) changed.

Might as well bring the black and white minstrel show back as well. Just a light entertainment show.

YABU. The logo seems to be nothing more than the face of a smiling black woman. How is that racist?

rags - by that logic, it should be absolutely fine to sell things called 'Adolf's Pancakes' with a swastika logo (yes, I know this is an inverted parallel). Point is, symbols sometimes carry a heck of a lot of cultural meaning.

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.

That's the point. We're in the UK. I have never heard of the name "Jemima" having any sort of racist baggage nor the terms "Aunt" and "Uncle" used of the older generation by the younger being derogatory. In UK terms I can see nothing offensive in either the brand name or artwork.

I accept that may not be the case in the US, but that's their problem.

Adolph's Pancakes

Interracial marriage was legal but rare in many States throughout US history. It was only in 1967 that States had to allow it.

I ask again, does anybody propose that Aunt J (or Uncle B) should be banned? If so, who is going to decide what you can and can't sell to willing buyers?

Sorry!

Uncle Ben's name is rumored (started by Mars?) to have been a rice producer. The companies who have owned Uncle Ben's have nothing to do with the man himself (if he ever existed).