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.

Cross post. andrew, I don't follow?

What's your precedent for banning? It'd be unusual, surely?

Usually when people talk about banning something like this, they are either talking about established laws around hate speech, or they are creating straw man arguments when no one was discussing such a thing, in order to create a spurious sense of threat to free speech.

I can't tell which you mean here.

If you have a problem with it, don't buy it. If enough people took that route then the company would have to either rebrand or just shut down. Simple

Yeh, I nearly called my dd Jemima, but the xmil was living in the USA at the time and I discovered that the name Jemima is virtually unusable there. As bad as Randy is here. (different issues but equally as unusable)

YANBU. Perhaps people in the UK are unfamiliar with the history behind the brand name. In the US it has long been controversial.

I would never, ever buy anything labeled Aunt Jemima (or Uncle Ben, for that matter). I also quite like the name Jemima but wouldn't use it for a potential daughter precisely because of the associations I have with the brand.

JDM Unlike Germany, there is no prohibition in the UK in using the swastika image in public nor in how you name your product. AFAIK only offensive company names are banned. So if you want to sell "Adolf's Pancakes" then that is your right.

I won't be buying them or investing in your company, but I won't interfere with your right to do it.

God, some people are thick.

Presumably, the books about Antonia Fraser's lady detective Jemima Shore don't have much of a sale in the US?

Sorry, Jeanne- I was crying with laughter at the thought of the moustachioed despot's face popping up over some home style buttery pancakes

rags, um, I think you might have missed my point!

Tethersend

JDM Clearly I must have.

I don't think the OP is talking about banning, or legal recourse. She says she's upset and she says she thinks such things should be killed off. I think if she were mounting a legal challenge under hate crime law, she wouldn't put it like that. I think that's what you're thinking when you talk about legalities?

My point was in response to people saying this isn't an offensive image, because when you take it out of context it might not be. In that respect, the comparison to a swastika is useful: sure, it's just a symbol and none of us might think anything of it, except it's become so well known it now symbolises a particular event. So, symbols can take on meanings separate from their immediate appearance.

Jeanne I don't see what the OP means by being "killed off" unless she means forbidden or made unprofitable by people choosing not to buy it. The second could be a long, long, road.

JDM That was not how I read your post, I must admit. I was considering the legalities of the matter and from a quick skim of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's site I couldn't see anything to stop someone from selling "Adolf's Pancakes" or any reason why Aunt Jemima could, in a UK context, be deemed to be in breach of the law.

I would find it surprising she'd use such emotive/slangy language if she really intended this as the first step to a legal challenge. But, you could be right.

Cross post.

rags - no, as I've been saying to andrew, don't think the OP is talking about mounting a formal legal challenge, much less appealing for a ban under hate crimes law.

It's just that killed off is very strong language!

JDM This is where we differ. I assumed from the outset that the OP's intention was to raise support for a challenge and/or boycott - as Andrew says "killed off" is strong language.

The point I was trying to make is that while I think a boycott would be possible, I can't see a successful legal challenge could be mounted.

how a successful legal challenge

A boycott is fine if it is the act of individuals or at the highest households: not governments, employers, councils or trade unions.

Well, yes, it is strong language ... but rather unusual language for a legal petition.

rags - YY, I am seeing where you're coming from, and it may be me! I never thought of it like that. But the OP will come back.

This opens a never-ending battle though. If it is racist, then surely it's sexist too?

Well I said kill, not ban or make illegal so obviously I'm not talking about government intervention.

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.

Well silly old America.

Luckily this is a story about the UK & Jemima is a perfectly acceptable name with no racist connotations over here. As for the picture, it's twee, but not exactly offensive is it?

I fucking hate conversation about racism on Mumsnet. Immediately blacks peoples experiences are ignored, we are told it was in the past get over it move on.

If you don't understand why the maamee image is toxic and disgusting YOU have a problem not me.