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.

Exactly, TheXXed. Anyway, I can't believe people know nothing about offensive racial stereotypes used in global brands just because this one is derived from US culture, rather than UK.

And the 'black mammy' stereotype in film, novels and advertising isn't just 'twee', it's a deeply ideologically-slanted attempt to rewrite history and sanitise it. The historical reality was that the black domestics in the US South were young, often teenage, girls, who before abolition were owned and often sexually coerced by their 'owners' - I've read research that suggests their average life expectancy was early 30s - the "mammy' stereotype like the one on the Aunt Jemima brand is an attempt to paper over the horrors of slavery, and replace those women's actual experience of sexual and economic exploitation with that of a smily, loyal, consenting, benign, desexualised grandmother-figure (to her white 'family').

Yy white shirt a million times.

I am often impressed by the mental gymnastics people on mumsnet will perform to ignore racism and false equivalences people will use to sanitise black peoples oppression.

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?

Are you in some kind of bubble in the UK? Does racism become a non issue somewhere over the atlantic? It's not ok just because you're in a different country!

Of course it's racist and Pepsi (who own Quaker Oats) should know better.

I'm really surprised at the responses on this thread. Just a total refusal to accept that the branding of this product has racist connotations and why.

Just goes to show how many people really are on mumsnet, on a different day different posters would have seen it and would not be responding "omg pc gorn mad".

I don't think it would vary much on MN these days. It seems to have turned into some sort of far right enclave

I think thats a bit unfair, there are plenty of responses on this thread agreeing with the OP. In fact probably the majority, if you want to count.
Why would you look at the minority response and slag us all off?

Sorry Winter, I should have said "total refusal from some". Lazy on my part.

I just meant those disagreeing with op are more numerous than I would have expected them to be.

Yes, its depressing to see, isn't it? It's not as if its remotely subtle either.
I think sometimes people react as if you are calling them personally racist if they haven't thought of the question at hand, or if they don't immediately see the problem. And its bristles, so instead of thinking more on it or looking into the history, they are defensive and dismissive instead.

I think that's exactly what it is, defensiveness.

In all honesty, if I hadn't already come across the brand via the American baby name site I mentioned (Jemima not well received on there), I would have had to stop and think about the branding and it's implications.

There's nothing wrong with not being aware/being ignorant of why something is an issue but there is something wrong with defending that ignorance rather than learning.

This happens every time anything to do with race is bought up on the Mumsnet boards.

It's quite disheartening to have your own experiences disbelieved and minimised when you try and engage with people.
Do have to say not everyone on the boards is like this but it is a large enough chunk for it to be noticeable and hurtful.

We do not use Aunt Jemima in our (US) house. I am not comfortable having what I feel is an overt stereotypical image of a black mammy in our home. My American husband feels the same way. It was never used is his home growing up. Besides, real Maple Syrup is much better anyway!

I can't help but think that part of the reason that some posters are so dismissive of this is because it is considered racist in the USA.

I am not American so I am not being defensive here but let's face it there are those on MN who consider anything to do with the USA as something to be sneered at and looked down on.

Who gives a shit what Americans think? They are all pro death penalty, pro gun and insular fools with no passports who believe Fox News anyway.

Have just read through the thread.

We have a bottle of this syrup in the cupboard, as DS likes neither maple nor Tate & Lyle's Golden Syrup; Aunt Jemima's comes somewhere in between, which he likes. I looked at the picture currently on the bottle, and have to say, it is a fairly innocuous picture of a black woman with earrings and a blouse, so there is nothing which immediately suggests any hint of racism, to my mind, and admit I did initially liken it to the marketing for Uncle Ben and Aunt Bessie products, wondering where the difference was.

HOWEVER - having read the links kindly provided by other posters, I have changed my mind and now completely agree that its roots were indeed racist, and the newer picture is just a toned-down version of the original "Mammy-style" brand.

So we now won't be buying any more. (Sorry DS)

Again, I think very very few people think like that, and thats an unfair assessment.

Evans, thats a remarkably reasonable thought process and subsequent plan. Could it be that MN'ers are after all sensible and fairly intelligent?

You could be on to something there, Winter

I suspect a lot of the issue is that it is an unfamiliar product over here. Even if Tescos have started selling it, and Ocado do, it has a much more narrow reach than Uncle Ben's (for example) so it will be treated as equivalent to that.

I had never heard of this product and wouldn't buy it anyway, but didn't see the fuss until I saw the picture. I now also won't buy it because of the race issues.

It's rubbish.
Full of high fructose corn syrup.
Of all the things tesco could have chosen, we got that!
I didn't buy it when l lived in the US.

You are probably right that it is a minority Winter but on every thread about anything to do with the USA there are always some who post sneery, ridiculous sweeping comments about the place and the people.

This sort of thing irritates me

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.

Really? Without knowing anything about the history of how that came to be let's just dismiss it as 'silly'.

I do realise I am over reacting but it irritates me intensely.

Yes yes Whiteshirt - on point.
for Evens and for Citrene.

Not at all, Legion. That remark got my back up too.

This board is nowhere near as bad as some others . One forum that I frequent has a number of posters that defended golliwogs as 'just toys' .
Tescos is at fault here, as far as I'm concerned. They should have researched the product first (5 minutes on google would have sufficed). Of course a lot of British shoppers will just think 'oooh, that looks nice' and pop it in their trolley without thinking anymore about it.

Really? Without knowing anything about the history of how that came to be let's just dismiss it as 'silly'.

Sorry, I'm not particularly fussed that a country that keeps the word "Retard" in everyday conversation and sitcoms doesn't like the name Jemima - especially as I'm not in America!!

And pardon me for thinking that the picture was twee - it is, it's like Uncle Ben or any of the other faces on products out there. It's not a caricature like Robinsons used to use, I don't see it as hugely different to the generic Indian faces or Mexican faces on some products!! Or the milk maids on chocolate bars.

I'll accept that you think my thoughts on the matter are wrong though.

But its only not know a charicature/offensive stereotype because they (quite recently) in the scheme of things changed the image. And only really when forced to by popular opinion.
Does it become suddenly free from racism because they sanitised the imagery a bit to keep making money?