Aunt Jemima: PANCAKE LIES MATTER!
Now just hold on a minute! Tubularsock’s White Privilege is being stepped on and there is just no call for it!
Ok. Ripping down Confederate Generals statuary and tossing them into to the dust bin of history is OK with Tubularsock.
But melting down ALL those fucking American Generals and all that statuary with the lowly solider sacrificing to get the fucking imperialist flag to the top of the hill as a symbol of “winning” must be destroyed as well.
Just promoting that shit should be a fraudulent offense with substantial prison time.
And while Tubularsock is at it, lets remove and destroy all that statuary that show all those abolitionists promoting freedom from slavery!
And all those bronze lifeless slaves reaching dramatically for freedom frozen in time does not improve the facts on the ground!
So get busy right now. There is something scary about a society that will spend its money on bronzing the past and not changing it in real time. It is looking and idealizing in the WRONG direction!
Which of course leads us directly to Aunt Jemima.
Aunt Jemima isn’t the old school Aunt Jemima with the “do rag” on her head and a skillet in her hand any more. They (the corporate interests) upgraded Jemima all the way back in 1989! Her label image looks more like Doris Day, a solid white lady!
Get up to date!
Now there is no question that there is a racial stereotype built into Aunt Jemima that carries the idea that Black woman are caretakers and great cooks and great storytellers.
Wow. We all know that those stereotypes are JUST NOT TRUE! Right?
Especially if you spend any time around Black women. They yell at their children, they sit like fat queens on their welfare couches sucking in the government dole, and they argue with their deadbeat husbands constantly. Right? Hmmm.
That may be just a different stereotype which when it comes to any subject, the view always comes from the viewer. And is ALWAYS loaded with the viewer’s beliefs and prejudices. Not very solid in facts as it comes from the eye of the beholder now is it.
But there are some facts that do exist around Aunt Jemima which are fascinating. Some of those facts may have been overlooked. And those facts go like this.
In 1889, Aunt Jemima became a pancake mix spokeswoman for the Peal Milling Company but that Aunt Jemima was based on a minstrel show performance where a white male actor would, dressed as a woman in black face to perform the Aunt Jemima character.
Though popular in Minstrel Shows which at time were horrendously racist this Aunt Jemima rendition didn’t really work as a pancake mix promotional technique.
However after Peal Milling sold to R.T. Davis Milling Company, the new company hired a “real-life former slave” named Nancy Green who for the next 33 years would work as “Aunt Jemima” and would conduct pancake seminars at fairs and travel to towns across America to spread the word about the pancake mix.
Lets ponder that for just a minute. A former BLACK slave was hired for 33 years to act out a part to sell pancake mix.
Employment for 33 years. And a BLACK woman in the 1890’s!
From another point of view, talk about the power of women and feminist freedom rather than “slavery” and this story becomes pretty much a success story.
It is all in the way one wants to views it.
After Quaker Oats bought R.T. Davis Milling Company, which by this time had changed its name to Aunt Jemima Mills Co., there was no real life person “playing” Aunt Jemima for the next decade except for a short time.
Between 1933 to 1935, Anna Robinson played the character for Quaker Oats until she was replaced by Anna Short Harrington.
Anna Short Harrington came from being a sharecropper with her husband and raising five children to being hired by Quaker Oats Co. as the new Aunt Jemima around 1935.
“Chauffeured or flown by jet around the country, Harrington served Aunt Jemima–brand pancake mix at store openings and other public events, living a lifestyle that eluded most blacks and whites. By the time of her death, the former sharecropper owned two homes and lived in an area occupied by the black elite of Syracuse.” (South Carolina Encyclopedia)
Again, a former BLACK sharecropper HIRED for nearly 20 years to act out a part to sell pancake mix.
Employment nearly 20 years. And a BLACK woman in the 1930’s!
It is all in the way you look at Aunt Jemima.
Racial stereotype, or employment opportunity.
In 1989, Quaker Oats updated Aunt Jemima’s look from the “do rag” head gear to a more modern “Doris Day” look.
Using Harrington’s youngest daughter Olivia Hunter as the “new-modern-look” of Aunt Jemima.
And now there is a call to boycott Aunt Jemima products because of the Black Lives Matter movement
position that ahhhh ………. well pretty much a silly waste of energy and direction.
Maybe AUNT WHITE BETTY’S pancake mix would be a better name anyway. Even if it would end black female employment!
Guess it is all in the way you look at it!
Tubularsock 