Ann is working to put a stop to Aunt Jemima (and the mammy image of black women in popular culture). You can read her entire post on the history of Aunt Jemima here, and you can sign the petition here.
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They should have done what Uncle Ben’s did. The re-do they did in 1991 would have made Aunt Jemima fine as an icon (IMHO) if there hadn’t been such a long history of her being such a blatantly racist image. Putting her in charge, instead of just reducing the level of offensive imagery, would have done the trick.
Apparently we can handle a black man as the CEO but a black woman wouldn’t work. Which makes no sense at all, but then, who ever said it made sense.
I’m of several minds about this one. (Disclaimer: female; 47; Irish, French & Mohawk. Usually make pancakes from scratch.) There’s a display up at the Exploratorium in San Francisco of how the Quaker Oats Puritan guy has evolved over the years. My primary hunch is that, rather that eliminating Jemima altogether, Quaker would do well to openly discuss the history of the image. There are some details on the changes to the “Aunt Jemima” icon here (http://www.auntjemima.com/aj_history/). Her headband was not removed (aka. she was freed from slave status) until 1989. At this time, she apparently also moved to Connecticut, and was given some pearls and lace to wear so she’d fit in. In 1992, they removed her head “cant” — in other words, changed her head positions to make her look more confident and less submissive.
What I think would be cool: if Quaker initiated a major advertising campaign whereupon either Aunt J was promoted to CEO, or staged a “hostile takeover” of the company, and made her damn self CEO. It would be cool, and an opportunity to talk specifically about issues of stereotypes in advertising.
People worth commemorating, writing books about, etc. on this issue include Nancy Green, the original model for the icon (http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1287/Nancy_Green_the_original_Aunt_Jemima) and the Aunt Jemima demo cooks from the 50s and 60s (http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/metropolitan/96/04/07/aunt-jemima.html). Search “Aunt Jemima” in Amazon, Books for an intriguing list of writings going back to 1903. I rather see their stories told then have them disappear. Maybe (BIG maybe…) Quaker could be part of that effort, and the Aune Jemima image transformed, quite out loud and on purpose, into something positive. Rachel S. lists the racist brands that the “Aunt Jemima” icon has “outlived.” Perhaps one reason for that is an acknowledgement, deeply buried in the racism, of her as an image of a survivor. There’s a line in “Shoes of the Fisherman,” a story about a political prisoner who become Pope. At one point, shortly after political winds have changed allowing his release, he is greeted with a glass of champagne and the toast, “To your freedom.” He responds by toasting “to my imprisonment,” meaning, of course, that he is toasting what he has achieved by surviving injustice. It’s a tricky business — how to reward and acknowledge survivors of crimes without condoning the crimes themselves.
“Rachel S. lists the racist brands that the “Aunt Jemima” icon has “outlived.”
Kell, that was me, Ann, who listed the racist brands that Aunt Jemima outlasted in my essay. I agree that “Aunt Jemima” is a survivor.
Black women in America from the ravages of slavery, to the humiliation of forced rape and domestic servitude of segregation, are all survivors. That we have survived so much hell in this country which has sought to destroy us is a miracle and a testament to our strength to survive the viciousness meted out to us ever since we have been in this country. That is why I listed the names of the many black women who were Aunt Jemimas.
I have the utmost respect for all that the many black women who came before me suffered through. I never lose sight of the fact that they endured tremendous odds against them—odds meant to destroy them—but they prevailed and did not give up. That white America treated black women as less than human, as less than woman, and that black women never allowed racist, sexist hatred to stop them, is a testament to black women’s fortitude, and indomitable will.
On days when I think I have it so bad, when I think I can’t go on, I remember all those brave black women who came before me, and I say to myself: “If they can go on after enduring hells that I can only conceive of in nightmares, then who am I to complain?”
Yes, I would definately agree that white America should be ashamed of its hateful mistreatment of black women. Yes, black women did the best they could do back then, and still are overcoming now, the best they can do, in the present. My “denigration” therefore was meant for white America’s mistreatment of black America—most notably, its mistreatment of black women. Black women have prevailed in this country.
And for that, I thank them.
My essay/petition was not meant to disparage black women of the past. My post was to point out that black women have survived in spite of all that has been thrown at us—then, and now. And no racist, sexist stereotype created by white America will ever have the last word on the integrity and beauty of black women in America.
All that they had heaped on them, they shouldered with very little complaint.
Would that their racist/sexist tormentors (white men and women) could have had the guts to have been able to have shouldered half the burden that those lovely women survived.
That black women were relegated to being wet-nurses for the children of white people, that this asexual image of the all-giving mammy was created by white men to cover up their massive rapes of black women during slavery, regardless of the fact that black women in slavery on average were very thin/skinny because of a sub-standard slave diet, this image was created to present the propaganda that black women were so matronly, so obese, so un-womanly, that there was no way any white man would have sex with such a black woman, let alone rape her.
Hence the creation of the Mammy/Aunt Jemima icon to justify rape of black women not only during slavery, but the continued perpetuation of legally and publically sanctioned rape of black women during segregation. Contrary to what many people think, the many black women who were forced into white homes to care for the white family, the image of the well-endowed, obese black Mammy is a lie. The majority of the black women who worked in white homes during segregation were young, slender black women. The creation of Aunt Jemima by white men was to soothe the conscious and fears of white women who felt that these “Jezebels” (ironic that the white men who raped black women would have the balls to call black women whores after they, the white men, raped black women for generations, and would slander black women with the epithet “Whore/Jezebel), but, white men created the Mammy image so white women would not have to fear that the Jezebel black woman would lure their weak-willed white men away, so that white women would not have to fear that these “temptresses” would wreck their already in turmoil white home life, therefore, Aunt Jemima was created to give the South an image of tranquil, docile, happy ex-slave black people who only lived to serve the white people’s bottomless needs. On the contrary, the many black women who were forced into working in white people’s homes resented this type of work and the horrors that came with it, since the job of domestic was all that was allowed to black women then.
“What I think would be cool: if Quaker initiated a major advertising campaign whereupon either Aunt J was promoted to CEO, or staged a “hostile takeover” of the company, and made her damn self CEO. It would be cool, and an opportunity to talk specifically about issues of stereotypes in advertising. ”
Aunt Jemima taking over QO and having white men take orders from a black woman?
That would be a great idea, seeing as how a black woman, more ofter than not, would tell you the truth more than anyone else in this world, and would be more loyal to you, more honest with you, more realisic about life in this country since black women have lived with the many intersections of oppression in the forms of racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ablesim and all the “isms” that exist in America.
The face that white America has shown to black women has been a cruel and hateful face. This is very notable in the many slurs hurled at black women in the stereotypes created by white men to disparage black women. Stereotypes created during slavery, concreted into people’s psyches, stereotypes that still hurt and harm black women all across America today:
-Mammy/Aunt Jemima
-Jezebel/Whore
-Tragic Mulatto
-Sapphire
“It’s a tricky business — how to reward and acknowledge survivors of crimes without condoning the crimes themselves.”
Very true.
I have admiration and reverence for Nancy Green and the many black women who portrayed Aunt Jemima.
They made do as they could with the world that was handed to them, and showed themselves, as so many, many black women have, that they were of better, sterner stuff than those white people who insulted, belittled, degraded, and mocked them.
The many Nancy Greens who had to go into white homes and face possible rape from the white husbands and sons , faced abuse from the white wives, faced disrespect, faced being cheated out of wages that amounted to nothing more than $2-3 dollars a day for hard labor under conditions that were no better than slavery—–those black women were the real humans, the real women, the real Southerners.
Would that white America and all of America could learn from these fine women’s humility and love of life that they were willing to take the brunt of abuse so that their children, and their children’s children would have a better, less hellish life.
That is what a real woman does.
After I wrote my petition to remove the Aunt Jemima icon from QO, I also wrote four more petitions.
You may read them here:
http://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2007/06/04/petitions
It would be nice if QO would create a dialogue of the history of Aunt Jemima.
But, I don’t have that much faith in that happening.
America has not truly come to terms with her racist history of her black citizens.
Until then, not much chance of a corporation such as QO, which has profitted from racism like so many aspects of American society, giving up its racist icon and all the history behind it.
Until America can stop running from its racist past with black America, not much chance of any dialogue occurring between black and white America.
A dialogue that is many centuries, many decades, many generations long, long overdue.
Incidentally, two of the links you mentioned I also referenced them at the end of my essay.
Also of interest to you might be the book I referenced in my essay as well, “Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus: Blacks in Advertising, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”, by Marilyn Kern- Foxworth, Praeger Publishers, 1994. This book gives an excellent history of Aunt Jemima, as well as Uncle Ben and Rastus, the Cream of Wheat man icon, as well as the history of black Americans from the “wanted posters” seeking the capture of runaway slaves who made a run for freedom.
Black America has a very long history in the advertising medium of this country. A very negative history, but, a history that all Americans need to know of; a history that should no longer be hidden, subverted, ignored, or forgotten.
Some stray throughts:
* Thanks for the response. This is good stuff.
* Looking over the other petitions, one idea that popped into my head was that it might be interesting to have a “Don Juan in Hell” (http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/theater/reviews/3720/) style of play featuring a variety of racist advertising icons discussing their lot, and what they mean, and how tough it is to be a symbol and a person at the same time. Or a musical. Something Sondheimesque.
* Ha! So, the creation of the “mammy” image, back in those days when both the white men and white women were ridiculously corsetted, was also about fat bashing, i.e. presenting as fat woman as unsexed and “safe.” Nothing like compounding those hatreds…
“back in those days when both the white men and white women were ridiculously corsetted”
White men AND women corsetted?
The white women were definately corsetted with all the restraints that white men put on them.
But, white men, corsetted?
No way.
If white men were corsetted, then how do you explain the many different skin tones/hues/colors that black Americans come in?