Aunt Jemima, homemade, old fashioned racism in a bottle. I’m not going to pretend like they haven’t graced the shelves of my mom’s cabinet since I was in diapers and beyond, or that I haven’t drenched my pancakes in their syrupy sweetness on several mornings. But we can’t deny that behind the smiling face, the logo has a history of being problematic.
The 130-year-old pancake brand has become the latest in the line of company “allies” to shift its stance in the wake of national unrest. Quaker, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, announced that they were removing the controversial image in an effort “to make progress toward racial equality.” This comes after nearly a month of protests initiated by the murder of George Floyd, who was suffocated at the hands of the police. Global demonstrations have provided renewed attention on law enforcement reform, supporting the Blacks Lives Matter Movement, and tackling symptoms of systemic racism. Many companies and brands from Twitter to Nike, have released public statements through the press and social media asserting that they stand in solidarity with BLM.
As you can tell from the title, I’m over these corporations’ flowery proclamations condemning racism, ESPECIALLY Aunt Jemima. I’ve broken this post down into three main points, history, purpose, and limited policies or enforcement, so let’s get into it.
History
Aunt Jemima was embroiled in criticism for years after refusing to remove their mammy mascot from their catalog. It features a black woman who was modeled after a minstrel character. The white founders drew inspiration from “Old Aunt Jemima,” a minstrel song that was performed by actors in blackface. According to a blog post written by David Pilgrim, “the caricature portrayed an obese, coarse, maternal figure. She had great love for her white ‘family,’ but often treated her own family with disdain. Although she had children, sometimes many, she was completely desexualized. She ‘belonged’ to the white family, though it was rarely stated.” Pilgrim is the director of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan. The museum features Pilgrim’s collection of over 2,000 racist artifacts. The horribly offensive memorabilia dates back to the late 19th century and consists of “whites only” signs commemorating the Jim Crow era, postcards of lynchings, and household items that caricaturize black people and other minorities. If you have time, you should check out a video of him discussing his exhibit, it’s available on YouTube.
In an interview conducted by Market Watch, Gregory Smithers, a history professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said “the Aunt Jemima caricature was a product of the white imagination.” The fictionalized character fully endorsed and promoted the mammy portrayal of African American women, who were widely viewed as “one-dimensional servants.” They were expected by white society to remain docile, submissive, and obedient, considering that black women often worked as housemaids, nannies, and cooks during slavery and Jim Crow.
In addition to the Aunt Jemima image, there were also real-life people who became mascots for the brand. Aunt Jemima was initially introduced at the Chicago’s World Fair in 1893 and was originally portrayed by Nancy Green, a former enslaved woman. She was a popular figure at the fair, cooking pancakes, singing songs, and retelling stories of life on the plantation. The pancake company offered her a lifetime contract, later creating a fake romanticized slave story about her being a domestic servant to a fictionalized “Col. Higbee,” whose family she cooked her famous pancakes for. She spent the rest of her life traveling the country on promotional tours until she was hit by a car at the age of 89 and later died. Quaker Oats acquired the brand in 1926 and revitalized Aunt Jemima in 1933. The breakfast food company hired Anna Robinson to play her. There are pleas from the relatives of Aunt Jemima to keep the logo, claiming that they are concerned she will be erased from history due to the rebranding campaign. There are also debates on if the ambassadors or their descendants received proper royalties from the breakfast company.
Amid accusations that the woman on the box perpetuates racial stereotypes, the pancake giant slowly retracted the mammy tropes that defined her, thinking that if they gave her some minor retouches the racism would be phased out. They revamped her image six times. In 1968, the trademark underwent revisions, eliminating the cartoonishly large lips, headscarf, and shawl. The kerchief was replaced by a headband and she adopted a slimmer profile. In 1989, she gained a contemporary look, updated to a “stylish middle-class African American woman” by adding pearl earrings and a lace collar. A Quaker Oats executive admitted that her subtle makeover was insufficient, staying that “while work has been done over the years to update the brand in a manner intended to be appropriate and respectful, we realized those changes are not enough.” Other popular brands like Uncle Ben and Cream of Wheat (I’m not going to lie, these two are also a staple in my house) are getting a facelift to escape their racist origins. Interesting fact, “Uncle” was used by white southerners as “a pejorative for older Black men whom they refused to address with the more respectful ‘Mr.’”
Purpose
In advertising, incorporating a mascot into your brand helps to personify and differentiate it from competitors, thus creating emotional connections. Memories and identification resonate with the consumer, enticing them to purchase your product. Advertising Week 360 interviewed the CEO of BrandTwist, who states that mascots “can help humanize a product, connect, and build strong relationships.” In the case of Aunt Jemima and other problematic brands however, they do the opposite, purposely dehumanizing the very group they’re depicting. Unlike mascots Tony the Tiger and the Trix Rabbit, who are based on cartoon characters, these racist corporations have commodified an entire population of people in an effort to neutralize a threat.
I recall taking a college course on ethics, my professor’s wife was the guest speaker for the day and she presented a seminar on buying into racism. She was Native American, so her lecture mainly focused on products that caraciturized her people (Land O Lakes also opted to remove the American Indian figure from their products), but those same concepts can be applied to the black community. In the post-civil war period also known as reconstruction, society needed new methods to keep minorities in their place. Besides warfare, restrictive legislation, and deculturalization, white-owned companies devised brand mascots to subjugate marginalized populations. These mascots promoted racist tropes, as well as degraded, ridiculed, and mocked people of color.
At the turn of the 20th century, companies often romanticized the subservient roles that African and Native Americans were relegated to in the United States. In the case of African Americans, they were packaged and distributed to white society as something to be used and exploited, reminiscent of slavery. Reiterating what I stated earlier in regards to marketing and establishing emotional connections, white gentility was transported back to the “good ol’ days,” when enslaved African Americans provided comfort and servitude, further solidifying their status. These dutiful, enthusiastic trademarks were meant to pacify the white majority, who were fearful and threatened by the slaves’ newfound freedom. The practice of ingraining racist imagery of black, indigenous, and other people of color into merchandise became a staple of American consumerism and pop culture. “Purchasing racism” still happens today involving memorabilia, media, fashion, and sports teams; so much so that you wouldn’t even notice it.
Pandering/Limited Policies or Enforcement
My issue isn’t the fact that Aunt Jemima finally decided to take accountability and expunge the image from their brand, it’s the fact that they’re making all these symbolic moves but not actually implementing real changes. There is still a lack of diversity among their employees, with barely any black people in higher positions of authority or on their board of directors. I was watching an episode of the Daily Show and Trevor Noah stated that black people “want equality not charity.” Black people want generational wealth and a seat at the table. CNN reports that as of June 2020, only four black CEOs run Fortune 500 companies in the U.S, none of them are women. Those four black men are “Kenneth Frazier of pharmaceutical company Merck & Co., Marvin Ellison of home improvement retailer Lowe’s, Jide Zeitlin of fashion holding company Tapestry, and Roger Ferguson, Jr. of insurance company TIAA.” The number is down from seven, which was reported less than a decade earlier. Only two black women have ever led a Fortune 500 company, according to Business Insider. The first black woman was Ursula Burns, who served as CEO of Xerox from 2009-2016 and then as chairwoman form 2010-2017. The second was Mary Winston. In 2019, Winston became the interim CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond, however, she only held that position for a short period of time (November of that year). She was then “replaced with Mark Tritton, a white man.”
The Center for Talent Innovation’s 2018 study, “Being Black in Corporate America,” “found that Black people account for only 3.2% of senior leadership roles at large corporations, and hold just 0.8% of Fortune 500 CEO positions.” The report also discovered limited mentorship opportunities and access to senior leaders. Many corporations are giving pious pledges to accommodate more people of color and instill diversity programs in the workplace but that’s severely lacking. Black and Hispanics are still underrepresented in the white collar job market, especially in STEM, law, and finance positions.
The Harvard business review brings up three key issues as to why this is occurring. First point is “who you know.” Many prestigious companies and firms are highly exclusive when it comes to the hiring process. They usually have “a very strong preference for graduates of a few select, very elite East coast universities. Some companies often won’t even consider candidates who attended a different school and lack a connection at the firm.” Filling these available positions usually depends on developing (or already having) an array of personal connections. Black applicants were historically denied access to these networks due to the fact that current recruiters and employees were white, and typically had a preference for other white people. The Public Religion Research Institute conducted a survey in 2014 where “75% of whites polled…had no friends outside of their racial group. Sometimes this exclusion happens organically; other times whites intentionally reserve leads and tips about potential jobs for other whites.”
The second point involves broad, nonexistent, or halfhearted diversity policies that are rarely enforced by these companies. These ambiguous goals limit black employees to actually voice their grievances and doesn’t provide any clear plan of action to actually reach those goals. Companies take no accountability for actually fulfilling their lukewarm promises while still perpetuating the image of inclusivity and support. They can avoid conversations about race or actually having to tackle workplace discrimination and racial harassment. Corporations are in effect, taking a lazy approach to affirmative action, boosting their public persona to appeal to different demographics while not actually doing anything.
If black applicants are hired, they’re usually reduced to public sector jobs or Human Resources roles. Hassan Minaj said during his 2017 speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, that minorities work “twice as hard for half the credit.” Internal biases flicker amongst hiring managers when it comes to choosing who is suitable for the job, with white applicants (particularly white men) it’s more about potential, with black applicants (particularly black men) it’s having to jump through hurdles to prove you have certain skills. For instance, job managers often don’t associate soft skills (public speaking, likeability, time management, etc.) with black applicants. Whether it’s intentional or not, black people are relegated to minimal opportunities for actual job growth and elevation, a subservient status to higher positions of authority, and increased chances of layoffs if the company ever faced any financial difficulties. Let’s also not forget to mention that black and white applicants could have the same qualifications on their resumes, but if the black applicant has a “black-sounding name” they’re less likely to get hired for an interview. During the resume screenings, studies show that “companies are more than twice as likely to call minority applicants for interviews if they submit whitened resumes than candidates who reveal their race—and this discriminatory practice is just as strong for businesses that claim to value diversity as those that don’t.” The rampant minority bias is so bad that in many cases, black and Asian applicants have adopted a strategy to “whiten” their names.
Although it’s good that Quaker Oats is finally making the right decision in removing Aunt Jemima’s image from their products, they need to make internal, structural changes as well. Don’t just hop on the BLM wave because it’s now socially acceptable to do so. I believe that there is a difference between tokenization and representation. Many of these companies are implementing surface level amendments to pacify the black community (so they don’t lose black dollars), when they need to have more black board members and franchise owners. Without substantial efforts, these so called “sympathetic announcements” are disingenuous. I want real reform with my pancakes, not pandering.
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