The Aunt Jemima brand and logo will be retired

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That is basically what they tried to do.

Actually, in all honesty, I would say it’s the name that is the problem, not the picture in its modern, totally inoffensive incarnation. “Aunt” and “Uncle”, as noted above, were honorifics used in the Jim Crow South because they didn’t want to “Mister”, “Mrs”, or “Miss” black adults. That was thought to confer a status upon black people that the white segregationists didn’t want to confer. Also — and there is no delicate way to put this — “Jemima” sounds very “black” to American ears. I don’t know how to describe it, it just does. In actual fact, it’s an Old Testament name, and it is not unheard of in Britain as a white woman’s given name, but that couldn’t happen in the United States. For one thing, the name “Jemima” means one thing, and one thing only, to Americans, again, due to the pancake brand.

I just learned tonight that Eskimo Pies are the next thing to go:


I get the Aunt Jemima thing. I really do. But this is running amok. Where does it end?
 
Nepperhan said:
Are you at all familiar with the practice of addressing black people as “Aunt” or “Uncle”? It is a half step up fro “boy”. (Just take my word for this.)

"Blacks were expected to refer to white males in positions of authority as “Boss” or “Cap’n”–a title of respect that replaced "Master"or “Marster” used in slave times… All black men, on the other hand, were called by their first names or were referred to as “Boy,” “Uncle,” and “Old Man”–regardless of their age.
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I seriously doubt any of us were of age in the ‘Jim Crow’ south, so not familiar with what you are objecting to.
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I have heard POC use such terms in the modern day, but the goal was humor or to mock, not to show respect.
 
I’m Canadian - BC - and it’s always been “ant” in my family. I only know the ahhnt pronunciation from tv.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Should I be offended by “Godfather’s Pizza”?
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Actually, there were some protests over the Godfather’s brand and the use of a gangster-type spokesman in their commercials many years ago. The protests came from Italian-American groups. Neither the name nor the character changed, however.
 
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I think you’d find yourself with the same problem as now eventually. It’s still based of a racist caricature, and even if they were to replace Aunt Jemima and create a new black woman…a company is still profiting of the branding of a black person (who only serves as a mascot and didn’t create the recipes) and people are very aware that they are just replacing AJ, not because they care about putting a WOC on a label. It’s still a company putting a random black woman on a box because people would trust it more than say, an Asian woman.

It’s not easy for the brand to switch gears, especially given that the team who are probably tasked with this are not involved with the brand’s racism in the past.

I would say give it a generic name and accept your losses.
 
Are you in the United States?

In the US, it is just common knowledge that contemporary black people pick out distinctive, often made-up names, or existing names with the spelling highly mutated, apostrophes inserted, and so on. Even before this trend emerge, black women often had distinctive, often Old Testament-derived names, and Jemima is one of those. “White” names tend to be less creative, more traditional, and the trend nowadays is to assign random, euphonic, vaguely British-sounding names that appear at first glance to be surnames — Taylor, Hunter, Carter, Grayson, and so on. These names are usually gender-neutral. And then there are the naming conventions among Latter-day Saints in the Western US, which is a culture unto itself — they are as creative as African Americans ever thought about being.

Still, though, there are exceptions (there are always exceptions). Until my son told me otherwise, I just assumed the pop singer Kesha was black — nope, white, very much so.

And as anyone beyond a certain age knows, Catholics until recent years were named after New Testament figures or canonized post-apostolic saints, to the exclusion of any other kinds of names. Even then, there is more variety than people generally realize — Elvis is a saint’s name, and so is Montana.
Theo520 said:
I seriously doubt any of us were of age in the ‘Jim Crow’ south, so not familiar with what you are objecting to.
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I am old enough to recall when the schools had just been desegregated, and the theater in my mother’s high school town had a separate “colored” balcony.
Glennon_P said:
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Ridgerunner:
Should I be offended by “Godfather’s Pizza”?
Click to expand...
Actually, there were some protests over the Godfather’s brand and the use of a gangster-type spokesman in their commercials many years ago. The protests came from Italian-American groups. Neither the name nor the character changed, however.
Click to expand...
This pizza chain became popular in the wake of the film The Godfather. I have to wonder if there were any copyright considerations.
Lea101 said:
I would say give it a generic name and accept your losses.
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They’re pretty much going to have to — something like “Country Morning”, “Breakfast Time”, or “Golden Delight”. (I just pulled those out of the air at random.)
 
HomeschoolDad said:
This pizza chain became popular in the wake of the film The Godfather. I have to wonder if there were any copyright considerations.
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Don’t know about copyright issues. Clearly the pizza capitalized on the movie’s popularity. For a time, their slogan was “A pizza you can’t refuse”. 🤣 They must have come to some sort of arrangement on things. Maybe Tom Hagen negotiated the agreement?

Godfather’s originated in Omaha (just up the road from me) and I do remember the protests by the Italian Americans over the spokesman.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
I am old enough to recall when the schools had just been desegregated, and the theater in my mother’s high school town had a separate “colored” balcony.
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Since you have the experience, what’s your memory on hearing black people call whites h“Boss” or “Cap’n”?
 
Theo520 said:
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HomeschoolDad:
I am old enough to recall when the schools had just been desegregated, and the theater in my mother’s high school town had a separate “colored” balcony.
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Since you have the experience, what’s your memory on hearing black people call whites h“Boss” or “Cap’n”?
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I’ve never heard this as being race-specific. I live in the South. There is a lot of mutual respect down here. Terms such as “boss”, “chief”, and “sir” are exchanged pleasantly, lightly, and congenially from men of all races to men of all races. Where I live (very diverse suburban area, roughly 45/45 white/black with 10% Hispanic or other races), there are no racial tensions I’ve experienced, or if they are there, evidently I’m too obtuse to pick up on them. Aside from a wave of gun crime a few years back (young black males from the ghetto coming out here to rob, mostly places of business), there have never been any problems, and I’ve lived here 22 years.
 
Glennon_P said:
Actually, there were some protests over the Godfather’s brand and the use of a gangster-type spokesman in their commercials many years ago. The protests came from Italian-American groups. Neither the name nor the character changed, however.
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The italian part of my ancestry is Alpine, and pizza is not even part of Alpine cuisine unless American pizza has become popular there as part of the “Americanization” of the whole world. And the Mafia isn’t part of that culture, either. So it would be hard for me to take offense.
 
Theo520 said:
Childhood memories maybe, but I seriously doubt many people here were ‘of age’ during Jim Crow
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Idon’t think we need let the vestiges of Jim Crow remain in our corporate culture.“Quittin’ time”.
 
Theo520 said:
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Nepperhan:
Idon’t think we need let the vestiges of Jim Crow remain in our corporate culture.“Quittin’ time”.
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I don’t have issues with strong and successful black women being used to market products.
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That’s the image I had of Jemima. I never knew her to be anything but. I am almost sorry that certain people have decided to chronicle and preserve her “racist history” so that we can feel bad about liking her now.
 
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