Most brands don t need to make changes. One person noted that aunt jemima and uncle ben s were reviled in her home growing up because they felt the brands celebrated negative racial stereotypes. As uncle ben s and aunt jemima adopt new names and faces it remains to be seen whether the stories the companies will tell will reckon with the past.
Watch live at https www twitch tv ogresaurusshrex. We take a deep dive into aunt jemima s racy past and the damage of cancel culture. By keeping their images and their names on the boxes of foodstuffs we see on store shelves every day we are reinforcing those stereotypes and painful reminders of a past when.
Aunt jemima and uncle ben harken back to antebellum america when black people knew their place was in the kitchen serving the master and his mistress in the big house. Bottles of aunt jemima branded syrup stand on a store shelf inside of a shop in the brooklyn borough of new york city new york u s june 17 2020. Moves by uncle ben s maker mars and quaker oats which owns the aunt jemima brand are an acknowledgment of the brands origins in racist stereotypes.
There s more but you get the idea. Aunt jemima pancake mix was created in 1889 and its creators hired a former enslaved woman to be its living face starting with an exhibit at the chicago world s columbian exposition of 1893. The history of aunt jemima and uncle ben is firmly rooted in this kind of racist condescension.
