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Aunt Jemima’s Great-Grandson Condemns Brand For Wiping Out Her Image
By Mikelle Leow, 22 Jun 2020
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Image via Amy Lutz / Shutterstock.com
After 130 years, Aunt Jemima parent company Quaker Oats is rebranding the pancake mix and syrup label by changing its name and removing its stereotypical imagery to stand up against racism amid Black Lives Matter protests.
The decision has been met with mixed reactions, and while other companies appear to have been inspired by this grand gesture and are now following suit, the other side dismisses the move as simply a suspected marketing stunt and sees outcries about culture erasure.
Larnell Evans Sr., the great-grandson of the Syracuse woman behind an Aunt Jemima depiction, is part of the latter camp. The 66-year-old Marine Corps veteran perceives the decision to remove the likeness of his great-grandmother, Mrs Anna Short Harrington, as an “injustice for me and my family,” expressing disdain that the company is ultimately erasing “part of my history.”
Evans told Patch, “The racism they talk about, using images from slavery, that comes from the other side—white people.” He lamented that Quaker Oats “profits off images of our slavery,” and resolves to further accomplish this by shrugging off the history of “a Black female” as if “it didn’t happen.” He added, “It hurts.”
“This woman served all those people, and it was after slavery,” he continued. “She worked as Aunt Jemima. That was her job. How do you think I feel as a Black man sitting here telling you about my family history they’re trying to erase?”
His great-grandmother inspired the third version of the Aunt Jemima logo. According to syracuse.com, Harrington was noticed by Quaker Oats representatives during the 1935 New York State Fair, where she was spotted cooking pancakes. She later went on to embody the Aunt Jemima icon from 1935 to 1954.
The very first Aunt Jemima logo drew upon the image of a woman named Nancy Green, who was born enslaved and described by others as a “storyteller and missionary worker.”
The “Aunt Jemima” name was purportedly adopted from the minstrel song, Old Aunt Jemima, which involved Caucasian actors wearing blackface and replicating Black people in a demeaning light.
Black people were also historically referred to as “Uncle” and “Aunt,” as White people had refused to call them by honorifics, according to the New York Times.
The character was dressed in pearl earrings and a lace collar in 1989 to depict greater wealth, but had her domestic helper image retained.
Throughout its history, Aunt Jemima was represented by Black women and enacted to fulfill a mammy stereotype. The company has been criticized for its “racist” portrayals over the century, but only decided to drop the long-lived branding recently.
[via theGrio, cover image via Amy Lutz / Shutterstock.com]
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