{"id":53166,"date":"2020-06-23T09:45:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T15:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/after-aunt-jemima-was-retired-companies-are-rethinking-uncle-ben-cream-of-wheat-and-mrs-butterworths\/"},"modified":"2020-06-23T15:45:32","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T15:45:32","slug":"after-aunt-jemima-was-retired-companies-are-rethinking-uncle-ben-cream-of-wheat-and-mrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/after-aunt-jemima-was-retired-companies-are-rethinking-uncle-ben-cream-of-wheat-and-mrs\/","title":{"rendered":"After Aunt Jemima was retired, companies are rethinking Uncle Ben, Cream of Wheat and Mrs. Butterworth\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A
A box of Aunt Jemima Buttermilk Pancake and Waffle Mix and a bottle of Aunt Jemima Original Syrup.<\/span>Gene J. Puskar\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

B&G, which owns the Cream of Wheat brand of porridge, said it is launching an \u201cimmediate review\u201d of its packaging, which has for over a century featured a smiling black man that brings to mind Jim Crow-era stereotypes of subservience. In earlier times, the man was named Rastus, a moniker often used for characters in minstrel shows, and was portrayed in the company advertising as semiliterate. He\u2019s now generically referred to as a chef.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand there are concerns regarding the Chef image, and we are committed to evaluating our packaging and will proactively take steps to ensure that we and our brands do not inadvertently contribute to systemic racism,\u201d the company said in a statement emailed Wednesday night. \u201cB&G Foods unequivocally stands against prejudice and injustice of any kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Mars, the conglomerate behind the Uncle Ben\u2019s rice line, which bears the image of an older black man, said the company was planning to \u201cevolve.\u201d \u201cAs a global brand, we know we have a responsibility to take a stand in helping to put an end to racial bias and injustices,\u201d the statement read. \u201cAs we listen to the voices of consumers, especially in the Black community, and to the voices of our Associates worldwide, we recognize that now is the right time to evolve the Uncle Ben\u2019s brand, including its visual brand identity, which we will do.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Conagra, the maker of the Mrs. Butterworth\u2019s pancake syrups, said it would launch a \u201ccomplete brand and packaging review.\u201d It said the brand\u2019s signature bottle was intended to evoke a generic grandmotherly image, but its shape, believed to be created using as a model the black actress Thelma \u201cButterfly\u201d McQueen, who played Prissy in the 1939 film \u201cGone with the Wind,\u201d has been criticized for perpetrating the stereotype of the \u201cmammy,\u201d an enslaved black woman who raised her master\u2019s children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand in solidarity with our Black and Brown communities, and we can see that our packaging may be interpreted in a way that is wholly inconsistent with our values,\u201d the company said in a news release.<\/p>\n

The brands did not immediately provide details of what their overhauls might look like.<\/p>\n

Jason Chambers, an associate professor of advertising at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the author of \u201cMadison Avenue and the Color Line: African Americans in the Advertising Industry,\u201d said the current climate has made it impossible for brands \u2013 even those that had weathered criticism for decades \u2013 to do nothing. Nationwide protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by police and the attention to racial justice issues, along with social media scrutiny that could turn on a company in an instant, created a set of circumstances that demanded change, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could be left with a brand that is smoldering on the heap,\u201d he said. \u201cThis moment is that big.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Pilgrim, the founder and curator of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, notes that the images on these products stand out for being so out of step with modern times. \u201cMost of the harsh images of African Americans were replaced decades ago,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I call this the residue \u2013 we still live in the residue of Jim Crow. It might not be as harsh, but there are still remnants of the ugly days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pilgrim said the images connote racist tropes, even as the companies tried throughout the years to modernize them. \u201cYou see servile black folks who are content, if not happy, to serve whites,\u201d he said. Their names, particularly the use of \u201caunt\u201d and \u201cuncle,\u201d hark back to times when whites would not bother to address black people by their full names, he said.<\/p>\n

Until this week, change had come slowly for these brands.<\/p>\n

The mascots of these brands have undergone various makeovers over the years: A short-lived campaign in 2007 depicted Uncle Ben as an executive at the company bearing his name. Aunt Jemima was given a new look in 1989, with pearl earrings and a lace collar in place of her headscarf.<\/p>\n

Few of the changes, Pilgrim said, have been meaningful. Years ago, the Aunt Jemima brand contacted him to solicit ideas for ways to update the character, he said. The ideas he suggested included depicting the character eating, which he thought would send a subtle but powerful message that she was not just cooking for others. \u201cThere\u2019s something communally beautiful when you\u2019re sharing a meal, as opposed to making a meal and then standing in the kitchen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His ideas weren\u2019t adopted.<\/p>\n

The swift succession of moves by these food companies threw into contrast the few major national brands remaining on supermarket shelves whose names or mascots have provoked controversy. Chiquita Banana, whose mascot is a Carmen Miranda-esque figure stereotypical of Latin culture, did not respond to an emailed query.<\/p>\n

Although much of the reaction to the news on social media was met with some version of \u201cwhat took so long?,\u201d others expressed dismay at the apparent demise of the long-standing characters.<\/p>\n

Chambers says some white people might greet the news defensively, and he allowed that many people have \u201cirrational\u201d attachments to certain brands. \u201cIf you tell me a brand represents stereotypes and racism, then I might read that as an attack on me,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019m not racist.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

But he says it is often a matter of perspective: \u201cYou might have the latitude to see it as just pancake mix, so hey, you enjoy your pancake mix.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A box of Aunt Jemima Buttermilk Pancake and Waffle Mix and a bottle of Aunt Jemima Original Syrup.Gene J. Puskar\/Associated Press B&G, which owns the Cream of Wheat brand of porridge, said it is launching an \u201cimmediate review\u201d of its packaging, which has for over a century featured a smiling black man that brings to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[438],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-food"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53166"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}