When companies undergo severe criticism for a product, they are often faced with two options: either make changes to its design or rebrand the whole commodity itself. The latter can be seen with the former popular pancake mix ‘Aunt Jemima’ by Quaker Oats, which was a brand that specialised in the advertisement for breakfast products, such as self-raising flour and syrup.
This essay argues that the controversy of the former Aunt Jemima brand and its name change showcase how popular enterprises employ racism and stereotypes to boost market sales of their products. In this paper, said connection will be briefly outlined by an analysis of the Aunt Jemima products and the cover-up of the racist history tied to them. By taking a closer look at individual ingredients such as the antebellum romanticization of the south, minstrel shows, as well as advertisements of Aunt Jemima and, with that, reimagined African American Vernacular English (AAVE), her, in racial inequality enrooted, recipe for success will be exposed.
In order to evade further criticism and not lose their public image, Quaker Oats rebranded its product, displaying miniscule ethical ambitions regarding the long-ongoing justified critiques but rather only commercially driven interests. Evidently, the concealed derogatory usage of minorities on the covers of material goods illuminates a link between white superiority and commodity racism.
An Enslaving Breakfast Mix: Aunt Jemima and Covert Racism
When companies undergo severe criticism for a product, they often are faced with two options: either make changes to its design or rebrand the whole commodity itself. The latter can be seen with the former popular pancake mix ‘Aunt Jemima’ by Quaker Oats, which was a brand that specialised in the advertisement of breakfast products, such as self-raising flour and syrup. “It is a start of a new day: Aunt Jemima is now Pearl Milling
Company” (“Brand Origins”) are the words that are supposed to strike the reader’s eyes. With this statement, the Pearl Milling Company, being the modern Aunt Jemima, prides itself in their continuation of the brand’s existence, without explaining its historic nuances in detail. Despite the name change due to zeitgeisty racist allegations in 2020, calls to rebrand were nothing new and had already gone on for decades. It was only because of the reignited Black Lives Matter Movement in the same year that the company yielded the name and sought out a shift. This essay argues that the controversy of the former Aunt Jemima brand and its name change showcase how popular enterprises employ racism and stereotypes to boost market sales of their products. In this paper, said connection will be briefly outlined by an analysis of the Aunt Jemima products and the cover-up of the racist history tied to them. By taking a closer look at individual ingredients such as the antebellum romanticization of the south, minstrel shows, as well as advertisements of Aunt Jemima and, with that, reimagined African American Vernacular English (AAVE), her, in racial inequality enrooted, recipe for success will be exposed. In order to evade further criticism and not lose their public image, Quaker Oats rebranded its product, displaying miniscule ethical ambitions regarding the long-ongoing justified critiques but rather only commercially driven interests. Evidently, the concealed derogatory usage of minorities on the covers of material goods illuminates a link between white superiority and commodity racism.
For centuries, humans have differentiated between two hierarchal groups, of which one possesses power and the other does not. Through this discourse, the images of the self and the other were created (cf. Lury 156). While the self is the one who holds the power, discriminates and oppresses, the other can be identified as powerless, being discriminated against and oppressed. A dichotomy of good and evil, of something that is pure and just and something that is putrid and inequitable, was constituted (cf. Staszak 1). Stating a fundamental heterogenetic spatial difference, Western society, being the self, claimed anything beyond its territory as savage (cf. Lury 156). This allowed for the reification of the assumed dominion of the occident, white people, over the orient, being the imaginary opposite, and with that, people of colour. Most of all, black people were depicted as the contrary to whites, as they were seen as “Savage[s], etymologically the [Men] of the Forest, opposed with [men] from cities and fields [. . .] [h]airy and violent, [. . .] [threatening] villagers (especially the women of the village)” (Staszak 4). Both ‘realms’ were seen as two sides a coin. Nevertheless, one would be the reigning:
Only the dominant group is in a position to impose the value of its particularity (its identity) and to devalue the particularity of others (their otherness) while imposing corresponding discriminatory measures. Therefore, if the Other of Man is Woman, and if the Other of the White Man is the Black Man, the opposite is not true (Staszak 2).
“[W]hiteness and blackness, the civilized and the primitive” (Lury 156). While the perpetuated usage of whiteness and blackness served to justify racist beliefs over hegemonial claims of western society, it also shaped the idea of the one who consumes and the other who does not, but also who is consumed (Roberts 807). The consumption of goods, such as soap and candy, remained to whites, while blacks were not allowed to participate. They were not part of the audience such commodities were advertised for. Especially soap re-imagined the idea of material symbolism; that whiteness was identified with purity, intellect, class and consumption and blackness with stain and ostracization (Lury 157). On this idea, a phenomenon calledcommodity racismwas established, which claimed the idea of “domestic whiteness and racial exclusivity” (Roberts 810). Commodity racism “converted the imperial progress narrative into mass-produced consumer spectacles [. . .] [and] came to produce, market and distribute evolutionary racism and imperial power on a hitherto unimagined scale” (McClintock qtd. in Lury 161). The illusion of a given right of white people to consume lead to the perpetuation of white authority over black degeneracy. This false depiction also created the belief of the emblematic consumption of black people, who were also seen as goods. Thus, advertisement encoded racism made use of the fantasy of white superiority over minorities and, most of all, black people at the time.
One of the most well-known racially charged commodities was Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix, which’s advertisement is deeply enrooted in slavery. Here, commodity racism lies in the utilization of the happy slave trope, which was utilized in the antebellum romanticization of the south to advocate for the slave trade (Obscura 89). With her “emblematic physicality, visage and preternatural talent and passion for white nurturance” (ibid.), Aunt Jemima stems from the ‘mammy’ archetype, which thrived to comfort whites in their own greatness (Manring 22). Although the truth of the depicted image is still widely unagreed on, the mammy was perceived as a slave woman who “might have nursed white children [...] [,] performed one of the more important and difficult tasks on a southern plantation, working long hours in a hot, often detached kitchen [. . .] [and] required skill and endurance]” (Manring 21). ‘Aunt Jemima’ perfectly fitted into playing that specific role: catering to a white audience who wants to be entertained and fed with both commodities, as well as soothing lies.
As an idea of a white man, the commodification of the slave woman was brought upon by Chriss Rutt, who attended a minstrel show in 1889 (Thompson 206). In that performance, which consisted of white people blackfacing and making fun of black people’s identities, Rutt heard the song ‘Old Aunt Jemima’ and officially made Aunt Jemima part of white American culture, creating the infamous commercial brand identity (Oscura 89). While Aunt Jemima was only an idea of a mammy portrayed by white men, being “headstrong, fat, and simple-minded [. . .] [, a] superstitious character, [. . .] especially alarmed and confused by any advance in technology [. . .] [, with] her inability to cope [making] her the butt of the joke for the white audience” (Manring 21), she was made real when Nancy Green, a former slave, got appointed to realize the fantasy of the perfect, obedient and loyal bondswoman. Everybody wanted the commodified pancake-swinging labourer in their kitchen, everybody wanted Aunt Jemima to be their own.
The depiction of Aunt Jemima in advertisements sought out to dehumanize black people. As minstrel shows were only the base ingredients, the commodity racism oozing out of the many altered commercials denied black people their own experience of abuse and deepened white animosity towards them. While it is difficult to pinpoint the very first logo of Aunt Jemima due to the sheer multitude of racist depictions that all resemble one another, the proto-synthesis of the commercialized “[black] woman who could do anything [in the kitchen], and do it better 3 than anyone else” (White qtd. in Thompson 210) can be traced back to 1889 (“Aunt Jemima Logo”). On the logo, a black person, “entirely shorn of any distinguishing marks of gender identity beyond her matching shawl and turban, which frame a frankly grotesque visage contoured by the aesthetic of minstrel entertainment” (Oscura 9394) can be seen to advertise for the commodity. Her “face is dominated by its outsized grin, comprising the minstrel mask’s whitened lips and copiously articulated definition” (Oscura 94). Although the smile is supposed to be seen as a jolly, wholesome invitation to the customer, it shows many similarities to the figure of the ‘golliwog’, who, six years later, made its official appearance as a “mean-spirited, rude, untrustworthy [person]” (Pickering 122). The golliwog, a doll that should depict black people, mostly male, “was intended to be seen as ugly, and initially at least, meant to be scary” (ibid.). As white people were “alarmed and frightened [at his sight], while he is depicted as grotesque, with pop eyes [and] thick lips” (ibid.), the same assumption can be made to the appearance of the first Aunt Jemima advertisement.
Admittedly, the said findings can be argued in either two ways: on one hand, with the gathered background knowledge, the depiction of Aunt Jemima was a mixture out of the ‘golliwog’1and the mammy archetype, which both have their roots in minstrel performances. This shows the twisted perceptions of female black slaves; that they would be ridiculed and overtly seen as “ugly and scary” (ibid.) by whites, while also being expected to cheerfully serve their masters and do their biddings without any complaints. On the other hand, the combination of both ideas on blackness served to appeal more to white audiences and thus, market Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix even more successfully. The exaggerated smile both ridicules Aunt Jemima but also comforts the white audience, both in their superiority and their decision to consume. This is also hinted at while looking at several other logos over the years (“Aunt Jemima Logo”), as the company tried to make the advertisement appear more welcoming and appealing with the acquisition of Nancy Green, being the golly-hearted Aunt Jemima she needed to be.
It is no secret that many of the Aunt Jemima products depicted black people as deficient humans. Especially, ‘Black’ English was seen as a sign of inferiority. Phrases such as “’I got de goods on dis breakfast business’ [.. .] ‘Let me do your plannin’ [...] [and] Let ol’ Auntie sing a song inyo’ kitchen’” (Aunt Jemima qtd. in Thompson 220), as well as the famous “Tse in town, Honey!”’ (Aunt Jemima qtd. in Thompson 206) were deliberately put
on goods to showcase usage of AAVE in a malevolent manner to mock black culture. Views on blackness as ‘barbaric’ and ‘inhuman were furthermore pushed by the stereotypical illiterate slave who could not align their language to the white standard English due to a ‘poor’ education (ibid.) and thus, could and should not fit into society. Once again, Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix was employed to illustrate the power asymmetry between the two races via commodity racism.
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1Later called ’golli‘, which is a homophone to ‘jolly’ and coulc4show a link to the mammy character
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- Niklas Richter (Autor), 2023, An Enslaving Breakfast Mix. Aunt Jemima and Covert Racism, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1365064
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