COVID-19 Lockdown, Day 88

Well, the fun continues!

Some overly sensitive people, in response to the riots, felt that it was time to retire two common American logos: Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben.They think that they are offensive and it is time to "evolve" their logos.

Look at these. Do they look stereotypical? Do they look offensive? Of course, the origin of the titles Aunt and Uncle were offensive. In Jim Crow South, if a White person wanted to be "polite" to an elderly African-American man or woman, he would not call them sir or ma'am, so the only other option was to call the woman Aunt or Auntie and to call the man Uncle.

Granted, Aunt Jemima's origins are racist. For generations, they have shown her logo looking like an ugly mammy. In fact, one logo showed her with the pancake flour on her face to make her look paler, while the one that stuck the longest had her with looking less stereotypical but with the same kerchief on her head and with mild blackface.

       

Since many people found the third Aunt Jemima offensive, they revamped her in 1989, making her into the logo we have now--the un-derogatory of an African-American woman who looks like someone's grandmother. I could possibly eat with the third logo, but I have always enjoyed the current logo. 

The Uncle Ben's logo actually has a gentler history. The name Uncle Ben is actually a nod to a successful African-American rice farmer. The picture is from a serious painting of a maitre-d'hotel named Frank Brown. It shows a dignified old man who looks like he was once a genuine ladykiller. There is nothing stereotypical at all about this picture. Some may say that he looks like a house Negro, but with the bowtie, he might as well had been Elijah Muhammad. Dignified men wore bowties--whether they were in the service or not. 

With all this in mind, why would you want to do away with these heartwarming logos? Especially Uncle Ben's? These logos portray our people in a positive or neutral light. If you ask me, the people who want to remove these logos are some of the same people who want to deface and destroy statues of Robert E. Lee, George Washington, and even Abraham Lincoln. If you think changing these logos will improve race relations, you are deluded. You will just make everyone tiptoe even more. 

If you want to complain about stereotypical art, there is always a certain suburban dentist who includes a "jolly nigger bank" as one of his collections. There is nothing wrong with your computer screen or your glasses. There is a dentist who includes a "jolly nigger bank" amongst his tchotchkes in his office. In case you have never seen one, this is what it looks like:

Look at it. The coal black skin, and the bright red huge lips. It barely even looks human, and people thought this made a good toy for their children. Some people, aside from historians, think this makes a great collection item. Disgusting, is it not? Now how do you feel about Aunt Jemina, Uncle Ben, and even Rastus from Cream of Wheat? Sure, we could create a law to tell the dentist to throw this offensive piece of iron in the trash, but again, what will this do to improve race relations? 

Along with the point, tomorrow in Juneteenth, an important African-American holiday. I was surprised that an African-American woman who is old enough to be my mother did not know what Juneteenth is. I didn't make her feel bad; I just told her. For those who don't know, Juneteenth is the holiday in which the last of the slaves of the Confederate states were freed. Because of the Emacipation Proclamation of 1863, all slaves in captured states of the Confederacy were freed. Because the land of Texas is vast compared to other Southern states, and considering how remote Texas plantations were, they were among the last of those the Union soldiers reached. Therefore, while the Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, the last of the Confederate slaves were not proclaimed free until June 19th, 1865, aka Juneteenth. 

While a co-worker is taking the day off to celebrate, I am going to wear a dashiki to work. I am also going to fly the red, black and green flag. If you would like to know what the three colors stand for, let me know.

Happy Juneteenth!