The breakfast brand Aunt Jemima is removing its logo and will be renamed, amid public outcry that the branding perpetuated a racist stereotype, its parent company said Wednesday.
Quaker Oats said in a statement that the longtime brand will remove the controversial image of Aunt Jemima from its line of maple syrups, pancake mixes and other foods starting at the end of 2020, and the name change will happen at a later date.
“We recognize Aunt Jemima’s origins are based on a racial stereotype," Kristin Kroepfl, vice president and chief marketing officer of Quaker Foods North America, said in a statement to NBC News. "While work has been done over the years to update the brand in a manner intended to be appropriate and respectful, we realize those changes are not enough.”
Dr. Riché Richardson, an associate professor of African American literature in the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University, has been calling for the change since she wrote a 2015 editorial for The New York Times titled "Can We Please, Finally, Get Rid of 'Aunt Jemima?'"
"It's an image that hearkens back to the antebellum plantation," Richardson told Sheinelle Jones on TODAY Wednesday. "Aunt Jemima is that kind of stereotype that is premised on this idea of Black inferiority and otherness.
"It is urgent to expunge public spaces of a lot of these symbols that for some people are triggering and represent terror and abuse."
Quaker Oats, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, owns the Aunt Jemima brand, which has been around for more than 130 years. The logo features an image of a smiling Black woman that has been criticized for years for depicting a racist stereotype dating back to slavery. The company has made changes to soften the image over the years, including removing the character's kerchief.
“We acknowledge the brand has not progressed enough to appropriately reflect the confidence, warmth and dignity that we would like it to stand for today,” Kroepfl said. “We are starting by removing the image and changing the name. We will continue the conversation by gathering diverse perspectives from both our organization and the Black community to further evolve the brand and make it one everyone can be proud to have in their pantry.”
Pepsi also said the Aunt Jemima brand will donate $5 million to create "meaningful, ongoing support and engagement in the Black community."
The rebrand comes after “Aunt Jemima” became a trending topic on Twitter Tuesday, with many users criticizing the company for maintaining the name and logo for so long.
Helluva job our Republican "conservatives" are doing in Washington D.C. right now - they haven't conserved jack or schitt. Fugg 'em all, I'd pay Putin $50 to nuke that schithole.
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."-- Thomas Jefferson
It is no stereotype, it is real life! When she was a struggling college student in Atlanta, Stacey Abrams posed as the model for this iconic billboard. Obviously, the artist did not accurately portray the large gap between Ms. Abrams' front teeth.
Helluva job our Republican "conservatives" are doing in Washington D.C. right now - they haven't conserved jack or schitt. Fugg 'em all, I'd pay Putin $50 to nuke that schithole.
Ex- USN (SS) '66-'69 Pro-Constitution. LET'S GO BRANDON!!!
This is all too reminiscent of Mao's Cultural Revolution in China.
Not me. It reminds me of the early stages before the Russian Revolution.
And it reminds me of the stories I heard as a kid about the Nazi takeover of Germany...... Whatever it is it's a takeover of our society one way or the other.
After watching that video again, which is Great BTW, I thought about what CR said about MLK blvd. I know there were some in large cities of a handful of states, but HOLY FUC|< there are a hundred times more of them than I ever thought.
Please forgive the bad link, for some reason the . at the end of the link keeps being removed during execution, so after clicking the link add a single period to the end of the URL and press Enter.
That's a LOT of real estate to stay away from.
"Social order at the expense of Liberty is hardly a bargain” de Sade "He who'll not reason is a Bigot, he who cannot is a Fool, and he who dares not is a Slave."SirWilliamDrummond