Special opinion by Paul Plante
Yes, people, it’s true – Aunt Jemima, who I grew up with and have fond memories of as a comfort on cold winter mornings, is no more!
Too racist, you see!
Or that is what I heard some snippy little girl reading the news this morning (10 Feb. 2021) on NPR saying, anyway, as if all of us here in America who did grow up with Aunt Jemima and found her a real comfort coming into the kitchen on cold winter mornings in an old farm house with no insulation, no hot running water, and wood/coal stoves for heat, seeing her sitting there on the table with her big comforting and welcoming smile on the bottle of maple syrup for our pancakes, were either too stupid to be able to form our own opinions as to who Aunt Jemima was and is in our lives, or we would have to be racists if we admitted to liking seeing the smiling visage of comforting Aunt Jemima on a bottle of maple syrup, which I thought was quite insulting on the part of the snippy little girl lecturing us on NPR about how Aunt Jemima is really a racist symbol.
WHO are these people that come up with this BULL****?
And here, let’s go to the print version of the NPR story entitled “Aunt Jemima No More; Pancake Brand Renamed Pearl Milling Company” by Jaclyn Diaz on February 10, 2021, where we have the following to ponder, to wit:
Quaker Oats cooked up a new image for an old, offensive brand Tuesday.
end quotes
An old “offensive” brand?
Offensive to whom?
What kind of a warped and twisted mind does it take for somebody to find the comforting smile of Aunt Jemima on a cold winter morning “offensive?”
And why are they controlling our lives, or trying to, anyway, by feeding us the pig**** that Aunt Jemima is offensive?
It isn’t Aunt Jemima that is offensive, it is those people spewing the rank pig**** who are offensive!
Getting back to NPR’s version of reality, we have:
PepsiCo Inc. the parent company for Quaker Oats, announced it’s rebranding Aunt Jemima, the popular pancake and syrup brand, retiring the racist stereotype used for the product’s image.
end quotes
Racist stereotype?
That is ******* BULL****!
Aunt Jemima was hardly a “racist stereotype” to me, who shared her company on a daily basis for many months through the cold waiting for the spring to come.
Why would we have a racist stereotype in our house, in the kitchen where the family took its meals together, sitting on our kitchen table?
Aunt Jemima was very much a part of the family, not a racist stereotype, and calling her such reveals the troubled and/or sick nature of these people’s minds.
Getting back to the horse****, it goes on as follows:
Aunt Jemima and other food brands, including Uncle Ben’s, Cream of Wheat, and Mrs. Butterworth’s, announced redesigns amid protests against systemic racism and police brutality in the U.S. last summer.
end quotes
So now Aunt Jemima is somehow responsible for police brutality?
What on earth kind of stupid statement is that?
Saying that eating Aunt Jemima maple syrup on a pancake is responsible for police brutality is ABSURD!
You have to be a moron to even think that, let alone express it as a belief like NPR is doing here, which again takes us back to the story, to wit:
Aunt Jemima has been criticized as an image harkening back to slavery.
end quotes
Criticized?
Criticized by whom?
And an image harkening back to slavery?
HORSE**** is what I say to that.
These people doing the criticizing have some serious mental and pyschological issues that preclude us rational people in America who love Aunt Jemima from treating them as other than psychopathic morons, which takes us back to NPR, as follows:
Old Aunt Jemima originated as a song of field slaves that was later performed at minstrel shows.
end quotes
Okay!
So what?
What relevance does any of that have to reality?
How does that make the smiling face of Aunt Jemima on a bottle of maple syrup into a racist stereotype?
And the answer is that if you are rational, if you have a brain that works, if you are not an idiot, it doesn’t, because only an idiot would think Aunt Jemima was a racist stereotype, which takes us back to NPR for even more horse****, to wit:
Both Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s have been criticized for relying on the titles aunt and uncle, which historically were used by people who resisted applying the honorific Mr. or Ms. to a Black person.
end quotes
This **** is so unbelievable it isn’t funny.
If one were to peruse the Marxist Bible by Freddy Engels entitled “Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State,” one would find as follows:
II. The Family
MORGAN, who spent a great part of his life among the Iroquois Indians – settled to this day in New York State – and was adopted into one of their tribes (the Senecas), found in use among them a system of consanguinity which was in contradiction to their actual family relationships.
The Iroquois calls not only his own children his sons and daughters, but also the children of his brothers; and they call him father.
The children of his sisters, however, he calls his nephews and nieces, and they call him their uncle.
The Iroquois woman, on the other hand, calls her sisters’ children, as well as her own, her sons and daughters, and they call her mother.
But her brothers’ children she calls her nephews and nieces, and she is known as their aunt.
Similarly, the children of brothers call one another brother and sister, and so do the children of sisters.
A woman’s own children and the children of her brother, on the other hand, call one another cousins.
And these are not mere empty names, but expressions of actual conceptions of nearness and remoteness, of equality and difference in the degrees of consanguinity: these conceptions serve as the foundation of a fully elaborated system of consanguinity through which several hundred different relationships of one individual can be expressed.
What is more, this system is not only in full force among all American Indians (no exception has been found up to the present), but also retains its validity almost unchanged among the aborigines of India, the Dravidian tribes in the Deccan and the Gaura tribes in Hindustan.
To this day the Tamils of southern India and the Iroquois Seneca Indians in New York State still express more than two hundred degrees of consanguinity in the same manner.
And among these tribes of India, as among all the American Indians, the actual relationships arising out of the existing form of the family contradict the system of consanguinity.
How is this to be explained?
In view of the decisive part played by consanguinity in the social structure of all savage and barbarian peoples, the importance of a system so widespread cannot be dismissed with phrases.
When a system is general throughout America and also exists in Asia among peoples of a quite different race, when numerous instances of it are found with greater or less variation in every part of Africa and Australia, then that system has to be historically explained, not talked out of existence, as McLennan, for example, tried to do.
The names of father, child, brother, sister are no mere complimentary forms of address; they involve quite definite and very serious mutual obligations which together make up an essential part of the social constitution of the peoples in question.
end quotes
So what kind of real ignorant horse**** is NPR trying to peddle here with this BULL**** that calling Aunt Jemima “Aunt” is demeaning to colored folks?
When she was as much a part of our family when I was young as I was she deserves to be called “Aunt,” which is a term of RESPECT, not racism.
Aunt Jemima, we love you, we grew up with you, and now that you are being taken from us, we will continue to hold you in our hearts because you helped to give us nourishment and life!
Seriously, people, what kind of warped and twisted and deviated mind does it take for a person to walk into a supermarket full of food that is going to nourish people’s lives, like Aunt Jemima pancake mix or maple syrup, and then walk into the aisle where the maple syrup is found, to then start screeching at the top of their lungs upon spying the bottle of Aunt Jemima maple syrup, “IT’S RACIST, IT’S RACIST, IT’S RACIST,” over and over again until somebody comes along and removes what they thought was “offensive.”
And think about it, people – if there was a bottle of maple syrup with the smiling face of Aunt Jemima (we’ll always love you, Aunt Jemima) on it on one shelf, and another shelf a bottle of maple syrup, perhaps ersatz, with the scowling face of Nancy Pelosi on it, whose face would crack if that old harridan (a strict, bossy, or belligerent old woman as in “a bullying old harridan”) ever attempted a smile, which would you buy to bring home and put on YOUR kitchen table to feed to YOUR children!
Who would you trust more with your children – Aunt Jemima?
Or Nancy Pelosi?
I would comment here, but I am a white male whose opinion can apparently only be racist in this situation. I am not allowed to enjoy Aunt Jemima’s products because that would be racist? Which leads me to believe that I should not support the products or business from any person who happens to be black, because that would apparently be racist to someone who I would then also be offending. But I am not a cancel club friend of Jay C. Ford ! For me, the problem apparently continues to grow, because it appears as though no matter what business I support that is run by someone who appears to be black, has a spokesperson who is black, or is actually black, I will be a racist. Which certainly confuses me as I have always been told in church and at home if I don’t support black owned businesses because they are black owned then I am a racist. So it looks to me like there are people “out there” who supposedly promote equality that love to actually make things more racist than they actually are so they have a false anti-racism job, but I guess there is no way I could know, because I must be a racist. What I can tell you, and know for sure, is that my life’s experience is a completely different thing. My white mom was large and round and jovial, and she loved to cook. She had 4 kids. A woman who lived 3 houses down certainly appeared to be her very good friend, was large and round and jovial and black. She had 4 kids about the same age as my mom, and we all went to the same school and church, played the same sports and fished the same lake, Her name was Pearl. There were always church and sports clubs bake sales and mom and Pearly got together and baked and laughed and yelled at us kids to not eat the sale goods, which didn’t work, and there was one hell of a bike path between between those 2 back doors because kids are always hungry and someone was always baking and we’d all just follow our nose to the food that would fuel our fun. With all that going on I can assure you that Pearl and Mom didn’t care if they bought Aunt Jemima or Bisquick, They just got the one on sale. I know that for a fact because I was the fastest on a bicycle, and the fastest to and from The Acme market when either of them needed more. So I’ve got no clue what this fuss is all about. I guess it’s cause I’m a racist. I guess it’s also because we can’t fix stupid. God Bless America.
Scotiagirl received an email today as a Valentine’s Day gift from a friend. The attachment was a beautiful rendition of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”. She was so happy she listened to it (over and over) before she read the foregoing about the CANCELLED Aunt Jemima. Imagine Scotiagirl’s shame now that she has learned she has been entertained by what must have been an effort to exploit a BLACK man!
This BULL**** would be HILARIOUS if it were not so serious!
How ******* sick in your mind do you have to be to think AUNT JEMIMA (Aunt Jemima, we will always love you and remember you for all the good you have done for us as children, even though we were white) is somehow a symbol of RACIAL OPPRESSION?
What on earth am I missing here?
Aunt Jemima is demeaning to BLACK people because only white people eat pancakes and like maple syrup, while BLACK people are more into grits and butter, so that Aunt Jemima is seen by the BLACK people as an offensive symbol to them as an “UNCLE TOM” or an “OREO COOKIE” because she is truckling to the white folks, serving them pancakes and maple syrup, which has to mean she is their slave, period?
Is that what this is all about?
By expecting Aunt Jemima to be there on the breakfast table in February when it is thirty below outside and a nor’easter is on the way, I was making Aunt Jemima into my servant, or slave by having her maple syrup on my pancakes?
I want to Thank Google today for proving my point for me. I turned on my computer this a.m. and there is a small orange and brown round circle with a black heart in the middle of it staring me in the face. Subtle but glaring. Right next to this orange circle is a statement telling you to click there and locate black owned businesses near me/you. It will probably be there all day. Go ahead and look. In my opinion Google is trying to make it look like this is a good idea and they should promote only black business today. Is there something wrong with all other businesses today ? Not only are they anti free speech, as they are proving every day, but I believe we are looking at a very powerful and very public false anti-racism position that is purely racist. But what do I know ? I must be a racist. Google is a leader in worldwide communication and policy making ? On President’s Day no less.
Uh Oh, you have been dug out, uncovered, revealed, exposed, devulged, stripped bare, and-alas- GOOGLED for who you really are. Scotiagirl is frankly shocked!
Who will be next?
Again, the ignorance of most people is alarming.
Racist/Racism is an attitude that takes place in one’s head/mind.
Discrimination is an overt act that takes place in the real world.
The vast majority of people who are called a racist have no means to discriminate.
The solution here is really quite obvious – henceforth, ALL things sold in supermarkets in the United States of America SHALL be in a in a government-approved container that is a uniform color of government-approved grey with a generic label identifying it as oatmeal, or bread flour, or pancake flour, or maple syrup, or whatever, lady’s hair spray, for example, and that’s it, period, no other questions need be asked or even considered.
That way, and that is the only way I can see here, no more Black women like Aunt Jemima are going to be exploited and oppressed by the WHITE MAN because they have such a nice welcoming smile as opposed to the perpetual scowls on the pusses of Nancy Pelosi and AOC, and as a result are forced to have to serve maple syrup to some uppity white kids every morning day after day after day without interruption or a moment’s rest.
RACIAL OPPRESSION!
RACIAL OPPRESSION!
FREE AUNT JEMIMA!
But wait!
We can’t!
She’s gone!
They killed her off because she was a Black lady with too nice a smile!
Who now will ne their next victim?
The Color of Crime:
• Black males age 18-35 years of age are only 1.8% of the U.S. population, yet have committed 52% of homicides from 1980-2008. Black males (all ages) are only 6% of the U.S. population, yet commit 46% of all violent crimes, and 50% of the gun homicides. If Blacks were removed from the equation, the U.S. gun homicide rate would be equal to Great Britain’s, who have some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the world.
• The Black homicide rate is 17 per 100,000, a rate over 9x that of the White rate, and comparable to some of those most murderous countries in the world. If the homicide rate for the U.S. were the White-only rate, the homicide rate would drop 84%, making the U.S. rate comparable to European countries.
• According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 2018 survey of criminal victimization, there were 593,598 interracial violent victimizations (excluding homicide) between Blacks and Whites last year, including White-on-Black and Black-on-White attacks. Blacks committed 537,204 of those interracial felonies, or 90 percent, and Whites committed 56,394 of them, or less than 10 percent.
• Blacks constitute 13% of the U.S. population, but represent 27% of all criminal activity in the U.S.
• According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting for 2018, of the homicide victims for whom race was known, 53.3% were Black, 43.8% were White and 2.8% were of other races. In cases where the race of the offender was known, 54.9% were Black, 42.4% were White, and 2.7% were of other races.
• Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving Blacks and Whites, Blacks commit 85 percent and Whites commit 15 percent. This means that a Black is 27 times more likely to attack a White person than vice versa.
• For each one standard deviation increase in proportion of Black population, firearm homicide rate is increased by 82.8%. Therefore, the U.S. has a Black problem, not a gun or violent crime problem. When Blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-Blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
• 40% of gun crime occurs in just three cities: 596 (10%) – St Louis, MO, 53 (11%) – Detroit, MI, and 1,527 (27%) – Chicago, IL.
• Murder is the leading cause of death for Black men, ages 15 to 34. Their murderers are other Black men 93 percent of the time.
• Black males between 16-35 years of age are only 2.0% of the population, yet commit 72% of the street crime in America.
• The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is Black.
• If New York City were all White, the murder rate would drop by 91 percent, the robbery rate by 81 percent, and the shootings rate by 97 percent. In an all-White Chicago, murder would decline 90 percent, rape by 81 percent, and robbery by 90 percent.
• Every year, approximately 6,000 blacks are murdered. This is a number greater than white and Hispanic homicide victims combined, even though blacks are only 12 percent of the national population. Blacks of all ages are killed at six times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined. That black death-by-homicide rate is a function of the black crime rate. The national rate of homicides committed by blacks is eight times that of whites and Hispanics combined. Black males between the ages of 14 and 17 commit homicide at 10 times the rate of white and Hispanic male teens combined.
• Homicide is not the only crime that is vastly racially disproportionate. New York City is representative of other crime spreading across the country. Blacks are 23 percent of New York’s population, but they commit 75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of all robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crime, according to the victims of, and witnesses to, those crimes. Whites are 33 percent of the New York City’s population, but they commit less than 2 percent of all shootings, 4 percent of all robberies, and 5 percent of all violent crime.
• The United States is third in murders throughout the world, but if you omit just five Black cities (Chicago, Detroit, Washington DC, St Louis, and New Orleans) from the equation, then the United States is fourth from the bottom.
• Black serial killers have comprised over half of documented serial killers since the dawn of the 21st century at 56 percent, making up a total of 40 percent in years dating back to 1900. Blacks constituted 44% of the known serial killers during the 1995-2004 period and 38.2% of all multiple murderers (serial, mass, and spree combined) during 1976-1998 period. During the 2000-2010 decade, 62% of serial killers were Black.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/…
https://www.manhattan-insti…
https://archive.org/details…
6ce3a015b806
https://archive.org/details…
2019 Data Shows 51% of Mass Shooters Were Black, Only 29% Were White:
https://summit.news/2019/08…
Not arguing with you as to the veracity of the statistics, because I don’t really follow them, preferring to focus more on who is not in prison or out there being a criminal, and there are white folks as well as BLACK in prison, so it’s said, anyway, because I haven’t bothered to conduct a survey myself, but what connection does any of that have to do with Aunt Jemima, a SYMBOL OF LOVE for who knows how many generations of POOR RURAL WHITES like myself who drew a lot of comfort from her smile on many a cold winter morning, being literally KILLED OFF by corporate America because of a snippy little newsreader on NPR with a very officious voice dripping with contempt for people like myself who did draw comfort from Aunt Jemima on the grounds that we were engaging in RACIAL EXPLOITATION by getting our maple syrup out of a bottle that looked like a big BLACK woman with enough lap for ten or twelve little children and enough love for them all, REGARDLESS OF THEIR SKIN COLOR, which is what set Aunt Jemima apart from these people who just killed her off, as opposed to a bottle in the likeness of say, Nancy Pelosi, which would have put me off my feed, for certain, along with scaring the living **** out of me, having to see Nancy Pelosi on the kitchen table on a maple syrup bottle looking for all the world like she was waiting there for an opportunity to scratch out my eyes or rip my face off, such are the fears in a small child Nancy Pelosi on a maple syrup bottle would evoke?
Of course no such thing as white privilege. The phrase was invented to explain away black failures in this ‘white man’s’ system. Their failure was predictable well before forced integration was created in 1964.
They do not appear integrated, not even assimilated very well.
Ohhhhh! Noooooooooo!
Aunt Jemima was very much integrated and assimilated which is why she just got killed off by corporate America.
And there have been BLACK nationalists in this country longer than any of us in here have been alive.
BLACK nationalists have no desire to be integrated or assimilated,
Abe Lincoln talked about exactly that way back when he was still alive, so none of that BULL**** is at all new.
Every day, Mr. Bill, millions of Black people who are as assimilated and integrated as you are get up in the morning, they go to work in multi-cultural civilized society just like the white folks do, as doctors, nurses, technicians, store managers, etc., etc., etc.
Every day, there are Black people on the line along with white people defending this country as members of our military or our various police departments.
My Bn. commander in Viet Nam was a Black Lt. Col. who I, a white man, addressed as SIR!
There are Black sergeants in the military.
I have worked for Black people as my boss as a civilian.
So, yes, Mr. Bill, there are many Black folks who are just as assimilated and integrated as you are.
Nothing will change because for at least the last 2500 or more years that I am aware of, across a broad spectrum of civilizations, including Chinese history and the history of the Mongols, etc. etc. etc., nothing essentially has changed.
And all of what you say is true today, none of which I will argue against, has always been true.
Google, for example, the effect of the corn dole on the Roman Republic, which by the way no longer exists …
ALL OF WHAT EXISTS TODAY HAS ALWAYS EXISTED!
I’ve been on the globe now for three-quarters of a century, and in that time, and especially in the 1960s, I have seen all sorts of BULL**** going down in this country …
“There’s something happening here!”
“What it is is exactly clear!”
“There’s a man with a gun over there!”
“Telling me if I don’t vote straight Democrat, then I’d better beware!”
Same old ****, different day, and the country boy will survive, as Bosephus said, anyway.
We say grace, and we say ma’am!
If you ain’t into that, we don’t give a damn!
So I really don’t give a FLYING **** about white privilege or BLACK privilege or yellow privilege or piebald privilege, or whatever, because that is all invented BULL**** to give miserable people who have nothing else to do, or no place else to go, and no other purpose in life but to be miserable, something to be miserable about!
Like Aunt Jemima!
Who in the **** can find that smiling woman in anyway offensive?
Scroll up there and take a look at her?
Does she look like a hater?
Does she look like somebody who is “racially oppressed,” or even gives a **** about it?
Or does she look like somebody who is happy to be alive, and to share some life with the people in the world around her, REGARDLESS OF WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE (how ******* SHALLOW and SUPERFICIAL and JUVENILE and INFANTILE that is to be all hung up on somebody’s shade of skin)?
I think we have some real serious mental issues in this country when of all the possible people these HATERS have chosen to kill off, make it as if she never even existed, they have chosen a symbol of LOVE like Aunt Jemima!
Not arguing with you as to the veracity of the statistics, because I don’t really follow them, preferring to focus more on who is not in prison or out there being a criminal, and there are white folks as well as BLACK in prison, so it’s said, anyway, because I haven’t bothered to conduct a survey myself, but what connection does any of that have to do with Aunt Jemima, a SYMBOL OF LOVE for who knows how many generations of POOR RURAL WHITES like myself who drew a lot of comfort from her smile on many a cold winter morning, being literally KILLED OFF by corporate America because of a snippy little newsreader on NPR with a very officious voice dripping with contempt for people like myself who did draw comfort from Aunt Jemima on the grounds that we were engaging in RACIAL EXPLOITATION by getting our maple syrup out of a bottle that looked like a big BLACK woman with enough lap for ten or twelve little children and enough love for them all, REGARDLESS OF THEIR SKIN COLOR, which is what set Aunt Jemima apart from these people who just killed her off, as opposed to a bottle in the likeness of say, Nancy Pelosi, which would have put me off my feed, for certain, along with scaring the living **** out of me, having to see Nancy Pelosi on the kitchen table on a maple syrup bottle looking for all the world like she was waiting there for an opportunity to scratch out my eyes or rip my face off, such are the fears in a small child Nancy Pelosi on a maple syrup bottle would evoke?
I am just so tired of all the hate and destruction then blaming it all on white people and calling it white privilege. Housing projects were built for both black and white by white people but if you have ever seen one after being occupied only one race destroys it. Go to any large city and tell me who lives in the area of burned out garbage ridden destroyed neighborhoods. I have black friends that are happy to work and own a home just like white people but then there are the ones that have been groomed by the democrats to destroy and act oppressed. The killing of George Floyd was wrong but because of one guys actions all white people should pay? I look at the sports figures that have million dollar contracts and ask “where is the oppression?” I look at music with multi-millionaires that are black and ask “where is the oppression?” Seems to me the black people have the same ability as any white person to succeed if they choose but many would rather play the victim and place blame on us white people that pay for their destruction. Why do black celebrities always side with the people that claim to be oppressed instead of telling them they have the same opportunities? Racism will never change because some people will always claim to be victims instead of helping themselves because it’s easier.
https://www.union-bulletin.com/news/national/texas-congresswoman-leads-renewed-push-to-study-slavery-reparations/article_ca9c3143-32d6-51b5-af1e-a2aa24905b76.html
It would be nice if they appreciated all we have already given them in hand-outs. I feel a big Thank You is in order. But, Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh Nooooooooooooooooooooo they want more.
Greedy People.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/02/17/msnbcs-reid-limbaughs-legacy-is-hardening-rural-white-listeners-and-weaponizing-white-male-grievance/
Ohhhhhhhhhh! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
But, according to FBI statistics, more than 5 thousand white American citizens, including senior citizens, men, women, children, and small babies, were murdered by black folks, in the United States, in the ten year period of 2010 to 2020.
Aunt Jemima Pancake Syrup was nothing but cheap-a$$ sweetener sold to people who could not afford Maple Syrup or Sorghum Syrup. At least, King Po-Ti-Rik Syrup had half real molasses in it.
Aunt Jamammy is as low rent, corn syrup as it gets.
Rastus, dude, no offense of any kind intended, because you seem nice, but dude, you seem to have some wires crossed and some screws loose in your brain pan that are causing some kind of random static bursts that have you confusing maple syrup, which comes from MAPLE TREES (that’s why it’s called “maple” syrup) with molasses, which is made from sugar cane that is harvested and stripped of leaves, and then its juice is extracted, usually by cutting, crushing, or mashing, and the juice is boiled to concentrate it, promoting sugar crystallization with the result of this first boiling being called first syrup (‘A’ Molasses), and it has the highest sugar content.
You want molasses on your morning pancakes, have at it, but on a cold winter morning, who has the time to wait for that stuff to make its slow way out of the bottle and onto your pancakes which will be stone cold by the time that stuff gets there, which is why there is a saying in the countryside, “slower than molasses in January.”
But you are right about Aunt Jemima maple syrup not being maple syrup, at all:
INGREDIENTS: CORN SYRUP, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, WATER, CELLULOSE GUM, CARAMEL COLOR, SALT, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, SODIUM BENZOATE AND SORBIC ACID (PRESERVATIVES), SODIUM HEXAMETAPHOSPHATE.
And here all this time I thought she was such a nice lady!
And we were poor folks, Rastus!
That’s why we were eating Aunt Jemima on our pancakes, and being poor, when you have food before you on the table, or at least me, not wanting to speak for anyone else in here or out there, you are thankful for it, no matter how poor or meager, because it beats the hell out of the nothing you could have had instead.
So until just now, I never knew I was having corn syrup on my pancakes instead of real maple syrup, which costs some big bucks today, and back then, as well.
And my loving memories of Aunt Jemima have absolutely nothing to do with what was in the bottle, which didn’t poison us, given that I am in my 70s now.
My affection for Aunt Jemima was seeing her welcoming, smiling face on the breakfast table as a poor child in the country on many a cold winter morning.
If these CORPORATE A-HOLES who killed her off had announced they were killing her off because she wasn’t really selling actual maple syrup, we could deal with that because we are, afterall, adults.
But to kill her off because some snippy little A-HOLE newsreader on National Propaganda Radio (NPR), which incidentally is sponsored by BIG BROTHER “Zucky” Zuckerberg of FACEBOOK, thought she was an offensive symbol or racial oppression is pure bull****, no molasses or corn syrup added!
You raise an interesting societal issue there, Rastus, which is what I like about the Cape Charles Mirror versus those other ignorance-promoting rags like the Washington Post or New York Times, the MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS in here that is rapidly disappearing as the promoters of ignorance in this country like “Zucky” Zuckerberg of FACEBOOK tighten their stranglehold on communications between American citizens who they want to keep stupid, because it makes them so much easier to indoctrinate, should the poor in America like myself who could not afford Maple Syrup or Sorghum Syrup have to go without?
Was it wrong of us to use flavored corn syrup on our pancakes from a bottle with the welcoming, smiling face of Aunt Jemima on it, as opposed to say, plain old Karo corn syrup, which was also common among us poor folk back then who could not afford Maple Syrup or Sorghum Syrup?
Should we have just had the pancakes with nothing on them because that is all the poor in America really deserve if they could not afford Maple Syrup or Sorghum Syrup?
I’m 66 years old, so the following happened about 1958. My mother told me that when I was about three or four-years-old, she and I were riding a transit bus in Baltimore. At some point, I looked over the seat at the lady sitting just behind us and asked my mother if the lady was “my” Aunt Jemima. The lady was black with a sweet smile that she shared with my mother and I generated by my most innocent question. The question was not generated by hate or prejudice, but by love for someone that must have given me and many other children of all skin colors joy at breakfast. Now, the possible love for this childhood icon has been eliminated by hate. Pity…
TEACHER: Why was Aunt Jemima just killed off by CORPORATE AMERICA, FACEBOOK, and its national propaganda radio wing NPR?
LITTLE SUZY: Because America is now full of people who are stupid, who cannot think for themselves because we are stuck with an “educational” system in this sorry country that is intended to keep people so ******* stupid it’s a wonder they are intelligent enough to know when to breathe, and as a result, being so stupid, they have been very easy to indoctrinate by hate-filled people who want to divide America so that America is now a land of very hate-filled, very ugly people totally unable to think for themselves, which is why they can only speak in gibberish on TWITTER, a platform created to promote ignorance in America, who want to destroy any symbol of love they can find, which is why the corporate haters and FACEBOOK just killed off Aunt Jemima, because unlike them, the smiling Aunt Jemima was not a hater of life, but one who loved live and sharing, and that is what the haters want to stamp out, because they want it all for themselves, like ISIS in Syria.
I think this would be a wonderful opportunity to pause for a moment and give thanks for the many great contributions of the Black community and their culture to our society. Their peaceful and generous nature makes them ideal neighbors, lending testimony to their exceptional family values and parenting skills unrivaled by any other culture. Their commitment to academic excellence enriches our schools and serves as an example to all who hope to achieve prominence as a people. Real Estate values are fueled by the influx of African Americans into an area due to their caring and respectful nurturing of these communities, an example of all they have achieved by their enthusiasm for self-improvement through hard work and a self-reliant can-do nature. Without their industrious and creative drive, we would be poorer as a nation.
Presently enriching the cities of Spokane WA, Chicago IL, Philadelphia PA, Washington D.C., St. Louis MO, New Orleans LA, Los Angeles CA, Flint MI, Baltimore MD, Pontiac MI, Gary Ind., Newark NJ, Cleveland OH, Atlanta GA, Richmond VA, Memphis TN, Birmingham AL, Camden NJ; and let’s not forget Detroit, the tourism capital of the world!
And while we on the subject of this being a wonderful opportunity to pause for a moment and give thanks for the many great contributions of the Black community to our society, as it happened, I was in the hospital a couple of times with life-threatening situations requiring surgery as a result of being stupid enough to think that the people in this country were worth defending in VEET NAM, and I had Black nurses and nurse’s aides caring for me while I recovered from surgery, and to be quite truthful with you, Uncle Remus, to this day I think highly of them and the care they gave me as caregivers.
Even though I was white, they didn’t discriminate against me.
To the contrary, I found them VERY professional, and God forbid I ever had to go back, I would certainly not mind them being my nurses again.
And I had a Black doctor!
Very professional and knowledgeable.
An d there were a lot more Black people working in there, caring for people, or creating a healthful healing environment to the degree that a hospital can ever be such.
I would call that contributing, myself.
So who are these Black losers that you are running with that has your attitude towards them so loww?
Did you ever stop to consider the company you keep taints your attitude towards life?
Get a bottle of Aunt Jemima maple syrup while you still can and put it right there on your kitchen table so each morning you can see her smiling face looking at you and see if that might improve your attitude some.
Aunt Jemima loves you, Uncle Remus, even if nobody else does!
Something to think about, anyway.
And while this subject is still alive, I would like to put in the record some quotes from a WBUR article entitled “Family Of Woman Who Portrayed Aunt Jemima Speaks Out About Quaker Oats’s Rebranding Decision” by Robin Young and Allison Hagan on June 29, 2020, where we were given the following background to this story about the demise of Aunt Jemima in America as follows:
Quaker Oats announced earlier this month it’s rebranding Aunt Jemima pancake mix and syrup because of its racist history.
end quotes
As someone who grew up with Aunt Jemima as a constant companion through many a cold winter, I frankly find that statement about its “racist history” to be quite ludicrous, and it quite probably points to serious mental issues with those whom feel that way, which takes us back to that story, to wit:
But descendants of Lillian Richard, who portrayed Aunt Jemima for years, say the company decided to rename the brand without consulting the families of the women who brought the character to life.
“Erasing my Aunt Lillian Richard would erase a part of history,” says Harris, who serves as family historian for the Richard family of Hawkins.
end quotes
Yes, it most certainly would, and now, it has, because Aunt Jemima is very much a part of American history to people like me who grew up with her and always appreciated her smiling face on a cold winter morning, which takes us back for more as follows:
“All of the people in my family are happy and proud of Aunt Lillian and what she accomplished.”
end quotes
So what the **** is wrong, then, in the minds of all these people who wanted Aunt Jemima suppressed because to them, she is somehow a “racist” symbol, which is so stupid a term it is not funny, which again takes us back to that story, to wit:
Starting at the World’s Fair in 1893, a formerly enslaved woman named Nancy Green was the first to travel around the country wearing an apron and bandana as Aunt Jemima.
Richard served as one of 12 brand ambassadors starting in 1925.
In Hawkins, a historical marker dedicated to her commemorates how she made a career during the time when Black women had very few opportunities.
When Richard turned 20, she went to Dallas to look for work during a time when most jobs for Black women were domestic maids and cooks, Harris says.
Quaker Oats discovered Richard and offered her an ambassador job.
“I think she was excited about it because first off, it was a job,” Harris says, “and she would go around to give demonstrations at fairs, and at stores and other public places.”
To keep her aunt’s legacy alive, Harris says her family hopes Quaker Oats comes out with a commemorative box to recognize the many women who portrayed Aunt Jemima over the years.
The back of the box could list their names and put a spotlight on one of the women each month, she suggests.
Harris would like to see the box include a photo of her aunt dressed as Aunt Jemima with the scarf — but also a photo of Richard looking like herself to show people a complete picture.
“She was an intelligent, young, vital, beautiful Black woman that took the job.”
“She understood the times that she lived and she just wanted to work,” she says.
As a child, Harris’ family told her about her aunt’s portrayal of Aunt Jemima.
Richard is buried near Harris’ parents, so the family hopes to continue celebrating her legacy.
Quaker Oats didn’t consult the Richard family before announcing their decision to rebrand, but Harris says they have since reached out to the company about preserving Richard’s legacy.
After all, Richard and the other Black women who played Aunt Jemima helped build the Quaker Oats brand.
“For that, I think Quaker Oaks owes them a large gratitude of thanks,” she says.
end quotes
No argument from me on that!
This segment aired on June 29, 2020.