Aunt Jemima: The Sticky Truth
Picture the quintessential suburban breakfast: coffee piping, news blaring, fresh pancakes towering. The latter beckons for a sugary makeover, so you reach across your morning newsfeed for Aunt Jemima’s maple syrup. You crack open her head, fit your flapjacks with a glacé coat and commence in a round of slice, read and eat. While this nostalgic scene may feel like the paradisal yankee a.m., in 2020 it’s anything but. You sweeten vile headlines screaming about the George Floyds of the world with a pour of beloved Aunt Jemima. The painful reality of black America, glossed over by the painful reality of black America. Chew on that.
Have you ever pondered who Aunt Jemima is? To me, Aunt Jemima was akin to America’s Aunt. She’s fatefully been there to supply a treat at every breakfast since her debut in 1889. Walk into any supermarket today (wear a mask) and you’ll find Quaker Oats’ Aunt Jemima waiting for you on a shelf: her friendly face stretching into one big grin amidst a red, yellow and brown palette so iconic it’s practically a star stitched onto the American flag. However, as you ring up Jemima, bring her home and bleed her dry for your sweet tooth’s satisfaction, I urge you to pause and look deeply into her glistening eyes and shimmering smile. When you do, you’ll find a past as dark as the maple syrup she wields.
The woman at the center of this story is Nancy Green, a Kentucky native plucked from a family of slaves to breathe the first breath into Aunt Jemima. Though a fictional character inspired by a minstrel show, Nancy’s personality and looks molded Jemima. Over the decades, several other women tagged in to represent the jubilant ready-to-mix persona. Some made vital contributions to the brand’s famous recipe. None were properly compensated.
Though Quaker Oats eventually swapped Jemima’s headscarf and servant uniform for billowing hair and shiny pearls, her submissive housemaid demeanor and romanticism of plantation life still remains. But, so does the fight for justice: a $3 billion lawsuit filed by Jemima “heirs”; publication of angry articles pleading for the damaging logo’s evisceration; countless protestors urging for the end of racist branding, which normalizes stereotypes. And even still, Jemima perches on the shelf, waiting for you to own her.
I urge you to ask yourself the question beating at the center of this sticky heart: if this long-running emblem is embedded in racism, why do I still laud and support the beleaguered brand? And, more importantly, why can’t I stop? Once you come to a humane conclusion, head to the contact section of Aunt Jemima’s website and let them know your feelings. Pass the syrup, please.
