All across America, organizations and schools are busily renaming places that originally had names honoring racists or white supremacists. In Houston, [John] Reagan High School, named for a Confederate, is now Heights High School; Sidney Lanier Middle School, also named for a Confederate, was renamed Bob Lanier Middle School after a former Houston mayor (imagine how much money the school saved on signage!).
Product names have also begun to change. Take PepsiCo's efforts on behalf of pancake mix, made by Quaker Oats, a subsidiary.
Pearl Milling Company originally made the pancake mix named "Aunt Jemima" in 1888. The name came from an 1875 song used on the minstrel circuit, "Old Aunt Jemima." Often, the song went along with a man in drag -- often a white man in blackface -- playing Aunt Jemima on stage.
As PepsiCo, tells it, the "aunt" of their Aunt Jemima products was being updated for today's zeitgeist, but not nearly fast enough. In June 2020, they announced that they were searching for a new name.
PepsiCo is a whopping big company, and its announcement inspired a bunch of smaller ones to make a similar change. Mars food company declared, mere hours after PepsiCo's announcement, that it would change the name of Uncle Ben's Rice. The same day, Conagra, which owns Mrs. Butterworth's pancake syrup, announced they were changing the brand's name.
The next day, B&G Foods said it was changing the logo of Cream of Wheat, a hot breakfast cereal. Its logo, a Black chef, was based on another minstrel show character whose stupidity was played for laughs. That character was used in Cream of Wheat ads in the early 20th century.
After tons of market research, PepsiCo decided on Pearl Milling Company. The name was just announced Tuesday. Uncle Ben's Rice has been renamed Ben's Original. We're still waiting on Mrs. Butterworth's and Cream of Wheat.
It hardly seems possible now that anyone would name a product after a demeaning racial stereotype, but the manufacturers sure held onto those names for a long time.
Now, PepsiCo is throwing money into its effort to become woke in public eyes. PepsiCo has already promised to spend $400 million over five years to "advance and uplift the Black community." Through Pearl Milling Company, PepsiCo says it will also announce a $1 million "commitment to empower and uplift Black girls and women," as CNN Business put it, in the next three weeks. Pearl Milling Company is asking the public to nominate nonprofits for grants.
"The commitment we're making is a reflection of our broader PepsiCo values of diversity and inclusion and support of the Black community," PepsiCo said.
Do you think that these corporate name changes represent a genuine change of heart, or simply and solely reflect business interests? Is it a good idea to make these name changes? Or are they an attempt to erase history? Is changing product names any different from removing Confederate statues?
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/business/aunt-jemima-new-name/index.html?fbclid=IwAR135aWpp-XlVBbVlnPvyqYuDoR_n0vkZYXUhfahfTH-bM2Z_CxwbEuZ3DA
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