There's a bar in Wisconsin Dells called Nig's. I was like, are they serious???

Maybe to you. I don't give a damn about the motive of the company, nor about "why now and not earlier?".

What I give a damn about is that there is one less offensive image of black womanhood in the marketplace.

Have they donated to a cause that supports social change? How's their hiring structure? How many Black women execs do they have?

Yes it's good, but it's not worthy of all this coverage as a meaningful indicator of major social change.

That one's just pure ignorance/thoughtlessness; the two guys who started it were Sam and "Bo." For reals.
Yeah, they renamed to "No Place Like Sam's" around here, and then all the ones around here turned into "Denny's"es. Dunno if that was a corporate buyout or just a major franchisee group that scooped up all the locations.

Okay. But she doesn't really strike me as the go-to person for a nice stack of flapjacks.

Perhaps I am not as woke as you. I have not looked into their charitable giving or corporate culture. Perhaps I should.

But you do not get to choose what I consider meaningful. That would be true even if I weren't an African-American woman.

They canceled Magic the Gathering? LOL

I remember going to Sambo's was a a little kid. I liked the drawings and had no idea whatsoever what any of it meant.

Want to get horrified by another childhood icon? Check out Raggedy Ann and Andy.

Have you ever posted something and then gone and done something else and realized you had been talking out of your hat? Me neither.

OK. AJ is made by Pepsico, which has 1 black superhigh exec now, and has had other minority men and women in powerful positions. Not proportionate to the population, but not too shabby. Pepsico donated $5 million to "meaningful, ongoing support and engagement in the Black community," which is good although I don't know what means. Pepsico issued a straight-up admission that AJ is racist, and said it plans to . . . 'evolve' Uncle Ben.

I think it's safe to say I was wrong.

A large company with popular products made a public statement and took a public action regarding racism. The timing and donation deserve a little side-eye, the former being a reaction to major bad press and the latter being 1/2 of 1% of one year's net profit. But even if Pepsico took this action to maintain it's market share, with a "look, we did it, OK??" attitude, the fact that a large well-known corporation responded to public pressure is meaningful and worthy of a lot of press.

Wombat.

ps. I responded to your post because you quoted me. I felt a little attacked, as I see now you did as well. I am sorry.
Of course I don't get to choose what anyone thinks is meaningful. I get to opine about what is meaningful, and defend my opinion. My opinions are worth no more than anyone else's, and less than those of some.
In all honesty I don't expect anyone to change their opinion because of something I say. I'm feeling particularly vehement because I am surrounded by young people filled with so much faith, while I look back a couple score years and have to tell myself things actually have improved, despite what has happened in more recent years, and despite these days and events being so much like those past days and events that I had faith I could help end, so long ago.

Please, enlighten me. I have no clue what is suppose to horrify me?

There's probably a caricature racist stereotype in the books somewhere. It was depressingly common in Twentieth Century pop culture up until at least the Fifties, when it started to tone down a bit, though problematic images continue to turn up.

Got it in one. "Beloved Belindy," a "mammy" doll character. Google for pix.

No.

Or Golliwog.

"How y'all doin'?"
/waves at folk across the pond

Well, I am assuming The Pancake Mix Formerly Known as Aunt Jemima will carry on under another name.

I won't miss it because pancake mix is really easy. I can make it cheaper and better at home!

As for Mrs. Butterworth, that stuff is nasty.

ETA Okay, I just saw "Sheila." WTF? Sheila? Why.......?

I never understood what the slur was supposed to be, in Little Black Sambo. The kid was a hero; he was a little black kid in India. Was "black" the slur? The book I had as a kid, and the one my kids read, did not look like any kind of racist stereotype. The kid was darkskinned but the only black thing about him was his hair--and it was straight. Kind of a Beatles c. 1964 cut actually.

I never heard of a Golliwog as a kid except there was a piano piece called "Golliwog's Cakewalk," which was kind of a fun thing. As a kid I didn't think any more of what a Golliwog was than I wondered who Elise was, it was just a name on a piano piece. (I knew what a cakewalk was, though. A thing kind of like musical chairs, where you walk around and when the music stops you land on a number, and if the number you land on matches the cake, you win the cake!)

But in the last few years I saw something about a Golliwog and...I guess I don't get that, either. It represents a black person about the same way Raggedy Ann represents a white person, which is to say, not at all. I guess you have to be a Brit to get that.

You didn't notice the masthead for the 'Sheila' story?

https://www.theonion.com/quaker-oats...-ma-1844015205

This link, which consists of a question to and answer from the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University in Michigan, may answer some of your questions. I would also suggest a Google image search, which will show you how many offensively illustrated versions of the book there have been throughout the years. I myself grew up in the sixties. I never owned the book, but I saw a version back then, and there were no "Beatle (haircut) c. 1964" just ink black people with kinky hair and big mouths.

Brief irrelevant aside regarding cakewalks:The version you describe is a 20th century watered down version of the original. In the 19th century, they were festive dances/promenades by African-Americans. The dance moves started as exaggerations of European-style fancy dancing of the period, and the cake was won by being the best dancer, not by musical chairs-like shenanigans.

Last, the golliwogs. If you can't see how those dolls are extremely offensive caricatures, nothing I can say would change your mind. And I wouldn't credit the Brits with being more sensible about such things. There is plenty of racism to be had in the U.K.

Being A) American and B) whiter than Wonderbread I didn't know what a golliwog was until a few years ago and I was gobsmacked when I saw a picture. No, it's not a representation of a black person; it's a caricature of one loaded with ugly stereotypes. It belongs in History's garbage dump along with minstrelsy, the Noble Savage, the mystical Chinaman who speekee Engrish and all the other stereotypes that were kewl 200 years ago but come the fuck on people it's not 200 years ago anymore.

Exactly. We all know what Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben represent. I know I'll start looking at packages with different lenses now.

Surely there are other images that evoke delicious, diabetes II-inducing breakfast foods. When I think of "breakfast" and "black "woman" I think of two eggs over medium (yuck) and an English muffin, unbuttered, which is the weirdest thing in the world to me. Who eats an unbuttered English muffin? But she did, every single time we had breakfast together. They have nooks and crannies for butter, for god's sake. I'm going to text her now to tell her she still eats breakfast wrong.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm busting my buddy's chops here NOT on the basis of skin color. She started it by accusing me of drinking my coffee stupid. I LIKE my coffee stupid, but she likes her English muffins stupider.

Is jam on an English muffin ok? Because that's usually what I put on mine.

And I fully agree that not putting something on those delicious nooks and crannies is just wrong and stupid.

I put nooks and crannies on the nooks and crannies. That's deliciousness squared.

The article emphasizes that Sheila doesn't make the pancakes herself, she just enjoys them on occasion when she goes out to breakfast. She is living her best life, and it includes room for pancakes.

I have the piece "Golliwog's Cakewalk" in a book of Debussy music. I asked the Echo to play it for me - I love living in the future where I can instantly cue up recordings of someone else playing music that I haven't learned. The Echo always announces songs before it plays them, but in this case it bleeped out the first word of the title.

I love Debussy. I always thought a golliwog was something like a polliwog (a tadpole). Till today.

Yikes! That image on the linked page is horrifying. I'm positive I had a different, much milder edition, because I would never have shown anything like that to my kids, or anybody's kids. Thanks, and sorry for being so clueless.

Ten years ago I learned that The Stylistics never sang, "Catch a little polliwog" in Betcha By Golly Wow, which I also didn't know was the name of the song. I need to listen to lyrics more closely.

EDIT: I knew they weren't the right words, but they were the ones I'd sung since the 1970s and I didn't know the right ones. Damned if I'm changing it up now.

Yes. But...where did they get...Sheila? Australia?

Now predicting a run on pancake mix because collector's item.

Here?

I'd call it a "Yo Dog" muffin but XHibit is has officially had enough of that meme years ago.

Nooks and crannies are just gas holes. Like Republicans.

We're supposed to put butter on Republicans? :confused:

I stopped eating English muffins because while I like the nooks, I think the crannies taste funny.

And the Sambo restaurants were indeed super problematical back in the day. Racist stereotype wall murals abounded and were repeated on the menus. They were originally called Little Black Sambo's then the name got shortened--probably trying to make it less problematical. Then the murals went, then they changed the name of the very few remaining restaurants to "The Hungry Tiger," then the whole thing imploded and now those restaurants are all probably Denny's. Foodwise, not a big change.

I think you may be mistaken about a couple of those assertions.

Original name was just "Sambo's"; the restaurant chain was never called "LBS's." They did play up the LBS connection with murals and the like, though. Also, it was "The Jolly Tiger" that some 12 locations were renamed to -- others, in Southern New England, were renamed to "No Place Like Sam's," as I believe I've noted elsewhere. Most locations didn't rename at all, but remained Sambo's until the chain went under. And there were over a thousand locations at the time, not "a very few"; over-expansion was a big part of their problem.

But yes, problematic, and yes, mostly Denny's-es now, and yes, not a big change. Also not a big deal in the Big Picture. Just clarifying FTR.

Also FTR: I never ate there, and I'm not a Sambo's apologist. But I do remember being aware of a location in my neck of the woods evolving Sambo's > No Place Like Sam's > Denny's over the span over maybe 4 or 5 years of my childhood, just from noting the signage as we drove by.

We could use a peace sign/V-for-Victory-over-coronavirus emoji. I'd put one here if we had one. @Rebo, howzaboutit? Here's one you can steal:

✌️

What, you never heard of Butter Emails? :cookiemonster:

*splits Ludovic with a fork*

I remember Sambo's from my very young years, when I had no idea why a cartoon black kid was chasing a cartoon tiger around a cartoon palm tree. The inside had bright orange lamps which was special back then, and at least at the one near me they made excellent breakfasts. It was a fun place to go. My Dad and I switched to a place decorated like a chalet with excellent breakfasts, and I didn't think any more about it. Clearly they should have changed the name of the restaurant to Tiger's and left the cartoons of the tigers and the trees.

On a personal note, I am doing what I can to address racism, in the way one person can do only what one person can do in the face of an immense wrong, literally enormous by the old definition of enormous. It's eating my mind and stabbing my heart. One of the things that won't change anything is writing about it here, so I am going to avoid threads about social problems in general. I'm going to see if Dragon posted any pictures of birds. Write your legislators. Vote. Join. Thank you and goodnight.

When I was very little, like three years old, I had a 45 of "Little Black Sambo" that I played (or someone probably played for me) all the time. I had that story and the songs memorized, and I loved it. God help me, I even sang it to my nieces when I was fourteen and they were babies.

I'm still trying to unlearn the horrible traits I learned when I was a child. I'm really okay with people pointing out to me where I need more education in my life. I don't want to be the ignorant bigot—or ignorant anything—who can't change.

EDIT: That's fair, Stormie. Take care of yourself.

Sambo's memories: we kids used to call it "Scumbo's". I also recall a paper placemat we could color. It was a jungle scene. The only thing we couldn't color was the solid black "Sambo". Obviously, it all made an impression.

Doing a little Googling, Washington state had over 40, with eight in Seattle! I only remember the one in my city. Sambo's built the building which is still there and it's maintained the same layout. It's been quite a few different restaurants. I remember one called Pioneer Pies that was a home-cooking type place. For quite a few years now, it's been Mongolian Grill, recently re-named Jay's Mongolian Grill. Jay must have some kind of ego.

Anyway, Sambo's made its mark on my city which was pretty dinky back then.

ETA: After doing more Googling, the Sambo's kid is white, so I'm remembering some other racist incident regarding the placemat. I assumed it was Sambo's.

We went to a Sambo's once when I was a kid in the 60s. I think it was on a trip to Houston to visit my grandmother. They had tigers and trees painted on the walls. I remember being disappointed because I expected my pancakes to taste extra-buttery, but they didn't.

:hug:

I worked as a waitress in a Sambos a long time ago, on the graveyard shift. we were a terrible crew generally and the cook took LSD while he was working. We called it Scumbos.

We had not the first clue there was anything racist about the name.

I thought Republicans used "I Can't Believe It's Not Fascism."

Nope. Imperial Margarine. Da da-da-daaaaah.

Considering today's marketing trends, it'll probably get a name like "BREATHE" or "INDULGE". There will still be a black woman on the bottle, but she'll be 29 years old, with curly hair and light skin.

The syrup will be switched to a mix of artificial imitation maple-ish flavor in a base of viscoelastic organosilicate, and branded as Acer GoLean. The label will feature fit young multicultural people with sixpack abs who would never actually eat that crap.

And now the packaging for Cream of Wheat is "under review".

Apparently it's been complained about for years.

:peace:

:rebo:

It will be useful as a floor wax AND and a dessert topping.

Reading that and taking it at face value (more than that, even giving it the kindest possible interpretation), their story is there was this guy known vaguely as Uncle Ben who made good rice, and the guy who came up with the store-bought product chose Uncle Ben as a brand name because Uncle Ben was known for quality and he wanted to honor him by sticking his name on the label.

Except, in honoring him, he apparently didn’t think it important to record any of the details of his life (if he actually existed), much less to see if he was still alive or had descendants that he might partner with, being as he was effectively taking that man's name—his brand, if you will—for his own product. So whether or not the image on the box draws on racist stereotypes, it’s pretty clearly described as an act of appropriation at best, which is its own kind of bad and a close cousin to racism.

Spot on, my fine lepidoptera. And let us not forget Henrietta Lacks:

Okay, so it's not exactly the same, but it's still an example.

Eskimo Pie will stop using its racist name too

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/20/busin...rnd/index.html