The Gantt Report
By Lucius Gantt
Today is a sad day for me and it should be equally sad for America’s and all of the world’s modern-day Uncle Toms, Sambos, Fiddlers, Chicken Georges and Jezebels!
Aunt Jemima has lost her job. The face of syrup bottles and pancake boxes joins Uncle Ben and Eskimo Pie on the devils “I don’t want you anymore” list.
Aunt Jemima didn’t murder anybody, she didn’t choke any one and she never shot anybody multiple times in the back in a fast food parking lot.
In the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Breonna Taylor and others, efforts in the United States, in England and in many other nations people are protesting and seeking to remove what are discriminatory grocery packaging, monuments of racist figures and stadium names that are names of nationalists, segregationists and white racists.
I don’t have a problem with protests. I don’t have a problem with the purpose of any protest.
However, I especially don’t have a problem with Aunt Jemima! I believe the images, old and current, of Aunt Jemima and the protests about her images are more symbolic than substantive.
Blacks and other people of color may need to focus on equal rights, justice and access to capital, or getting more money.
Protestors can ask governments, businesses or individuals to remove images, idols and statutes and they can ask to change the names of stadiums and arenas, or, the protestors can create their own images, their own statutes and name their own stadiums. I would love for the protestors to finance the construction of statutes of Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Fred Hampton, Fannie Lou Hammer and others.
When has begging government for what we want and need worked for us?
One day we will realize that governmental begging is an alternative, but it is not the rule. By asking government, or businesses and corporations for things we want and need, it suggests that we can’t support each other, we can’t protect each other and that Black people around the globe can’t prosper and succeed without pleading for devils to change rather than working together ourselves and lobbying correctly for the government actions that we demand and deserve!
Jews don’t beg governments to punish Nazis, they hunt them down themselves and arrest or kill the murderous Nazis. I saw the TV show “Hunters” on Netflix and I believe there are Nazi hunters hunting today.
So, I want Aunt Jemima to get her job back. Don’t hate the packaging model’s image; hate the devil’s merchandising game.
No matter how many images, statutes and stadium names you want removed, we will never be able to expect the people in power to accept and embrace our views until we accept and embrace ourselves.
You love your political parties and your elected officials, but the late musician Jimi Hendrix once said we will always have reasons to protest until the power of love overcomes the love of power.
As long as Aunt Jemima’s image is not disrespectful, disparaging or demeaning, say her name, “Aunt Jemima”!
I love Aunt Jemima but I like ALAGA syrup on my pancakes!
