The Problem With Aunt Jemima

Quaker Oats, the parent company of Aunt Jemina, the iconic pancake brand, has announced they will be rebranding the products---"so everyone can enjoy them."

However, Aunt Jemima's great-grandson is angry. He says, "They're just going to erase history like it didn't happen? Who gives them that right?"

Some thoughts on history, rights, and freedom.

Be informed, not misinformed.

The Quaker Oats Company has announced that they will be removing the image of Aunt Jemima from the pancake products, "As we work to make progress toward racial equality through several initiatives..."

Aunt Jemima is scheduled to be gone by Christmas.

Many don't know the story behind Aunt Jemima.

Aunt Jemima was a real person.

The brand that has existed for more than 130 years is actually based on a real person.

Nancy Green was hired in 1893 to service pancakes at Chicago's World Fair. Green wore an apron and headscarf while serving pancakes, which she wore until her death in 1923

Anna Short Harrington eventually replaced Green.

She was born on a South Carolina plantation where her family worked as sharecroppers. In 1927, a white family from New York "bought" Harrington to be their maid. She also earned money as a cook at the Kappa Sigma fraternity house in Syracuse---and she worked some for New York Gov. Thomas Dewey.

It was there she was discovered by a Quaker Oats representative.

And it was Harrington who Quaker Oats promoted as the iconic "Aunt Jemima" character. In fact, the company sent her around the country to showcase pancakes, which resulted in her becoming a celebrity.

A brand was born as America fell in love with "Aunt Jemima," aka, Anna Short Harrington.

Anna has a great-grandson, and he's very unhappy about Quaker erasing her legacy.

Larnell Evans Sr. is Harrington's great-grandson.

Larnell says:

"This is an injustice for me and my family. This is part of my history. The racism they talk about, using images of slavery, that comes from the other side---white people. The company profits off images of our slavery. And their answer is to erase my great grand mother's history. A black female...It hurts."

He says they also used her personal pancake recipe and never paid her for it.

Evans and a nephew filed a suit in 2014 seeking $3 billion from Quaker Oats for not paying royalties.

The suit didn't go well for Evans, a 66-year-old former Marine Corps veteran living on disability in North Carolina. He and his nephew represented themselves---the court ruled they didn't have standing in the case.

Quaker Oates acknowledges that yes, they did make a lot of money off those images, but now it was time to move on.

I don't think Evans is quite ready to "move on" as progressives love to do.

Evans says:

"How many white people were raised looking at characters like Aunt Jemima at breakfast every morning...and they didn't give us a dime. ..They can't just wipe it out..."

And he said this:

"What gives them the right?"

"What gives them the right?"

As we take a closer look at this race to "equality," we find ourselves asking more and more often, who gives them the right to erase Aunt Jemima---as though she never existed; the right to destroy statues of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt---they too were real people.

Who is making moral decisions for our culture?

The media has long lusted to be the moral voice for America.

One of many examples occurred a couple of days ago with Vice President Mike Pence while appearing on 6 ABC Action News in Philadelphia.

The Vice President was confronted as to why he declined to say the words "Black Lives Matter" out loud.

Pence often uses the term "All lives matter." Clearly, the Vice President is including every color and race---and the life of the unborn.

Anyone who went to Sunday School learned the little chorus "Jesus loves the little children---all the world of the world---red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world."

News anchor Brian Taff said to Pence,

"Forgive me for pressing you on this sir, but I note you did not say those words, 'Black Lives Matter', and there is an important distinction. People are saying, of course all lives matter, but to say those words is an acknowledgment that black lives also matter..."

Pence responded,

"Well, I don't accept that fact, Brian, that there's a segment of American society that disagrees, in the preciousness and importance of every human life..."

The radical left is always trying to put their words in your mouth. It begins in kindergarten and continues throughout a lifetime. Karl Marx taught that tactic. It's part of "re-educating" people.

At a time when the Christian Church should be lighting the way, too many churches are either silent and shuttered, or conforming to the social justice warriors like Jim Wallis and his Sojourners organization, who claims to speak for evangelicals. Not only is that not true, but his theology is also equally untrue---it revises the Bible to support his view of everything from dismantling national sovereignty (borders) to so-called same-sex marriage, to race relations and poverty.

And churches and individuals are falling in line, donating millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter and any number of LGBTQ agendas---in the name of compassion---and it "makes me feel good about doing it."

This episode about Aunt Jemima shows just how flawed the so-called "equality movement" really is.

The radical Left is telling the blacks what they need and when they need it, and when they "matter" and when they  "don't matter" any more--- because the Left is primarily about themselves. About "virtue-signaling." Establishing moral superiority over all other voices, especially those conservative and biblical voices.

A few years ago Jonathan Stockstill wrote a song titled, "Let the Church Rise."

These are some of the lyrics:

We are alive filled with your glorious life
Out of the dark into your marvelous light
We are waiting with expectations
Spirit, raise us up with you
Let the Church rise from the ashes
Let the Church fall to her knees
Let us be light in the darkness
Let the Church rise, let the Church rise
Moving with power,
Bringing your name to the earth
Singing your praises, lifting up glorious songs
We are moving with his compassion
Spirit fill our hearts with you
Let the Church rise from the ashes
Let the Church fall to her knees
Let us be light in the darkness
Let the Church rise.
Please. Don't remain silent. Be the light in this present darkness.
Rise.

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Bold. Be Prayerful.