Gone with the Wind

I first read Margaret Mitchell’s book Gone with the Wind in my teens. The southern novel drew me in. I was enthralled by the romance, seduced by the imperfect characters, captivated by the tension and the struggle. If you had asked me in my early twenties, which books made my favorites’ list, Gone with the Wind would have risen to the top. 

Thirty years later, I see the book very differently. Instead of a love story, I see a slave story. Instead of heroism, I see racism. Instead of resilience, I see human frailty. Where I used to see right, I have grown to see wrong.  

          Do the best you can until you know better. Then do better. – Maya Angelou 

There has been an outcry this week against the decision by Pepsi-Co, the company that owns the Aunt Jemima brand, to change the name and rebrand these products. People are sharing pictures of Nancy Green, the first model who was selected to be the face of the Aunt Jemima brand. The terms “too far” and “erasing history” are being tossed around.  

Quick research reveals that the original Aunt Jemima pancake mix was created by two white men who owned a failing flour mill. To sell more flour, they created a different product—a pre-mixed pancake mix. Sales did not raise enough capital for them to stay afloat, so they sold their company to another white man, Randolph Truett Davis. He refined the product further.  

In 1890, he hired Nancy Green as a model to portray the face of Aunt Jemima. She proved to be a popular “face” for the brand; she did not start the company nor inspire the product. While her story as a successful black model deserves recognition, it misaligns as a black empowerment story tied to Aunt Jemima—a fictional character inspired by a white-sided view of the “mammy” in slave culture.  

To read more on this, please refer to this link: https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/mammies/ 

While those who grew up eating Aunt Jemima pancakes, reading novels that glorified the confederacy, and attending schools named after confederate generals, understandably hold some level of nostalgia for these memories, this is not an acceptable excuse to keep defending a narrative that harms others. Romanticizing a history of brutality and inhumanity has only served the people who wished to perpetuate that inhumanity. 

Aunt Jemima branding merits a museum; it does not deserve a place on our grocery shelves. Robert E Lee’s story needs to be relegated to history books; it does not deserve to be aggrandized in a memorial statue. The history of the confederate flag should remain required teaching as it relates to racism in this country, but it should not be proudly flown over state capitals or any government institution. When we know better, we must do better.