{"id":9299,"date":"2020-06-22T01:48:46","date_gmt":"2020-06-22T08:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=9299"},"modified":"2020-06-22T01:48:46","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T08:48:46","slug":"product-spokespersons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2020\/06\/22\/product-spokespersons\/","title":{"rendered":"Product Spokespersons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I hope that nobody reads <strong>Billy Masters<\/strong>\u2019 column for great insights on race relations.&nbsp; Last week, my dear friend <strong>Jenifer Lewis <\/strong>took me to task in a loving, but firm way.&nbsp; \u201cOf course you need to be told these things because they\u2019re not part of your background\u2026but you shouldn\u2019t need to be told these things.\u201d&nbsp; So, whether I should or shouldn\u2019t know everything about racial inequality, I am making an effort.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been reading with great interest about this <strong><em>Aunt Jemima <\/em><\/strong>controversy.&nbsp; I am old enough to remember seeing the pancake purveyor dressed with a kerchief in her hair.&nbsp; I also remember 1989, when she got a makeover \u2013 the kerchief came off, she put on lipstick and pearl earrings, and kinda resembled <strong>Roxie Roker <\/strong>from <strong><em>The Jeffersons<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; Once again, Jemima is getting a makeover \u2013 she\u2019s being completely erased.&nbsp; This made me wonder \u2013 if they replace a glamorous African-American woman with someone like <strong>Ann B. Davis <\/strong>or <strong>Shirley Booth<\/strong>, who does that help?&nbsp; It surely doesn\u2019t help the family of <strong>Anna Short Harrington <\/strong>\u2013 the lady who portrayed the venerable Aunt from 1935 to 1954.&nbsp; Anna was the great-grandmother of <strong>Larnell Evans Sr.<\/strong>, and he\u2019s pissed off.&nbsp; \u201cThis is an injustice for me and my family.&nbsp; This is part of my history, sir\u201d \u2013 one always takes note of someone who uses the word \u201csir\u201d.&nbsp; \u201cThis woman served all those people\u2026and it was AFTER slavery.&nbsp; She worked as Aunt Jemima.&nbsp; That was her job.&nbsp; How do you think I feel as a Black man sitting here telling you about my family history they\u2019re trying to erase?\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So I delved deeper and learned about some other famous faces used to purvey products.&nbsp; Like <strong><em>Uncle Ben<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; Didya know he was based on an African-American farmer in Texas who supplied above-average rice to the US military?&nbsp; The man pictured on the package is <strong>Frank Brown<\/strong>, the <em>maitre d\u2019h\u00f4tel <\/em>of an elite Chicago restaurant.&nbsp; In 2007, the character of Ben was upgraded from a rice grower to the chairman of the board.&nbsp; Then there\u2019s <strong>Frank L. White<\/strong>.&nbsp; He was born in Barbados and immigrated to the US in 1875.&nbsp; He achieved such renown as a master chef, he was recruited to become the face of <strong>Rastus<\/strong>, the chef on the box of <em>Cream of Wheat<\/em>.&nbsp; To me \u2013 admittedly a white male of dubious privilege \u2013 I see these as iconic symbols to be learned from.&nbsp; But soon, they\u2019ll all be erased.&nbsp; Progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I hope that nobody reads Billy Masters\u2019 column for great insights on race relations.&nbsp; Last week, my dear friend Jenifer Lewis took me to task in a loving, but firm way.&nbsp; \u201cOf course you need to be told these things because they\u2019re not part of your background\u2026but you shouldn\u2019t need to be told these things.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9300,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9299\/revisions\/9300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}