This feels like one of those right wing memes that could go either way, but let’s break it down like this Uncle Ben and Aunt Jamima are both domestic servants, do you think that’s an appropriate mascot for a company? Do you think black folks want them as some of their oldest icons?
Land of lakes also has a stereotypically dressed native woman who probably wouldn’t dress like that at all even back in the day.
I get that most people couldn’t give a shit either way but when you use your brain to think about how messed up presumably white owned companies are for using slaves and genocided people as their logos or mascots is pretty fucked.
But hey you’re not here for an insightful discussion, you’re here to get those hate clicks.
Yeah it’s hard to have a good faith debate about a post that wasn’t made in good faith. Anyone who’s being intellectually honest wouldn’t try to equate these company mascots.
I’m not making a statement about the post, but “it’s just shit posting” is a reeeeaaal good way to turn this place into a nazi bar. Not calling OP a nazi, just saying that this argument right here is chum in the water for them
From 1946 to 2020, Uncle Ben’s products carried the image of an elderly African-American man dressed in a bow tie, which is said to have been based on a Chicago maître d’hôtel named Frank Brown with the name “Ben” being a possible reference to a shrewd rice farmer from Houston. In 2020, Mars told Ad Age, “We don’t know if a real ‘Ben’ ever existed.” According to Mars, Uncle Ben was an African-American rice grower known for the quality of his rice. Gordon L. Harwell, an entrepreneur who had supplied rice to the armed forces in World War II, chose the name “Uncle Ben’s” as a means to expand his marketing efforts to the general public.
Mia, the Land o Lakes butter maiden, is actually rather interesting, at least the modern version they got rid of. The artist was a member of the Red Lake Chippewa and the design included traditional Ojibwe floral motifs. Yeah, it needed to go, but it wasn’t the worst by a long shot.
I just love the idea of a native american being iconfied for… butter.
like, wow, that’s so very, very native and authentic - butter.
I get it, it’s the land-o-lakes, minnesota, and they take butter fucking serious folks, they make it, they eat it, they sculpt it, so yeah, they’re REALLY into butter… but why the stolen iconography? why associate the native americans, who didn’t domesticate cows, with butter of all things?
like what the actual fuck was the line of thought?
Your thoughts are interesting, but I always presumed it was just a simple tribute of sorts. Like you said, Land-O-Lakes, beautiful, natural scenery of America…accompanied by a beautiful Native American woman.
Now take the product itself, like you said, make it make sense. Ehh. Maybe you just can’t. They wanted a mascot & instead of a smiling cow or potato, they chose a woman. Sex sells!
cultural appropriation sells. it’s not just any woman kneeling serving up the dairy products, nah… keep telling yourself it didn’t mean anything, maybe one day you’ll believe yourself, but make no mistake, they wouldn’t have put a white woman kneeling there.
The native cultural influence is pretty strongly interwoven in the fabric of Minnesota. It’s very possible the thought process was just that the locals associated that image with their state, just like the brand name.
The Anishinaabe and Dakota have had major influence on the state and that’s been recognized more in recent history with the renaming of certain places back to their native name, like Bde Maka Ska.
Most of the naming in the metro(and the state name) comes from the Dakota peoples. The Anishinaabe were located more in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin so you’ll see the influence there. For example the town of Biwabik in the iron range which is the Anishinaabe word for iron.
Well, the Sun-Maid girl is clearly working a job that’s mostly done by immigrants from the south these days, so using a white woman instead of a brown one denies them representation. But using a brown woman would also be racist because it would perpetuate harmful stereotypes… hm, what to do?
Little Debbie is clearly a child. Do you want children to be exploited for marketing purposes?
At least a Quakers are historically against war and slavery, so I guess he can stay.
As a European (we had slavery, made more wars than you can imagine and have probably the worst history you can’t even imagine) nice try locking people up in “black” vs “white”.
I hope you’re willing to learn because that is historically incorrect. The first nation to abolish slavery was Hati around a decade before the first European country (Denmark). That is if we are talking abolish and keep abolished in all territories controlled. Persia is possibly the first country recorded to have used slaves but they would have periods of “abolishment” which were probably good for causing slave revolts in new areas they were thinking of conquering. Arguably the first country to have and to abolish slavery.
I suppose that once again depends on definitions. There’s likely a reason people often use the term “wage slavery” these days even though on paper, salaried workers are by no means slaves, since they can quit whenever they want to, but that doesn’t mean that in practice, people don’t end up in situations that feel like slavery anyways.
Debt slavery is another one that gets thrown around, even though the possibility of declaring bankruptcy and thus getting off the hook for only a fraction of what you owe is technically available. It almost seems as if slavery is part of the human condition, and if not externally imposed, people will find a way to self-impose it in one way or another.
Either way, it seems silly to suggest that only the slavery imposed by one particular group of people on one particular group of other people is morally objectionable, and I’m also not entirely convinced that erasing any reminders of it does anything at all to right that wrong. At some point, it must be possible to look back at the past and say “well, that was awful, but at least we’re over it now”, but that isn’t possible if you erase any and all traces of it, is it?
No, I’m just pointing out that “they practiced slavery” isn’t an argument you can just throw at any race or nationality in particular without inflicting massive self-damage. Literally everyone is guilty of it.
haha no. such a huge claim requires substantial evidence - and you left yourself an easy out. Many cultures practiced slavery, true. Most cultures? Maybe an argument could be made. All?
ALL?
That requires substantial evidence there’s absolutely nothing supporting it.
Now I get it, the easiest way to debase your enemy’s righteousness is to drag them down to your level. But you don’t get this one shitbag. Slavery isn’t universal. You just want it to be so it makes you feel better about your premise.
Since you’re the one making the claim that not all cultures have a history of it, I’ll leave it to you to find me a single counterexample of a culture that never practiced it. But even if that should exist, I think there’s certainly overwhelming evidence that it was extremely widespread and common practice on every single continent at some point in history.
This feels like one of those right wing memes that could go either way, but let’s break it down like this Uncle Ben and Aunt Jamima are both domestic servants, do you think that’s an appropriate mascot for a company? Do you think black folks want them as some of their oldest icons?
Land of lakes also has a stereotypically dressed native woman who probably wouldn’t dress like that at all even back in the day.
I get that most people couldn’t give a shit either way but when you use your brain to think about how messed up presumably white owned companies are for using slaves and genocided people as their logos or mascots is pretty fucked.
But hey you’re not here for an insightful discussion, you’re here to get those hate clicks.
Yeah it’s hard to have a good faith debate about a post that wasn’t made in good faith. Anyone who’s being intellectually honest wouldn’t try to equate these company mascots.
Username checks out I guess.
You can’t just assume the post wasn’t made in good faith in order to prove intellectual dishonesty, that’s begging the question.
Learn yourself some debating skills.
You are in a shitposting community friend.
I’m not making a statement about the post, but “it’s just shit posting” is a reeeeaaal good way to turn this place into a nazi bar. Not calling OP a nazi, just saying that this argument right here is chum in the water for them
Uncle Ben is supposedly based upon a southern maitre d. Aunt Jemima though, undoubtedly problematic.
TIL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben’s_Original
Uncle Ben helps one grow the most excellent Golden Teachers.
Based
Mia, the Land o Lakes butter maiden, is actually rather interesting, at least the modern version they got rid of. The artist was a member of the Red Lake Chippewa and the design included traditional Ojibwe floral motifs. Yeah, it needed to go, but it wasn’t the worst by a long shot.
I just love the idea of a native american being iconfied for… butter.
like, wow, that’s so very, very native and authentic - butter.
I get it, it’s the land-o-lakes, minnesota, and they take butter fucking serious folks, they make it, they eat it, they sculpt it, so yeah, they’re REALLY into butter… but why the stolen iconography? why associate the native americans, who didn’t domesticate cows, with butter of all things?
like what the actual fuck was the line of thought?
Your thoughts are interesting, but I always presumed it was just a simple tribute of sorts. Like you said, Land-O-Lakes, beautiful, natural scenery of America…accompanied by a beautiful Native American woman.
Now take the product itself, like you said, make it make sense. Ehh. Maybe you just can’t. They wanted a mascot & instead of a smiling cow or potato, they chose a woman. Sex sells!
cultural appropriation sells. it’s not just any woman kneeling serving up the dairy products, nah… keep telling yourself it didn’t mean anything, maybe one day you’ll believe yourself, but make no mistake, they wouldn’t have put a white woman kneeling there.
so figure it out.
cultural appropriation sells. It’s not just any sexy lady. recognize it for what it actually was and everyone moves on.
Interesting read about this..
The native cultural influence is pretty strongly interwoven in the fabric of Minnesota. It’s very possible the thought process was just that the locals associated that image with their state, just like the brand name.
The Anishinaabe and Dakota have had major influence on the state and that’s been recognized more in recent history with the renaming of certain places back to their native name, like Bde Maka Ska.
Most of the naming in the metro(and the state name) comes from the Dakota peoples. The Anishinaabe were located more in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin so you’ll see the influence there. For example the town of Biwabik in the iron range which is the Anishinaabe word for iron.
The Anishinaabe and Dakota were the lost butter tribes?
No? No, no they weren’t. Make it make sense lol
so is cultural appropriation of iconography that doesn’t belong to white people. and to have the person ‘serving’ up the butter, kneeling?
think they would have done that with a white woman?
What’s the Anishinaabe word for racism?
Well, the Sun-Maid girl is clearly working a job that’s mostly done by immigrants from the south these days, so using a white woman instead of a brown one denies them representation. But using a brown woman would also be racist because it would perpetuate harmful stereotypes… hm, what to do?
Little Debbie is clearly a child. Do you want children to be exploited for marketing purposes?
At least a Quakers are historically against war and slavery, so I guess he can stay.
Always thought the Sun-Maid mascot was Hispanic, but so am I.
Well if she’s hispanic, that’s clearly racist because it associates brown people with low-paid manual labor. (semi /s)
As a European (we had slavery, made more wars than you can imagine and have probably the worst history you can’t even imagine) nice try locking people up in “black” vs “white”.
Literally every culture on earth has practiced slavery at one time or another. Europeans were actually the first to abolish it.
I hope you’re willing to learn because that is historically incorrect. The first nation to abolish slavery was Hati around a decade before the first European country (Denmark). That is if we are talking abolish and keep abolished in all territories controlled. Persia is possibly the first country recorded to have used slaves but they would have periods of “abolishment” which were probably good for causing slave revolts in new areas they were thinking of conquering. Arguably the first country to have and to abolish slavery.
Ah yes, if we pick and choose our definitions, we can get pretty much any outcome we want, can’t we.
Haiti didn’t abolish slavery as much as revolt against it (by killing all the slave owners), and they didn’t even manage to keep it abolished for very long, as it’s currently one of the worst countries on earth with regards to child slavery.
Is that really the hero you want to choose?
I didn’t say they were hero’s but by your definition here no one had ever abolished slavery.
I suppose that once again depends on definitions. There’s likely a reason people often use the term “wage slavery” these days even though on paper, salaried workers are by no means slaves, since they can quit whenever they want to, but that doesn’t mean that in practice, people don’t end up in situations that feel like slavery anyways.
Debt slavery is another one that gets thrown around, even though the possibility of declaring bankruptcy and thus getting off the hook for only a fraction of what you owe is technically available. It almost seems as if slavery is part of the human condition, and if not externally imposed, people will find a way to self-impose it in one way or another.
Either way, it seems silly to suggest that only the slavery imposed by one particular group of people on one particular group of other people is morally objectionable, and I’m also not entirely convinced that erasing any reminders of it does anything at all to right that wrong. At some point, it must be possible to look back at the past and say “well, that was awful, but at least we’re over it now”, but that isn’t possible if you erase any and all traces of it, is it?
Let’s stop making “racial” (there is only one human race) stereotypes then.
So we get rid of the people on the right as well? Because those are also stereotypes.
so what do you want, a fucking cookie?
like you were involved with the effort and take such pride in your works?
this is such a bullshit post by someone who’s obviously racebaiting and loving every second of it. ignore the chuds people.
No, I’m just pointing out that “they practiced slavery” isn’t an argument you can just throw at any race or nationality in particular without inflicting massive self-damage. Literally everyone is guilty of it.
haha no. such a huge claim requires substantial evidence - and you left yourself an easy out. Many cultures practiced slavery, true. Most cultures? Maybe an argument could be made. All?
ALL?
That requires substantial evidence there’s absolutely nothing supporting it.
Now I get it, the easiest way to debase your enemy’s righteousness is to drag them down to your level. But you don’t get this one shitbag. Slavery isn’t universal. You just want it to be so it makes you feel better about your premise.
Good thing others already did the work for me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery
Since you’re the one making the claim that not all cultures have a history of it, I’ll leave it to you to find me a single counterexample of a culture that never practiced it. But even if that should exist, I think there’s certainly overwhelming evidence that it was extremely widespread and common practice on every single continent at some point in history.
That’s not how extraordinary claims work. Nothing in that article says ‘all cultures’ it just lists the cultures that are known to have.
Cute though, nice try.
Quakers are also who gave us the “puritanical work ethic” that plagues our society as we try to adapt to a more convenient era of work.
Alright, guess he guess to go as well, then.
Quakers may have perpetuated this concept as well, I’m not sure, but this is literally named after the Puritans, not Quakers