Flipping the Aunt Jemima Script

Long before we knew them as "brand ambassadors", Michele Norris's grandmother, Ione Brown, toured mid-century America demonstrating Quaker's newfangled "ready-mix" pancakes.

Her eloquent description of her family's conflict and reflection on the potency of branding illuminates a sobering duality: what clever marketers might celebrate as memorable and evocative can also be haunting and menacingly cruel.

Here's to a new brand world.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-set-aunt-jemima-free/2020/06/17/788d0112-b0db-11ea-8758-bfd1d045525a_story.html