Monday - September 15, 2008

Show Me

I’m a little behind the news curve today, but I’ll try to catch up. This was going around a couple days ago ...

A box of Obama Waffles is seen in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008. A vendor at a conservative political forum was selling boxes of waffle mix depicting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as a racial stereotype on its front and wearing Arab-like headdress on its top flap. The product was meant as political satire, said Mark Whitlock and Bob DeMoss, two writers from Franklin, Tenn., who created the mix and sold it for $10 a box at the Values Voter Summit sponsored by the lobbying arm of the Family Research Council.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Ok, aside from the “lipstick on a pig” addition, this is a pretty reasonable caricature of what the man actually looks like. I didn’t see a picture of the top flap, but we’ve all seen the picture of OBambam actually wearing that kind of clothing, taken during one of his trips to Africa. It’s not like the artist had to make anything up out of ... whole cloth.

Yes, there is a brand of pancake/waffle mix on the market that features a black lady on the box. That brand has been around, with her image, longer than Obama has been alive. Seems to me that Aunt Jemima shed her “mammy” image decades ago ... even Mrs. Butterworth is an elderly white lady these days (was she ever black? We never bought that brand.)

Notice that the parody box doesn’t even use the AJ color scheme or placement design. If anything, it’s only marginally reminiscent of the Bisquick product, because the colors are different, the “swoosh” is absent from the logo, and the placement object is waffles instead of pancakes:

The term “waffles” dates from the Carter era I think, and means the same as “flip flops”: someone whose political beliefs and statements change all the time.

So, show me the racial stereotyping. PLEASE. I honestly invite our more PC aware readers to point this out to me, because I don’t see it. If you make your case, and you use the Waffles = Aunt Jemima = mammy = slavery, therefore Obama Waffles = Racism argument, then please also show me how any black person who eats pancakes or waffles or any breakfast product is not automatically an Uncle Tom.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/15/2008 at 10:21 AM   
Filed Under: • Racism and race relations •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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