Conagra Brands reviewing Mrs. Butterworth's brand after Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben's announcements

[Moostache]

5. That - focusing on the worst offenders - is why progress is so achingly slow on equality...

First, I am white, so outside of a historical perspective and self-education, I know exactly JACK-ALL about what it means to be black, how it feels to be a minority or what systemic repression and racism does to an entire group of people for hundreds of years. If I am talking out of turn or simply have this completely wrong, please correct me and help me understand where I err in my thinking or interpretation.

But what I can say is that when something like Aunt Jemina or Uncle Ben or even Mrs. Butterworth is looked at in the abstract, they are indeed offensive symbols. Uncle Ben is obvious, so too is Aunt Jemina...they are quite literally a half-step from minstrel shows and blackface in many ways. They are also powerful marketing images in that they are widely seen in positive light by nearly all white people; and while they certainly raise an eyebrow amongst African-Americans, they probably don't ring too offensive for Hispanic-Americans or Asian-Americans. And there in lies the problem. Something that is just beneath the surface hurtful, tinged with historical analogies and analogs; and yet widely ignored, is like a splinter that is on its way to an infection and a very nasty situation. It indirectly causes pain and amplifies it when larger issues flare up. They are inflammation, not stabs or shots or worse...but they contribute to the overall condition just as surely.

These small things, the things that pass without notice or care by millions every day - mainly through ignorance or lack of recognition; simply reinforce the stereotypes and prejudices in silent strength, they act as threads that when woven together make the rope as strong and as unyielding as it appears when held...a symbol does not have to be the battle flag of the Confederacy, or the Iron Cross of the Nazi Party, or the Swastika to inflict pain and buttress systemic issues. In fact, the little things are what act as the glue to keep the whole thing going. Without these small, overlooked, unthought of and unrecognized things, the larger more obvious and more pervasive issues would be much harder to sustain and ignore.

Once people truly begin to stop and think about these "little things" and ask themself "if that were being proposed TODAY, would it have ANY CHANCE of being adopted? or promoted? or defended?"...then, change is approaching the top of the wave and coming down fast is the next step. If we continue to stay on point and continue to expand and redouble the efforts, especially for White Americans who may have been until very recently in denial or simply on the sidelines, believing in error that equality was someone else's responsibility, someone else's fight, someone else's cross to bear...

I have seen it once in my lifetime with marriage equality, which in 1993 I would have said will NEVER happen to my great and eternal shame...but it has come to pass and we're not going back. Racial injustice is so deeply ingrained in us as a society though that there are literally THOUSANDS of little things that pass unmarked or unchallenged. The fact that they are now being called out, being discussed, being changed is a positive sign that progress - real, true and lasting progress - is within reach. It is clear that so much work remains, so much ingrained behavior, speech, attitude, and symbolical imagery remain to be reconsidered, retired and rethought, but the light at the end of the tunnel is ever so brighter at the moment...and a steady elimination of small things, while continuing to push for bigger things simultaneously, is the way we win in the end.