Cream of Wheat is the latest company to look at whether its logo needs to change.
The parent company, B&G Foods, announced a review of the packaging which shows a smiling African-American Chef.
“We understand there are concerns regarding the Chef image, and we are committed to evaluating our packaging and will proactively take steps to ensure that we and our brands do no inadvertently contribute to systemic racism,” company officials said in a press release published through Business Wire.
A black chef has been used on its package since the 1890s, but a the caricature of a black man used at the time is now considered a racial slur, CNN reported. It was replaced in the 1920s with a drawing of a Chicago chef Frank White, USA Today reported.
White’s replacement of the original art lessened the overt racism of the original design, but the stereotyped message is still there, Naa Oyo A. Kwate, an associate professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University told CNN.
“You are still referencing the place of black people as servants, as your chefs,” Kwate told CNN. “You can still draw on the legacy of what slavery meant and what black people’s natural position is supposed to be -- your own personal slave in a box.”
She has written a book about the imagery used in advertising called “Burgers in Blackface: Anti-Black Restaurants Then and Now.”
Cox Media Group
