It's time to free Aunt Jemima

You remember the story of Aunt Jemima. She was a slave on the Higbee plantation in Louisiana. In 1864, at the height of the Civil War, a Confederate general became separated from his troops and stumbled across Aunt Jemima's cabin as she was making pancakes. She sat the general down in her warm but humble kitchen and fed him his first square meal for three days. After that, Aunt Jemima was mentioned in rebel dispatches as a fine cook 'who was known all ovah the South fo' huh cookin' skill, specially fo' huh pancakes'.

It is only a story, of course. Aunt Jemima was the invention of Chris Rutt, a Missouri businessman who had created a self-raising pancake mix in 1889 and needed a name and a gimmick to go with it. A popular song in vaudeville at the time was entitled 'Aunt Jemima' and Rutt chose it 'because it just naturally made me think of good cooking'. But by the time Rutt's recipe had been co-opted by the Quaker Oats company, Aunt Jemima was the jolly, smiling 'mammy' with her head covered in a red bandana. She had become a legend.

In the Sixties, the legend was attacked by black power leaders for promoting black stereotypes, and the Quaker Oats company modified her looks. In 1968, Aunt Jemima lost most of her generous girth and was given a more stylish headband. By 1989 she had magically become even thinner and had discarded her bandana altogether. She was also given a perm and a pair of pearl ear-rings - the full trappings of the American middle class of any colour.

Now, Aunt Jemima has been through another transformation. The new spokesperson for her pancakes, and her syrup, is Gladys Knight, the popular soul singer of such oldies as 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' and 'Midnight Train To Georgia'. Ms Knight's syrup-slurping grandchildren can be seen on television, having breakfast with the singer as she belts out the company's new jingle, 'Now You're Cookin' '.

This adaptation has generated a whole new wave of protests; clearly it is time for Aunt Jemima to retire altogether. Grandma Gladys, now 50, should not be allowing herself to be exploited by the wealthy, white-owned corporations that are profiting by exploiting degrading images of African-Americans.

Even industry insiders have criticised the campaign. Ken Smikle, the publisher of Target Market News, a Chicago-based advertising trade newsletter, says that Aunt Jemima should be allowed out of the kitchen along with Uncle Ben (of rice fame). Rastus (of Cream of Wheat, a sort of Southern porridge) was freed years ago.

What's puzzling is that corporate America would seem to have an interest in not perpetuating black stereotypes. A new study by economists at the University of Georgia predicts that the buying power of blacks will increase by 34 per cent during the first half of this decade - double the rate of inflation and nearly 5 per cent faster than the US population as a whole.

Over the past 10 years, advertisers have doubled to dollars 803m ( pounds 503m) the amount they spend targeting black consumers. Even with this increase in ads, blacks still feel ignored by the advertisers. A majority - 59 per cent - said in a poll last year that they felt television, radio and print ads were 'designed only for white people'. One reason they feel this is that only 1 per cent of the creative professionals in advertising agencies are black.

Old dogs, even on Madison Avenue, have trouble learning new tricks, of course. For too long advertising made blacks into figures of fun, exaggerating facial features, portraying them as perpetrators of uncivilised behaviour, suggesting their wanton sexuality, or painting them as inferior folk with a craving for watermelon.

One has only to thumb through a new book entitled Mammy And Uncle Mose by Kenneth Goings, Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University, to see how degrading some of these images are. Mr Goings examines the production of advertisements and so- called black collectables - objects made in or with the image of a black person. He points to everyday items, from postcards and salt- and-pepper shakers, to black 'Jacko' statuettes of the kind Virginians used to put on their front lawns. One of the offensive items is an alligator-shaped letter- opener, with the head of a black man in its mouth.

Pull the head out and it becomes a pencil. These items helped to reinforce the racist ideology that emerged after Reconstruction - and continued into the Fifties - showing black people as bug-eyed, stupid, lazy and deferential -but, of course, happy in their work, like Aunt Jemima.

A 1918 ad for Aunt Jemima pancakes in the Ladies' Home Journal read: 'Yo' know how de men folks an de young folks all loves my tasty pancakes, an' you can make dem fo' dem jiffy quick, an jus' right every time, wid my magic-ready- mix.' A Fifties Quaker Oats' ad for pancakes expanded on the Aunt Jemima legend, showing her serving pancakes to young white couples on a paddle-steamer. The caption read: 'River boats often stopped at Higbee plantation and Col Higbee entertained the cast. Part of the hospitality was Aunty Jemima's tender, light and flavourful pancakes, served outdoors, picnic-style.'

Offensive though the history is, Aunt Jemima is not expected to be liberated in the near future. She still brings in revenue of dollars 200m a year. Her continued presence on the pancake-mix packet tells us more about the unwillingness of corporate America to throw out its historical baggage than it does about the progress of the black consumer.