By: Valencia Price
As I read Baldwin’s Essay “Notes of a Native Son” there was one concept that really stuck out to me. This concept was the complexity and the cultural myths behind Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom. He addresses different stereotypes that were assigned to them in his essay. For Example, “Uncle Tom, trustworthy and sexless, needed only to drop the title ‘Uncle’ to become violent, crafty, and sullen, a menace to any white woman who passed by.” (28) A stereotype for Aunt Jemima would be describing her as “pious” and “loyal.” These stereotypes are the main reason for why these figures are complex. They are complex because they were seen as being loyal and giving all for the white families, but at the same time they were still slaves. Slaves that could become an immense danger to the family if they decided to rebel. He describes the complexity by addressing the point that they had a life that was separate from taking care of the white family, but at the same time no one really knew what their life was like. They were also looked at has model black people, but at the same time could be seen as average blacks if the title were taken off their name as explained by the quote previously stated.
I also found it interesting that he did not discuss the myths behind both Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom deeper in his essay. “The myth surrounding Aunt Jemima’s secret recipe, family life, and plantation life as a happy slave all contribute to the post civil war idealism of southern life and America’s developing consumer culture. (Wikipedia: Aunt Jemima)” I feel that the myth behind these black figures is what shows the complexity with them. In my opinion he should have went into a deeper explanation of what these myths meant, so that the comparison of the new negro could fully be seen. By going deeper into the myths, the idealism of what a negro should be like in the past would show how far the new negro has came and why those figures were complex in nature in general.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_jemima
Valencia,
ReplyDeleteGreat post - a lot of really provocative ideas floating around here. The one aspect that might help to strengthen your response would be to one-up Baldwin by providing a little of the background information on Jemima. I think that you are spot on in pointing out her complexity and the complexity of Tom. You also touch on the possibility for conflict between appearances (servility) and realities (their secret personal lives, the possibility that the could pose a threat if their names were not preceded by false familial terms like "Aunt" and "Uncle."
The most interesting aspect of Jemima and Tom for me is the way that they indicate and in a way encapsulate the mixture of home and market that slavery involved. They are slaves - human chattel or property -and yet they are called by familial designations that tend to be reserved for the brothers and sisters of someone's mother or father.
In their own right, they mix markets and familiarity. Tom was the namesake of and a major character in one of the bestselling novels of all time. Although he leaves his cabin early on in the novel, the novel leaves us with his wife and children in a cabin after he has been brutally murdered by a Southern slaveholder. Jemima's origins are also particularly interesting in this regard, as your source points out. She was a minstrel show character (usually whites in blackface makeup) and the subject of a 1875 song, "Old Aunt Jemima," which was supposedly based on slave songs. Her origins are therefore supposedly black, but the sources of her popularity originate mainly with whites.
I agree with you in pointing out the significance of the myths. I find it really remarkable that Jemima is still on the shelves of our stores in the twenty-first century, even though she is unrecognizable - she certainly does not still look like Nancy Green, the former slave on which she was based. In some ways, the Jemima we see today (with her pearl earrings and "upright head")symbolizes the "New Negro." I wonder what Baldwin would say about her present incarnation.
Great post!