Last of De' Mo-Hee-Kins

"As American as apple pie, baseball and Aunt Jemima."

LAST OF DE' MO-HEE-KINS

Contrary to modern mythology, nothing so nourishes as milk from a black woman's breast. Andro, sterroids, human growth hormones and Up Your Gas (ephedra) are for pumped-up pussies. Winners -- smile for the camera -- choose Oprah.

Unfortunately, there just ain't enough to go around.

The result is most of America's well-heeled must make do with flaxen-haired Scandinavians and ruddy-faced Guatemalans. The handkerchief-headed mammy -- vacuum-sealed inside a glass case and opened only in cases of dire emergency -- is reserved for the ruling elite, that one percent of our classless society fingering forty percent of its wealth.

From it government-licensed perch, the television priesthood instructs MezoAmerica that demonic welfare queens are no longer fit to birth or raise children. Instead, herds of crack babies wander through dusty plains of foster care. Simultaneously, pagan juveniles and promiscuous n'er-do-wells provide fodder for the erstwhile justice system and privatized prison industry. A handful of genetic freaks do time in the NBA, NFL and MTV Raps.

Yet the outlook stays bright for the Bushes and Schwarzeneggers.

Looking for an edge against slanty-eyed competitors? Need a dose of kryptonite in the fight against evil regulators? Workers grumbling about subsistence wages and diminished purchasing power? Emancipated wife too busy, too tired, too whatever?

Get thee to Oprah.

She's sassy, brassy, saucy and soulful. Got bosoms, booty and mouth by the bowlful. A pat on the back or a kick in the butt, she's the onliest gal that can bust that nut. A marvel, a wonder, a spiritual force. She's magical dust for The Man on White Horse (and the old lady 'll love her).

Born and bred in the old/new south, she's got good home trainin'. She has the right character and the correct disposition. She possesses good, old-fashioned, anybody's-but-her-own family values. And she needn't be told her virtual place is in the home.

She knows her job is to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted. She'll make everything O-K. Overweight? Bunions? Bad hair? No account man? Her, too!

Just pick up the package, follow directions -- read a book; thumb O magazine; do some yoga; watch pederasts cry; fondle Freedom's broad chest; be transported to a land of milk, honey and virgins where children never whine, menfolk don't cheat and ladies are willingly assaulted.

An old adage says, "The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice." America been berry, berry good to Oprah.

BIG MAMA

For a coon's age, ad men have spun the bugaboos of sex and race into gold. In the late-nineteenth century, the big-lipped face on the coin of the realm belonged to Nancy Green, a 59-year-old household domestic and former Kentucky slave. By the time she died, Green had become the country's first living trademark and made fortunes for her supposed corporate benefactors.

In 1889, newspaperman Chris L. Rutt happened to hear a minstrel sing a ditty called "Aunt Jemima." Like all things Black-faced in America, the jingle proved quite popular. Rutt and a partner had recently purchased the Pearl Milling Company. With great enterprise, they pilfered the song title for a newfangled, ready-mixed pancake flour. Sadly, they went belly up before they could cash in. Another opportunist, R.T. Davis, scavenged their effort, ultimately finding a spokesperson for the product toiling in the home of a Chicago judge.

By all accounts, Green was attractive, friendly, and a great cook. A good storyteller, her ability to project a warm, appealing personality made her the ideal Aunt Jemima. (Dressed in a billowing dress, rumpled apron and broad bandanna, the image of the fat, hardy and asexual black woman served for more than a century as one of several cultural counterbalances the "delicate, pure, ultrafeminine southern woman of the Old South." )

In 1893, the handkerchief-headed debutante sidled into the American Parlor at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Standing beside the world's largest flour barrel, Green demonstrated the wonders of self-rising pancake mix, keeping up lively conversation while making and serving thousands of pancakes. She was so popular that baton-wielding policemen were assigned to keep enraptured crowds moving past the exhibition booth.

Straddling his wondrous black war elephant, R.T. Davis captured more than 50,000 orders for his here-to-for unknown product. Fair officials proclaimed Green "Pancake Queen," magnanimously awarding her a medal and certificate for showmanship. No fool, Davis signed Green to a lifetime contract and initiated a series of cross-country sales tours. In all likelihood, Davis rode first class while Green (a la Plessy v. Ferguson's "separate but equal" doctrine) languished in Jim Crow.

Foreshadowing Oprah's marketplace clout, Aunt Jemima's fame guaranteed giant arrival billboards at every promotional stop. Riding a theurgical wave of industrialized manufacture and state-of-the art advertising, her face was a widespread as that on national currency. When bag containers yielded to cardboard boxes, she remained on the label. (Before the invention of Aunt Jemima, most Americans bought flour only during lean winter months. With the pitches that pancakes were no longer exclusively for breakfast, Davis' cutting-edge promotional campaign encouraged year-round sales.)

By 1910, Aunt Jemima was recognized in all 48 states, more famous than robber barons and presidents, garnering enough popularity to attract trademark infringements. The Model T equivalent of the Name Brand, she appeared in movies, on product labels, was molded into magnets and figurines, and internalized by legions of cartoon-watching children.

(Another adman, James Webb Young, exploited the anxieties of white female housewives experiencing servant problems yet eager to please their husbands. During the early twentieth century through the 1920s, the advertising industry connected Aunt Jemima's image to the antebellum southern ideal of racial order and white leisure. This image was spread throughout the south and north. Whites who had never seen an AfroAmerican got indoctrinated through Mammy.)

Eventually, a cash-strapped Davis passed on the Aunt Jemima Mills -- and its valuable brand name -- to the larger Quaker Oats Company of Chicago. Green, meanwhile, worked as spokesperson until the day she died, ultimately struck by a car speeding through Chicago's Southside in 1923.

Cheerful celebrants at Adweek and Advertising Age neglect to note who, if anyone, stood crying as Aunt Jemima was lowered into an open grave. More important than the prospect of her economically stillborn progeny is the template of Black Woman as corporate chattel. Devoted. Obedient. Able. Willing to set aside selfish concern for principles larger than self to the benefit of boards of directors, shareholders and the greater corporate good.