Hot cereal joins the ranks of Aunt Jemima, Eskimo and other products that have changed the brand name and image in the voice of racial justice.

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The black chef will no longer appear on the wheat cream packaging. He has been the brand’s spokesperson for more than a century. The parent company of the product vowed to re-evaluate its marketing to ensure that it made a three-month The decision announced that it did not "inadvertently promote systemic racism."

"For many years, the image of an African-American chef has appeared on our butter wheat packaging," the company B&G Foods said on Thursday. The company said that although research suggests that the image may be based on a real chef from Chicago, "it reminds some consumers of earlier descriptions that they found offensive."

It is not clear when the changes will take effect.

Cream of Wheat depicts a smiling black man in a chef's white uniform, and it hasn't changed much since its debut in the late 19th century. This character was named "Rastus", which is a derogatory term for black people. He was once portrayed as a chef who was almost illiterate and didn't know what vitamins were.

Gregory D. Smithers, a professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, said that in the mid-1920s, when a Chicago waiter was asked to pose with a chef’s hat, the chef The complexion has changed. He said that the waiter identified by some scholars as Frank White was paid $5 and no royalties.

"Because the creamy wheat'chef' used racist cartoons to perpetuate the stereotypes of subservient employment and service to whites by African Americans, the images need to be confined to the dustbin of history," Professor Smither Said.

After the killing of George Floyd (George Floyd) in Minneapolis triggered widespread protests, B&G Foods was one of several food companies that announced in June that they would re-evaluate the ethnicity of their brands, and the company has refocused on these companies. The image used for decades to sell their products.

"We understand people's concerns about the image of chefs," B&G said when announcing a review of its packaging in June.

Mars announced on September 23 that it will change the name of its Uncle Ben's rice product to Ben's Original and delete its previous image of the same name. Uncle Ben is an older black man wearing a bow tie and smiling. He has long been criticized for continuing the stereotype of black submission.

In June of this year, Quaker Oats, a subsidiary of Pepsi-Cola, stated that it would rename and rename its Aunt Jemima pancake mix and syrup, which was also criticized for its racist stereotype of portraying its title icon as a black slave.

Also in June, the maker of the 100-year-old chocolate ice cream Eskimo pie said it would discontinue the brand, while ConAgra Brands, the maker of Mrs. Butterworth's pancake syrup, said it would re-evaluate its products. Critics have long associated the shape of the bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's ConAgra product with the nanny, a cartoon of black women succumbing to whites.

"It's a bit late, but it's better to be late than not," said Todd Boyd, a professor of film and media studies at the School of Motion Picture Arts at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Catherine and Frank Price provided chairpersons for ethnic and popular culture studies. These images are from another era. They are always problematic, but until recently, these images have not been hindered over time."

He said on Saturday that isolated changes to brands such as Cream of Wheat may seem like small moves, but it is important to consider these changes as part of the overall picture.

"When you talk about racism-structural, institutional, and institutional-it is never the same thing," he said. "It represents a society built around certain ideas and certain images. Taking the stereotyped image of the black servant out of the cereal box will not end systemic racism tomorrow, but it is a larger series of myths, ideas, and Part of the idea, these myths, thoughts and ideas combined have the power to change the idea."