And yet this man just got an imaginary raise, and Aunt Jemima still smiles on boxes from sea to shining sea. What gives? Uncle Ben's owners have managed him carefully over the years, raising and lowering his profile depending on mores of the day, and removing his image from the box entirely during the civil rights era. Aunt Jemima survived courtesy of a series of timely makeovers, including the one in 1989 that turned her into this pearl-wearing, Betty Crockerish grandma. Such tinkering has kept the outrage surrounding this ur-Tom and ur-mammy limited to African-American activists, and in the absence of a groundswell of black anger, the general public never felt guilted into buying a different brand. Today, no company would be dumb enough to build a brand around a black servant, but the ones now in supermarkets have been grandfathered in, rendered innocuous by the passage of time, image overhauls, and judicious wardrobe adjustments. But it's worth remembering what these spokescharacters truly are: a final, living vestige of Jim Crow America.