Meaningful changes: Uncle Bens announces new name, leaving racism behind

Mars Inc. on Wednesday renamed its Uncle Ben’s rice products as ‘Ben’s Original’, becoming the latest to join the group of companies to address the racist origins of names or imagery. The company will also drop its mascot- an elderly Black man in a bow tie.

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“We’re still in the process of deciding on what our new iconography will be, but are committed to ensuring that it will be truly reflective of the inclusive future we are striving to create for Ben’s Original,” a Mars Food spokesperson said in a statement.

The company, which said now is the right time to make “meaningful changes,” would also partner with the National Urban League to support aspiring black chefs and will work to enhance “educational opportunities” for more than 7,500 area students in Greenville, Mississippi, where Ben’s brand has been produced for more than four decades.

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Uncle Ben is considered to have racist connotations. According to culinary historian Michael Twitty, “It is a stand-in for what white people viewed as a generation of formerly enslaved Black cooks now lost to them. As mascots, they were designed to be perceived by those white people as nothing more — and to have wanted to be nothing more — than loyal servants, in a frightening time of growing Black equality and empowerment.”

Earlier in June, another popular brand Quaker Oats had scrapped the logo of ‘Aunt Jemima’, from their packaging.