Miranda Holmes 10/09/13Rhetorical Analysis

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Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima?

Emotionally stirring works are rarely found in the form of fabric and stitches.

Less common still are mundane bed sheets that make gender and racial statements. Yet

stitched, painted, feminist, and racially argumentative are all adjectives that can describe

Faith Ringgold’s story quilt Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima? Through both the story she

tells as well as through the visual and material aspects of this piece, Ringgold makes the

argument that despite the difficulties black women face in a white-male dominated world,

they can still rise up in society and make a name for themselves.

Ringgold grew up in Harlem during the 1930s and 40s with her father and mother,

who was a fashion designer. She received her Masters of Arts in 1959, and in the 1970s

she became highly involved in feminist and anti-racist organizations (Hale). Since

Ringgold is a black female activist, her works as an artist circulate around the theme of

black females in the community and the power that they hold. Her credibility is

established through her activist work, making her artistic pieces of much more value. All

these elements of her past, including her exposure to fabric textiles through her mother’s

work to her participation in activist organizations play major roles specifically in her

piece, Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima?

This work establishes one of the artist’s turning points in her career. It is the first

in a series of story quilts she made during the 1980s that deal with feminist and racial

issues. During this time, Ringgold was trying to get her autobiography published, but no

publishers were interested in her story, so she began to make story quilts illustrating her

life (Ringgold, “Biography”). The significance of employing a story quilt to get her

message across comes from the history of making quilts:

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There has been a strong African-American quilt-making tradition, influenced by

the weaving done by the men in Africa, and brought to America with the slaves, where

women continued the tradition. Quilts in the African-American slave community served

various purposes: warmth, preserving memories and events, storytelling, and even as

"message boards" for the Underground Railroad… (Doyle).

By referencing her culture and its heritage as a slave community, Ringgold

evokes the idea of passing down the feminine tradition of quilt making, and by doing so,

she passes down stories in her community, specifically to women. In her quilts, she

conveys stories of discrimination and hardship, but more importantly, of African-

Americans and females overcoming it all. “Preserving memories” is important so that a

minority won’t forget their heritage, so that they can build on their past and continue

making new stories of hope. Thus, this medium allows the work of art to contain much

more than “purely pictorial intentions”; by providing warmth as well as familiar stories to

those who use it, the quilt functions to both visually engage and to bind a community

(Doyle). Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima? follows in the footsteps of this tradition,

providing a sort of family tree, and recounting the story of Jemima, a fictional character

whose life relates loosely to Ringgold’s own life.

The story, written in vernacular with uneven lettering, follows the life of Jemima,

the daughter of Pa Blakely and Ma Tillie, whose grandparents were freed from slavery.

She falls in love with a white man, Big Rufus, and they elope due to her parents’

disapproval of him. They begin working hard for a wealthy couple, but when the couple

dies, Jemima and Big Rufus inherit all of their money, and decide to move to Harlem to

open a restaurant. They start a family; their daughter, Georgia, takes after her dad

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because she has white skin, and their son, Lil Rufus, has black skin. In their old age,

Jemima and Big Rufus die in a car accident and Georgia and her husband inherit the

restaurant. The story ends with the line, ‘Now, who’s afraid of Aunt Jemima?’ (Ringgold

1983). Jemima and her family are dressed in luxurious clothing; Jemima is even sporting

a grandiose hat and a pearl necklace. Further, there are portraits along the sides of the

quilt of well-dressed black women, and it is important to note that all the characters are

very cartoonish with broad shoulders, little arms, and blank stares suggesting a childish

style. While the written story contains some true elements of Ringgold’s life, it’s mostly

fictional; however, the visual aspects of the piece speak strongly to the artist’s ideologies.

Through her use of materials, along with a strong female character, Ringgold

makes the statement that despite being dealt with unfair circumstances, black women can

still be successful in life. By choosing to make a quilt, Ringgold hints at her own roots

since her mother was a fashion designer, but she also makes a deeper statement about

society and femininity. Women typically sew and make quilts so they are seen as

feminine objects. Further, fabric is not a strong material; it is easily manipulated and

pliable. Ringgold contrasts the softness of the material with a strong female character in

her story. Since Jemima is black, and her daughter has white skin, she must deal with

racial issues: “Jemima’d blow up like a balloon when folks say’d she was Georgia’s

maid. Georgia’d laugh and call her ma Aunt Jemima…” to which Jemima responds to her

prideful daughter, “‘You ain no more’n your ma’” (Ringgold 1983). Even Jemima’s

daughter mocks her about her skin color, calling her “Aunt Jemima”. The significance of

this epithet comes from the typical black “mammy” figure popular in early cinematic and

literary works. In the early 19th century, black women playing significant parts were

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almost always placed in servile or domestic roles. One such example is Mammy, played

by Hattie McDaniels, in “Gone with the Wind” (Wallace). Even more important is the

cultural reference to the figure Aunt Jemima who is the face of a pancake mix and syrup.

Since Aunt Jemima is tied to the domestic task of cooking, she fits the archetypal

feminine role of a woman stuck in the kitchen. Even the Aunt Jemima syrup bottle is

modeled after a robust, busty, apron-donning, homebody kind of woman, again thrusting

the black woman into this eternal role as an obedient yet subservient domestic. When

Georgia ridicules her mother by calling her “Aunt” Jemima, she is at once putting her

into this black servile role as the mammy serving her white counterpart, and also exiling

her to the kitchen of femininity. Yet, since Jemima puts her daughter in her place, and is

depicted as a successful businesswoman dressed in upper-class clothes, Ringgold makes

the statement that even though factors, such as a weak material, and a belittling epithet,

work against Jemima (the personification of black women) she still beats the odds,

embodying the thriving working woman, not the feminine mammy. Here, the title is

significant; since Jemima rejects the commonplace role as a “mammy”, do the viewers,

possibly white male art critics, fear her power?

The artist’s use of a childish style and color blocking references important

historical trends in art, through which Ringgold stresses the inequalities for female artists.

Ringgold blurs the line between “high” art and craft; can quilts be considered museum-

worthy pieces, or rather should they be kept in the home hung in the dining room or laid

out on a bed? Faith Ringgold painted the figures on canvas and then stitched them into

the quilt, so the material was not deterring her from creating a realistic image. Choosing

to paint distorted figures with lop-sided shoulders, limp arms, and expressionless faces

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allowed Ringgold to make a statement about female artists. Non-artists often describe

twentieth century art as “irregular” or that “a child could have done that”. Picasso’s

famous work, “The Weeping Woman”, for example, is painted with a distorted face,

including eyes that are too far up on the forehead, and a nose that is proportionally too

large for the face, both “errors” that a child typically makes when painting a portrait.

Since Ringgold and Picasso both paint their figures in a childish way, what makes critics

consider Picasso’s piece as high art, and Ringgold’s piece as borderline craft? Here,

Ringgold makes the argument to her audience, which includes art critics (a field

dominated by white males), that pieces are considered differently based on the artist’s

gender and skin color. Additionally, the similarities between the color blocking patterns

on the quilt and the Cubist movement are important to note. Since quilts with blocks and

triangles of color have been made by women for centuries, and artists only began

exploring Cubism during the 20th century, Ringgold makes the argument that women

were creating this blocking effect long before Picasso or Braque. Credited with

establishing this technique are not the female quilt-makers, but the male painters. Despite

the many points Ringgold makes about the inequality of artists, she still keeps her

message hopeful, since in the story component, Jemima rises up in society despite her

skin color and gender. Not only is this represented visually, but also the same theme is

found in the story Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima?

The story component is written entirely in casual vernacular, adding to the idea

that black women are born into a society that is often viewed by the dominating class as

uneducated, thus showing they must work against the odds to be successful in life. The

story follows a family whose ancestors were slaves, and they make their fortune not by

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going to college, but through hard work in the catering and restaurant businesses.

Sentences are written in a choppy, conversation manner, as if someone was orally telling

the story. Phrases like, “Georgia, Jemima’s daughter, was high yaller likena her pa, Big

Rufus”, and “Jemima up and married Big Rufus anyway, and they run off to Tampa…

cookin, cleanin and takin care a they chirrun” (Ringgold, 1983), are written in the typical

vernacular often tied to African Americans. The sentences are ungrammatical and use

incorrect words that only make sense when spoken aloud. Her message is that people

don’t have to use correct grammar or be highly educated to be successful in life. Black

women are one of the most underprivileged minorities in the United States, so some may

not have the option of higher education available to them. By closely relating to her

community’s language, Ringgold creates a pathos-ridden message to her African

American audience. Again, since the artist writes about a successful black woman who

did not attend college, but worked hard to get to her status in life, she supports the idea

that black women may have a disadvantage in society, but that doesn’t mean they cannot

be successful. Jemima, pictured in an opulent dress with an extravagant necklace, hat,

and feather, and a sly smile on her face, is the embodiment of this resilient black female

figure.

Ringgold’s activist work for black and female improvement during the 1980s is

still relevant today. She and her contemporaries laid the groundwork for black female

rights through protests and artwork alike, but the struggle will not be over for years to

come. The topic of women’s rights was hot during the 1980s; the Equal Rights

Amendment affirming gender equality in the United States was nearly added to the

Constitution in 1982, but narrowly missed ratification (Francis). Since Ringgold’s piece

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was finished in 1983, her moment of addressing the issue of gender inequality was spot

on. By creating a piece directly relating to the important issues at the time, Ringgold took

a stance and became an spokeswoman through her art and her activism. Due to the

rhetorical “kairos” out of which this work of art arose, Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima? has

become a historically important piece in art history as well as in the history of women’s

rights. In this way, Ringgold mirrors her character again; Ringgold made a name for

herself through hard work and by fighting against racial inequalities, much like our no-

nonsense character Jemima. In addition, Ringgold fought alongside black female

activists, and on the quilt are portraits of well-dressed black figures encircling and

supporting Jemima. Since these issues are still relevant 30 years later, both Ringgold and

Jemima are perpetually marked as trailblazers for the minority, and spokeswomen for the

voiceless. In this way, Jemima, the quintessence of the powerful black female, has

become larger-than-life, and certainly larger than any plastic syrup bottle. So, the

question begs to be asked; Are you afraid of her now?

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Works Cited

Doyle, Nancy. "Artist Profile: Faith Ringgold." Nancy Doyle Fine Art. N.p., n.d. Web. 9

Oct 2013. <http://www.ndoylefineart.com/ringgold.html>.

Francis, Roberta. "The History Behind the Equal Rights Amendment." The Equal Rights

Amendment . National Council of Women's Organizations. Web. 6 Oct 2013.

<http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/history.htm>.

Hale, Christy. "Faith Ringgold." Instructor. Jan/Feb 2004: n. page. Web. 8 Oct. 2013.

<http://search.proquest.com/docview/224389273>.

Ringgold, Faith. "Biography, Faith Ringgold." Scholastic. n.d. n. page. Web. 6 Oct. 2013.

<http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/contributor/faith-ringgold>.

Ringgold, Faith. Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima?. 1983., acrylic paint, textile

Wallace, Michele. "Whose Afraid of Aunt Jemima? (1983) by Faith Ringgold." Black

Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman Revisited. N.p., 29 Feb 2012. Web. 6

Oct. 2013. <http://blackmachorevisited.blogspot.com/2012/02/whose-afraid-of-

aunt-jemima-painted.html>.

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