The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #118128   Message #2552932
Posted By: Azizi
30-Jan-09 - 11:01 AM
Thread Name: BS: Modern Day Uncle Toms & Aunt Jemimas
Subject: RE: BS: Modern Day Uncle Toms & Aunt Jemimas
Also, fwiw, that Wikipedia page notes that "Today, "Beulah" and "Aunt Jemima" are regarded as more or less interchangeable as terms of disparagement"...

I've never heard or read the name "Beulah" as an term of dispargement. But maybe I don't hang in the right crowds or see the right television shows, or listen to the right radio talk shows, or read the right books, magazines, newspapers, or online blogs...

Imo, "Beulah" is mostly found in African American communities as one of those common names for Baptist churches {I'm not exaggerating when I say that you could visit any US city that has a sizable population of Black folks and find a Beulah Baptist Church, a Macedonia Baptist Church, a Ebenezer Baptist Church, a Union Baptist Church, and First Baptist Church and a Second Baptist Church}.

That said, the female personal name "Jemima" appears to have been rarely given to Black females since at least the early 1940s. And the female name "Beulah" and the male names "Rufus" and Leroy, to cite a few, are negatively regarded by many contemporary African Americans as being old timey names. These names and such female "double names" as "Ora Lee" and "Lula Mae" have similar if not the same "country" connotations as the Aunt Jemima song in the Talley collection.

Okay, I was really on a roll, but I've caught myself. I'll stop with there with my off-topic comments.

:o)