Woking Sun Maid

With regards to Land O’Lakes woking to ethnic insensitivity, today I wrote to Sun-Maid:

Sir or Madame or your preferred non-gender-specific pronoun:

In this post-colonialist era, many corporations have developed a progressive philosophy regarding genderism in their advertising logos and in corporate philosophies concerning perceived threats to social safety. For example, many of the largest retailers in the country no longer sell handguns, assault rifles, ammunition and other items related to dangerous firearms.

The most recent corporation to recognize its responsibility in ending genderism in this country is Land O’Lakes, which last month removed from its packaging the 92-year-old stylized “Indian maiden,” who knelt in a subservient position while holding butter in her hands. The symbolism was dangerous, according to North Dakota Rep. Ruth Buffalo, who said the image “goes hand-in- hand with human and sex trafficking of our women and girls.”

With this spirit of change and progressive transformation, I insist that you remove from all your packages, pouches and boxes of raisins the ethnically incorrect “Sun Maid.”

The reasons for this demand include, but are not limited to:

Your Sun Maid obviously is a young woman of East European background. Or Ukrainian or Russian. Or Greek or Italian. Possibly Spanish or Portuguese. Maybe, but maybe not, French. She is an ethnic minority within the Caucasian grouping. Her Caucasian subset has undergone prejudicial laws and pressures at some time in history in some location.

Like the Land O’Lakes Indian Maid, your Sun Maid kneels in a subservient position. Your Sun Maid holds grapes. Grapes have long been a symbol of fertility. The combination of a young woman in a subservient position, holding symbols of fertility could lead other Caucasian girls and young women to believe their only reason for life is to work at jobs of drudgery and to utilize their fertility in producing more young girls to follow in their footsteps. In other words, their lives are without meaning in a Progressive world.

Your Sun Maid wears a bonnet, which is a symbol of servitude. Throughout history, the only women who wore bonnets were those in subservient positions within rural, agricultural societies, and whose labor was utilized in planting, caring for and harvesting crops.

Your Sun Maid also wears a white blouse. This is a Euro-centric mode of dress, in which white symbolizes purity and virginity, both demanded of women but not of men.

As you can see, your continued use of a “Sun Maid” in marketing places your corporation in a backwards, neo-colonialist grouping, in which, I am certain, you do not wish to remain. Your only recourse in removing your corporation from such coterie is to remove the sexist “Sun Maid” from your products.

A consumer interested in your well-being.