A major cultural reckoning with our country’s racist past has seen many once-beloved brand icons such as Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima removed from shelves, and it appears yet another memorable mascot is biting the dust for the cause of racial justice (albeit for reasons the brand seemingly concocted entirely themselves): General Mills just invented their own mythos claiming that Boo Berry was a slave owner before he died, then subsequently announced they were replacing him with a different ghost.
Huh? They had full control of his backstory, and they went with this?
The damning information about Boo Berry’s past was revealed on the back of a recent box of Boo Berry cereal, on which a ghost-shaped text box read, “Did you know? Before Boo Berry died, he owned upwards of 40 slaves!” Several days after the cereal boxes appeared on shelves, General Mills issued a press release stating, “Due to recent revelations about Boo Berry’s participation in the abhorrent institution of slavery, General Mills will be replacing him with a new mascot, Scary Barry. The cereal will feature the same great marshmallowy, berrylicious flavor you love, but it will now be known as Scary Berries. General Mills stands against racism and exploitation of any kind, as does Scary Barry, who in life marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. before being crushed to death by a wagonload of blueberries that were picked by a well-compensated staff of berry pickers on his berry plantation in Mississippi.”
What the fuck? Did they think that this would somehow make them look good?
What a perplexing marketing move. Boo Berry was never associated with racism or slavery in the least, but for some reason General Mills felt the need to make him a slaveowner and then cancel him for it. If they had wanted to pull a mascot for racism, there’s probably another one they could have used—aren’t Dunkaroos offensive to Australians or something? Regardless, now they’re going to have the anti-woke crowd after them with pitchforks for canceling Boo Berry and social justice advocates up in arms that Boo Berry was a slave owner. We’d love to see the transcript of the boardroom meeting where this decision was made for some insight into their thinking here. This is completely baffling.
