Irony, thy name is meta

A year ago I had a professor who said that Gladys Knight had served as a model for Aunt Jemima and that as a result he would never listen to Gladys Knight, Pips or no Pips. A couple of quick wiki checks, plus the added fact that Aunt Jemima was never that attractive, led me to discount his assertion.

I didn't think of it again until "Midnight Train to Georgia" came up on my shuffle this morning. For some reason my curiosity was aroused and I googled "Gladys Knight Aunt Jemima." Well I found (via google books... awesome) Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima by M.M. Manring, available in full-text excerpt, natch.

From what I could gather from the excerpt about Gladys Knight, she did appear in an Aunt Jemima commercial, though not as Aunt Jemima. Instead she's a kindly grandmother who serves her grandkids the high-fructose, high-racist stuff.

But that's not even the kicker: google has started serving text ads on google books (natch). And what were the first two ads it served up for this consciousness-raising critique of racist imagery in pop-culture? "Sexy Black Skin Care" and "African Nose Jobs." I did not follow these links, perhaps they're more positive than I suspect. I kind of doubt it though.