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Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima. M. M. Manning. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1998. xii + 209 pp. (Paper US$14.95)
SABRINA LYNETTE THOMAS
North Carolina Central University, Department of Human Sciences
Well, the saying is still true: "You can't judge a book by its cover." At first glance, I sensed in Manring's Slave in a Box an opportunity to live out a fantasy of becoming a "Jeopardy" game-show finalist. As Manring illustrated the historiography of Aunt Jemima, I would beat him to the punchline by saying, "Who was Nancy Green?" "What is the 1893 World's Fair?" "What is pancake flour?" Or, after wagering the big bucks, "What is the intersection of race, class, and gender?" Slave in a Box, however, is far more complex than a mere game-show quiz reviewing Aunt Jemima trivia. In chapter one, Manring - unlike most writers - does not struggle to define the significance of the Aunt Jemima image in American culture. He likens that goal to the task of deconstructing jokes: "The meaning of jokes, or the dispute over whether jokes have meaning in the first place, parallels the question of whether a figure such as Aunt Jemima has any meaning." The meaningfulness of Aunt Jemima - like any...