Butter Be Gone

Back in the day, there was a TV character on the “Howdy Doody Show” known as Chief Thunder Thud.  It appears that today’s incarnation is Chief Butter Thud.

Most Americans have long been aware of the Land O’Lakes brand of milk-based products.  Farmer-owned (and still is), the company began in 1921, and from then until the present, the logo on their products featured an artistic rendering of a fictional Native American woman named “Mia.”  She was pictured on the packaging in traditional Indian attire (or at least as was most often illustrated in history books of old).  Pictured with a smile on her face.  Nothing offensive.

Well, here in 2021, the 100th anniversary of the company’s founding, apparently offensive it now is.  That’s because they have decided to dump Mia.  It appears her “stereotypical image” is no longer considered appropriate.  That’s the polite way of saying that, today, her image in Native American attire is deemed, by some, to be “racist.”  Sorry, just can’t display the company’s “butter maiden” anymore because, as pictured, it’s racist.  You remember, racist, the word that has become so over-used in recent years to the point where it has no impactful meaning anymore, other than just passive irritation at hearing it used, over and over again.

Beyond racist, one North Dakota Representative even went the extra assumptive mile (or twelve), by also actually considering Mia’s centenarian image to go “hand in hand with human and sex trafficking of women and girls…by depicting Native women as sex objects.”  Wow, that’s one heckuva stretch from what’s simply a timeless, one-dimensional woman, surrounded by large logo letters on a label!  Perhaps I wasn’t paying close enough attention, but I don’t recall that many strange looking guys loitering around grocery store butter and cheese displays. Sounds like perhaps this elected official either hasn’t been getting enough sleep or is ignoring the label’s dosage instructions for antihistamines, or both.

Extreme over-reaction or not, 100-years of Land O’Lakes, now deemed socially unacceptable packaging image, will soon be gone.  Don’t mean to butter you up, Mia, but like far too many of America’s callously discarded traditions and values, you will be missed.

(Land O’Lakes via hotair.com, Karen Townsend, 4-17-20)