Rastus
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is considered highly offensive.
The name is sometimes given as Rastus, and it is likely a shortening of Erastus
Erastus of Corinth
According to the Epistle to the Romans, Erastus was Corinth's , a position of high status. The word is generally translated as "steward" or, in this context, "treasurer"; KJV uses the translation "chamberlain", NIV uses "director of public works". An Erastus is also mentioned in the Second Epistle...
, a disciple of St. Paul mentioned in Acts 19:22, Romans 16:23, and 2 Timothy 4:20. "Rastus" has been used as a generic, often derogatory, name for black men
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
at least since 1880, when Joel Chandler Harris
Joel Chandler Harris
Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years...
included a Black deacon named "Brer Rastus" in the first Uncle Remus
Uncle Remus
Uncle Remus is a fictional character, the title character and fictional narrator of a collection of African American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881...
book. However, "Rastus" has never been particularly popular as a Black name. For example, the 1870 census reported only 42 individuals named "Rastus" in the United States, of whom only four were Black or mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
.
Rastus—as any happy black man, not as a particular person—became a familiar character in minstrel show
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
s (see, for example, Every Time I Turn Around: Rite, Reversal, and the End of Blackface Minstrelsy, retrieved May 3, 2006, and Racism and Poverty in Ford City, PA, 1959: Minstrel Show, retrieved May 3, 2006), in books such as Adventures of Rufus Rastus Brown in Darktown and Rastus Comes to the Point: A Negro Farce, in popular songs such as Rastus, Take Me Back and (Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown) What You Going to Do When the Rent Comes 'Round, on radio, and in films, most notably the Rastus series of short films, with titles that included How Rastus Got His Chicken and Rastus Runs Amuck.
"Rastus" is also the name of the African-American character that first appeared on packages of Cream of Wheat
Cream of Wheat
Cream of Wheat is a porridge-type breakfast food invented in 1893 by wheat millers in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The cereal is currently manufactured and sold by B&G Foods. Until 2007, it was the Nabisco brand made by Kraft Foods. It is similar in texture to grits, but made with farina instead...
cereal in 1890 and whose image remains the Cream of Wheat trademark today. The image is believed to be from a photograph of Frank L. White
Frank L. White
Frank L. White was an African American chef best known as the model featured on Cream of Wheat breakfast cereal boxes. White was born in Barbados in 1867 before immigrating to the U.S. in 1875 and becoming a citizen in 1890...
, a Chicago chef who reportedly was paid five dollars to pose in a chef's hat and jacket. His face has been featured on the box with only slight modifications until the present day.
External links
- Connotations of the Names Rastus and Liza An analysis from outside the U.S., from the Department of Translation Studies, University of Tampere, Finland
- blackface From the personal website of william wu
- Was the Cream of Wheat Chef a Real Person? From The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia
- The Advertiser's Holy Trinity: Aunt Jemima, Rastus, and Uncle Ben From The Museum of Public Relations
- Gallery of vintage graphic design featuring Rastus
- How Rastus Got His Turkey (1910), Short film, Times Review.
- Rastus Among the Zulus (1913), Short film, from The Internet Movie Database
- Rastus Runs Amuck (1917), Short film, from The Internet Movie Database