There are tiers of racism, from the bad old-fashioned kind exhibited by my paternal grandmother, who despised all Blacks so much that she claimed to have never spoken to one. Then there are those who make openly racist jokes and comments but who might be OK with minorities on a selective one-on-one basis. A few notches lower are those who genuinely wonder in the blissful naivete why we don’t have a White Entertainment Channel or history month. But when anyone along this spectrum expresses a sudden isolated concern with racism, my skeptic ears perk up (admittedly, not a difficult feat to manage).

Which brings us to Sid Miller, the Texas agriculture commissioner, whose Facebook profile lauds Donald Trump and Ted Nugent. The ag commish made a minor news splash with his trans-busting requirement that his employees show up in gender-traditional attire, as determined by Miller. No drag queens had ever reported for work, but Miller felt a need to make this pronouncement and regale in the subsequent adulation from the right-wing press. In a Facebook post this past week, he mocked brown-colored Band-Aids, not so subtlety suggesting that white should be the only flesh-toned offering. So when he expressed supposed angst over Aunt Jemima being erased from history, my aforementioned hearing appendages commenced to perking.

Miller posted that Aunt Jemima was the pseudonym of Nancy Green, who was born enslaved but once free, concocted a pancake mix and accompanying syrup, and in so doing, became the country’s first self-made Black female millionaire. She then served as the literal face the pancake mix and syrup for well over a century. But now, her history has been erased by the woke crowd. While I am dubious that Miller had a sudden epiphany about all things racial, let’s put that aside and focus on the accuracy of his claims about the rising flour spokeswoman.

The original recipe came not from Green, but from a white man, Chris Rutt, who with business associate Charles Underwood bought a flour mill and devised a self-rising, premixed flour.

Rutt then came upon a performance of “Old Aunt Jemima,” a minstrel song written by Black musician Billy Kersands. The ditty centered on a racially stereotypical Black woman who entertained and tended to a white family. Inspired, Rutt concocted a cartoonish mammy representation and slapped it on his pancake box. But sales were poor and he and Underwood sold the recipe to the R.T. Davis Milling Co.

A half-century veteran of the flour industry, Davis was a savvy enough marketer that he knew a live spokesperson could attract new customers. With that, he put out a casting call for an outgoing, captivating Black woman to cook the mix at product demonstrations. Enter Nancy Green. She was born enslaved and had the personality and kitchen abilities that made her an ideal candidate for the position.

While cooking, she sang and fascinated audience members with her stories and captivating personality. While this Aunt Jemima personification proved a boon for the business, the notion that Green shared this revenue in any appreciable way is a fabrication. So, Commissioner Miller, it’s not true. But we welcome this newfound concern over the fate of minorities, and you can continue by rescinding your dress code.