In 1790, one of the first acts of Congress was the Naturalization Act of 1790, which restricted citizenship to white males of good character. It was also the year King Arthur Flour was founded in the United States, to import high-quality flour from Europe. In the Year of our Dark Lord George Floyd (2020), this company decided to change its name (and logo) to King Arthur Baking.
Gone was the white knight logo of King Arthur and in his esteemed place (can’t have a white king peddling flour after George Floyd’s death at the hands of every white American, right?) was a crown of wheat.
Well… now the company is going after only celebrating non-white bakers.
King Arthur Baking Company announced that it will hold a baking competition, with a grand prize of $10k going to the winner.
The catch? White bakers are barred from competing.
King Arthur took down the page following our @realDailyWire inquiry:https://t.co/82julnIYSU
In the post–George Floyd world, isn’t this what every contest should do to honor the patron saint of anti-whiteness?
Baking Company Hosts Competition Barring White Participants: The winner of the competition will be entitled to a $10,000 cash prize but only those designated as ‘people of color’ are allowed to compete, by Spencer Lindquist, The Daily Wire, January 11, 2024
A Vermont-based baking company is under fire for hosting a competition that barred white contestants from participating, an attempt to “foster greater inclusivity” in the world of baking.
The 2024 Baking Pitchfest, hosted by King Arthur Baking, says it will provide “equitable opportunities for People of Color entrepreneurs,” gracing the winners with “financial support, brand exposure, and mentorship to help accelerate their businesses.”
The competition is billed as an “accelerator program,” and will consist of two parts, a product edition and a bakery edition, which are limited to those defined as a “person of color led business” and a “person of color led bakery” respectively.
Winners of the baking edition will receive a grand prize of $10,000, “brand-building exposure through features on King Arthur Baking marketing,” as well as one-on-one business consulting and a free membership to the Bread Bakers Guild of America.
King Arthur Flour specifies their use of the term “POC” or “people of color,” explaining that the phrase is “defined as Asian or Pacific Islander; Black or African American; Hispanic or Latinx; Indigenous or Native American; Middle Eastern or North African.”
King Arthur appeared to take down the page advertising the contest following an inquiry from The Daily Wire.
The competition comes as institutions across the country, from multi-billion dollar corporations to Ivy League universities, embrace the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda, adopting discriminatory practices and policies in the name of anti-racism.
“Pitchfest 2024 is a testament to our commitment to fostering a more inclusive baking community and empowering creative POC leaders in the industry,” King Arthur Baking’s corporate social responsibility manager Molly Lawerence remarked.
King Arthur Flour is hosting the competition in cooperation with Project Potluck, which refers to itself as “the largest professional community inclusively for People of Color (POC) in Consumer Packaged Goods.” Business Insider praised the organization’s attempts at “lifting up minorities in the overwhelmingly white consumer goods and food industry.”
Project Potluck also decries the status of the industry on its website, remarking that “founders, leaders and professionals are overwhelmingly white” but reassuring that “we are here to change that.”
“Baking Pitchfest 2024 is more than a competition; it’s a platform for empowering People of Color to break barriers and redefine the narrative in baking,” the organization’s executive director Kathleen Casanova stated.
King Arthur Baking and the Baking Pitchfest have since been blasted online by customers, with one former customer going viral after saying she would no longer be buying flour from the company.
The company once was unabashedly celebratory of not just King Arthur, but whiteness and Europeans.
Is Your Bread White Enough?: King Arthur Baking Company’s Racist Marketing History, by Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh, Medium, November 24, 2020
The ad campaign relied on lighthearted play, but it was effective because it promised much more to consumers than just high quality baked goods. Under the guise of flour, King Arthur was selling American exceptionalism and white power. The company’s promotional strategies capitalized on the racist and xenophobic rhetoric already circulating around bread, specifically white bread, at the time. In one famous record from McClure’s Magazine, Dr. Woods Hutchinson, a nineteenth-century health writer, proclaimed that “White flour, red meat, and blue blood make the tricolor flag of conquest.”
Is Your Bread White Enough?: King Arthur Baking Company’s Racist Marketing History | by ACMRS Arizona | The Sundial (ACMRS) | Medium. Racism … this company promotes #racism https://t.co/jZNoz6o2NM
— pattibader (@pattibader) January 10, 2024
Now, white people aren’t even allowed to compete in King Arthur Bakery baking contests. We were a proper country once. Sadly, that country, along with the awesome marketing prowess of King Arthur Flour, is gone.
Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE) levels everything worth celebrating and promoting, because inherently, America was founded by whites, for whites, and for the posterity of whites.
