It was date night in the upmarket, ever-fashionable Ivy restaurant, and it was all going so well. The lights were dimmed and we had shared some champagne and zucchini fritti, but the frivolity soon dissipated when the dessert menu arrived. Listed on the pages of puddings before me was a “Plantation” rum-soaked sponge with chantilly cream and raspberries. “Plantation” rum. Hmm (rather than “Mmm”). My dad is Jamaican. My ancestors were slaves. Here I was, the only person of colour in the restaurant, choking on the P-word.
Why is it, despite all the diversity and inclusion awareness that followed the Black Lives Matter movement, that businesses still feel the need to use “plantation” as a selling point? Woodlands may use the term in an agricultural sense, but elsewhere – from wharfs and window dressings to weddings (J-Lo and Ben Affleck’s recent nuptials at his Georgia estate included) – it’s bandied around, fetishised even, to connote luxury, class and status.
As we journeyed home, through leafy streets lined with handsome period properties, we saw the crowning glory of window treatments: “plantation” shutters. A popular choice – but, as we know, they take their name from the southern antebellum estates that were intrinsically linked to slavery. It’s a design term (and style) with a problematic past. Why, then, do we continue to worship a trend that glorifies plantation living?
If so inclined, you can take a riverbus to Plantation Wharf in Battersea, south-west London, where a controversial pier and luxury development is named after its links to the transatlantic slave trade. The selling point here is to enjoy the luxury, never mind the stigma: a two-bedroom penthouse with “onsite amenities including a concierge” will set you back more than £1.2m. But don’t expect too much diversity. It’s distastefully positioned, you may think, on Cotton Row, and is unlikely to appeal to buyers of colour.
Last year, a spokesperson for Uber Boat by Thames Clippers, the owners and managers of the Plantation Wharf pier, pledged a review of the name. The owners of the development also launched a consultation amid a race row, backed by the local MP, Marsha de Cordova, who described the site as “sickening”. But still it endures.
The makers of Plantation rum, which is produced at a Barbados-based distillery, acknowledge the problem. In 2020, they announced that while the company’s founder, Alexandre Gabriel, originally named the brand to describe “a large farm”, it would change its name to evolve and support the global dialogue around racial equality. “We understand the hurtful connotation the word ‘plantation’ can evoke to some people, especially in its association with much graver images and dark realities of the past,” said Gabriel, the rum’s creator and master blender. Progress, perhaps, but it’s been more than two years since that statement (which is how long they originally said the rebrand would take). Maybe a downturn in custom will escalate things.
Having considered my own complaint, the Ivy made a more pressing and palatable change. It has removed all “Plantation” rum products (including that offensive pud) from its restaurants, bars and menus. The company that owns the Ivy also owns some of London’s finest eateries, such as J Sheekey, Sexy Fish and the celebrity favourite Scott’s, along with more than 30 brasseries and cafes across the UK and Ireland. I’m still digesting the news, but, wow – I did that. I forced change on a British institution.
Does this matter? Yes. It matters that all around us we see reminders of a painful past, and then feel the indignity of knowing that the words and images of historic colonial exploitation are being deployed, even offered to us, as brands and items produced for someone’s commercial gain. It matters that once you really see these things, it is difficult to unsee them. Either you come to terms with them, or you decide that this is not the way for diverse societies to behave, and resolve to act.
These brands and images, these indignities and slights, have perhaps always been there. But one night, on date night, I saw “Plantation” rum on the menu, thought about the history and connotations, and thought: enough. It was my own little protest, but that’s how wider change often starts.
Rachelle Ferron is head of entertainment at ITV’s Good Morning Britain
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
