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Uncle Ben was never racist to the same degree that Aunt Jemima was. He *was* racist to a certain degree, in that he was called Uncle the same way that Aunt Jemima was called Aunt. Back during the Jim Crow era, black people were called "Uncle" and "Aunt" by white people who wanted to show a certain amount of respect towards a black person--but they had to use those terms because it was unthinkable for a white to call a black Mr. or Mrs.

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And he was also racist in that the character played into the old stereotype of blacks using their wonderful cooking skills to serve whites, the same way that Aunt Jemima did.

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So to that degree, his character was racist. But the makers of Aunt Jemima carried it much further than that. They created an entire story about how Aunt Jemima was a former slave on the plantation of Colonel Higbee, and that she was famous all over for her wonderful pancakes, and that she loved nothing better than to make her pancakes for the white folks, she had two children that were referred to in the advertisements as "pickaninnies", how after the Civil War a Northern milling company heard about the great pancakes and asked her to come up North to show them how to make a mix for the pancakes.

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The old ads exaggerated her thick lips and white teeth standing out against her black face. Unlike Uncle Ben, she was a woman, and the character fit the stereotype of a black woman as being a physically unattractive, overweight, sexless character who wanted nothing but to serve with no monetary compensation. The ads would also have her speaking through word balloons in typical dialect: "Chile" "Gwine" "Lawsy", etc. Over and over they depicted white people sitting back in leisure to enjoy the pancakes that Aunt Jemima had slaved over. She was never shown partaking of them herself.

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For that matter, there's Rastus who is on the Cream of Wheat box, but he too was never depicted to the racist lengths that Aunt Jemima was.