What is origin of word "tarbaby"?
KM
seem to have a broadbase of factual knowledge so, here goes.
At a staff meeting of a bunch of civil rights attorneys the other day,
one of the bosses used the term "tarbaby" to refer to what I thought
it was, a sticky thing like flypaper that, once touched attached
itself to the hand, then to the other hand as the person struggles to
free himself, then to the first foot, etc.
However, another person said in her experience this was a racially
derogatory term and that, at her high school graduation, a speaker
used the term and the student body walked out in protest. She said it
had the meaning of pickaninny (ph). Well, obviously our perspectives
are different,--she's African American, I'm Italian, she's from
Memphis, I'm from Reno, she's a she, I'm a he, she knows what
pickaninny (ph) is, I don't have a clue, etc. But one thing we did
have in common was a memory for the word tarbaby, and those memories
were distinctly different. Just what does this word mean? (Could you
throw in an explanation of pickaninny?).
David Hatunen
Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris, also the source of the
Brer Rabbit stories:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/anatar.html
Actual story at:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/tar-baby.html
I seem to recall that the tarbaby story was included in Disney's
live-action/animated feature "Song of the South", which is not seen
much these days because of the racial implications.
Harris was a white Southern writer who basically transmitted much
of the folktales of the slaves, in dialect, and the tarbaby would
not have been original with him.
--
********** DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@sonic.net) ***********
* Daly City California (Tucson AZ as of 20010303) *
******* My typos are intentional copyright traps ******
jerryG
> seem to have a broadbase of factual knowledge so, here goes.
>
> At a staff meeting of a bunch of civil rights attorneys the
> other day, one of the bosses used the term "tarbaby" to refer
> to what I thought it was, a sticky thing like flypaper that,
> once touched attached itself to the hand, then to the other
> hand as the person struggles to free himself, then to the first
> foot, etc.
The boss may have been referring to a project that everybody is avoiding
because it is doomed to failure, being thrown into the hands of an
unsuspecting employee. Then the project and all associated risks are
stuck to that particular employee. So, does this project involve
investigating Jesse Jackson's finances?
<snip>
Jerry "managing niggardly" G
--
I like to play with things a while, before...
annihilation. Ming the Merciless
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Deborah Stevenson
It's actually two words, and it's what it looks like--a tar baby, which is
best known in Joel Chandler Harris' variant of the story, where a fake
critter is made out of tar in order to catch somebody who gets annoyed and
punches it (I think it's actually Brer Rabbit himself who gets stuck, and
it's when he's detached that he begs his captor not to throw him in the
briar patch). It's a classic trickster tale, common in many areas of
Africa and, I believe, the West Indies. The sticky substance is common
throughout and Harris' retelling isn't the only one to have tar in it,
though other variants involve honey and something else I forget at the
moment under the influence of cold medicine.
Harris' retellings have definite folkloric and literary value. There are
enduring questions about folklorists and cultural cooptation (which are a
big issue about contemporary retellings as well), however, and the slavery
framework of the tales is problematic to some eyes. Probably more
significant, however, is the way the tales and the phrases from them have
picked up other meanings in the culture, so that "tar baby" has been used
denigratingly even though it's not initially a putdown in Harris' version
or the other variants.
Piccaninny, according to the OED, comes from the Spanish "pequeno" meaning
small, probably via the Portuguese "pequenino," meaning very tiny.
Nothing to do with picking ninnies, as the folk etymology has it.
A term's inoffensive origin doesn't necessarily relieve it of being
offensive, however.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
HWM
> Piccaninny, according to the OED, comes from the Spanish "pequeno" meaning
> small, probably via the Portuguese "pequenino," meaning very tiny.
> Nothing to do with picking ninnies, as the folk etymology has it.
Whereas in the West Indies it is used as a regular expression in some of
the dialects, the shorter form 'pickney' as an endearing term for a
small child.
BTW a Jamaican may get a spell of "niggaritis" after a hefty lunch.
Saying that might cause some raised eyebrows a few hundred miles up
north.
> A term's inoffensive origin doesn't necessarily relieve it of being
> offensive, however.
Ha ha ha. A Barbadian managed to say "Comya 'ere fat bwoy I show you dem
ropes..." to a quite large gentleman on the ship. Calling a big person
"fat boy" is a friendlier term in Barbados apparently than in the US, as
the gentleman got pretty riled. Don't remember which was worse, being
called 'boy' or 'fat'... Americans get too easily offended considering
they've contributed the world with the one-finger salute even my 75-year
old dad uses to the horror of my mom.
--
Cheers, HWM | The conformity of purpose will |
hen...@iobox.fi | be achieved through the mutual |
http://www.nullwave.net | satisfaction of requirements.|
Andrew McMichael
Do people actually look at the background color/texture versus the
text formatting before they post pages?
--
Andrew McMichael "Today I learned that the
Assistant Editor History Channel is not
Papers of Thomas Jefferson always accurate."
Princeton University -- Joe Bruno in AFU
tolepai...@yahoo.com
> have in common was a memory for the word tarbaby, and those memories
> were distinctly different. Just what does this word mean? (Could you
> throw in an explanation of pickaninny?).
>
Piccaninny is a West Indian variation on the Spanish pequeno or
pequenino meaning diminutive or tiny one. It entered English around
1687. Applied to small, black children, originally it was a term of
endearment.
Lifted completely from this source:
http://www.wordorigins.org/home.htm
My piss-poor Random House Webster's College Dictionary prefers the
spelling "pickaninny," but allows "piccaninny" and "picaninny." It
agrees with the above etymology, but says that the word was probably
first used in the period between 1645 and 1655.
RH Webster's agrees with the Uncle Remus origin of "tarbaby," and
defines it as "an inextricable problem or situation." It makes no
mention of any racist origin or connotation.
Yours in Christ,
Lisa "probably should avoid them both" Lundgren
Nathan Tenny
Andrew McMichael <amcm...@princeton.edu> wrote:
[quoting i-dunno-who]
>> Actual story at:
>> http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/tar-baby.html
>
>Do people actually look at the background color/texture versus the
>text formatting before they post pages?
Huh? Looks fine to me, even if I violate my principles and allow the
server to control the document's presentation. You got yer browser
set to a rilly rilly little font or something?
NT
--
Nathan Tenny | Words I carry in my pocket, where they
Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA | breed like white mice.
<nten...@qualcomm.com> | - Lawrence Durrell
Randy Poe
>I know this is not the exactly right group to ask, but people here
>seem to have a broadbase of factual knowledge so, here goes.
alt.fan.cecil-adams might have been more appropriate. I'm crossposting
there.
>
>At a staff meeting of a bunch of civil rights attorneys the other day,
>one of the bosses used the term "tarbaby" to refer to what I thought
>it was, a sticky thing like flypaper that, once touched attached
>itself to the hand, then to the other hand as the person struggles to
>free himself, then to the first foot, etc.
The reference is from one of "Uncle Remus" stories, a series of
stories published in the late 1800s by Joel Chandler Harris. The
narrator of the stories is a slave called Uncle Remus, and they are
written in dialect. According to this site:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/bio.html
Harris was actually sympathetic and the stories feature the slaves
outwitting the masters.
Here's the Tar-Baby story, on the same site:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/tar-baby.html
Read it for yourself and decide.
>
>However, another person said in her experience this was a racially
>derogatory term and that, at her high school graduation, a speaker
>used the term and the student body walked out in protest. She said it
>had the meaning of pickaninny (ph).
The only sense I've heard it in comes directly from the story: It's a
thing that as soon as you touch it, you stick to it and can't get
loose, and any attempt to get loose gets you more trapped. A
particularly messy scandal might be described as a "tarbaby". I
suppose a really ugly political Usenet thread could too.
As for "pickaninny", that is indeed a highly-charged derogatory term
for a small child of African descent. It's a nasty word. No connection
to "tarbaby" except through the concepts of "dark" and "baby" in the
minds of the easily offended.
- Randy
Andrew McMichael
>
> In article <3A79BCB4...@princeton.edu>,
> Andrew McMichael <amcm...@princeton.edu> wrote:
> [quoting i-dunno-who]
> >> Actual story at:
> >> http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/tar-baby.html
> >
> >Do people actually look at the background color/texture versus the
> >text formatting before they post pages?
>
> Huh? Looks fine to me, even if I violate my principles and allow the
> server to control the document's presentation. You got yer browser
> set to a rilly rilly little font or something?
"Little?" I dunno. It was set to 12 point. If I set it to 14 then it
looks better, but the black-speckeled background sort of makes it
weird.
Of course, I'm on a laptop right now, so that may be part of it.
Andrew "my selpcheker tries to replace 'Tenny' with 'Teeny'"
McMichael
Nathan Tenny
>In article <vd9j7tg3esqfglj7d...@4ax.com>,
> KM <legit_...@lycos.com> wrote:
>> But one thing we did
>> have in common was a memory for the word tarbaby, and those memories
>> were distinctly different. Just what does this word mean? (Could you
>> throw in an explanation of pickaninny?).
>>
>
>Piccaninny is a West Indian variation on the Spanish pequeno or
>pequenino meaning diminutive or tiny one. It entered English around
>1687. Applied to small, black children, originally it was a term of
>endearment.
Interestingly, while the word cropped up in London in the 18th century, it
doesn't look like it had that meaning; actor Samuel Foote wrote up a
nonsense passage for other actor Charles Macklin to memorize, which around
its middle listed (what appear to be) some fanciful groups of people:
"...the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the Grand
Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top..."
<http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-pan2.htm> for the full passage.
The others seem to be obvious neologisms, so maybe Foote's imagination just
collided by chance with an extant word.
>RH Webster's agrees with the Uncle Remus origin of "tarbaby," and
>defines it as "an inextricable problem or situation." It makes no
>mention of any racist origin or connotation.
Brief moments on the Web made it pretty clear to me that it *has* been
used as a racial slur. It's in the 1975 Saturday Night Live "racist word
association interview" skit, and it's clear from the reaction of Richard
Pryor's character that the writers expected it to be understood as a
pretty flagrant slur.
It's a shame, because the original meaning is (1) obviously innocuous, and
(2) frequently useful; everybody's familiar with situations that just get
stickier as you try to extricate yourself. (Feel free to use that as a
straight line.)
joe_...@my-deja.com
> However, another person said in her experience this was a racially
> derogatory term and that, at her high school graduation, a speaker
> used the term and the student body walked out in protest. She said it
> had the meaning of pickaninny (ph). {...} One thing we did
> have in common was a memory for the word tarbaby, and those memories
> were distinctly different.
I was as surprised as you to discover that "tar baby" does have that
meaning. See for instance the opening quotation from Toni Morrison in
http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/tonimorrison/taressay.htm
The meaning I'd heard in childhood, and the only meaning I'd been aware
of until about ten minutes ago, involves a glob of tar. Bre'r Rabbit's
encounter with a tar baby plays a prominent role in one of the "Uncle
Remus" fables published in the 1880s by Joel Chandler Harris, the idea
being that once you touch a tar baby, the harder you try to remove it
from your skin the more of a mess you make.
(I'd always interpreted *that* as a morally instructive fable about how
it is better to avoid getting into trouble or scandalous situations in
the first place, but you could write a book (actually, you could write
yet still another book) on the subject of race relations in the US that
used as its central device the Uncle Remus stories, and their roots, and
the period and present-day interpretations thereof. See for instance
http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/enam358/harris.html or
http://dept.english.upenn.edu/~jwhitton/race/race.html)
Neither meaning of "tar baby" is in either of the medium-sized printed
dictionaries that fall readily to hand. Dictionary.com states, "A
situation or problem from which it is virtually impossible to disentangle
oneself. [After “Bre'r Rabbit and the Tar Baby,” an Uncle Remus story by
Joel Chandler Harris.]" Note that I don't have any slang/colloquial
references like, say, the _Dictionary of American Regional English_ close
at hand.
> Could you throw in an explanation of pickaninny?
That one *is* in standard dictionaries -- it used to be used
(condescendingly and presumably only by whites) to refer a small black or
aboriginal child, depending on geography. It is thought to have been
derived [in my guess, acquiring its racial connotation along the way]
from the Portuguese "pequenino" or the Spanish "peque~no".
The bottom line: avoid "pickaninny" unless, say, writing dialogue for the
sort of character who would plausibly use what we now see as a bad racist
word; and be advised that "tar baby" also has a range of meanings and
carries a risk of giving offense.
Cheers,
--Joe "Note followups from alt.folklore.urban to alt.usage.english" Chew
tolepai...@yahoo.com
HWM <henry.w_EGGS_&_SP...@iobox.fi> wrote:
> Americans get too easily offended considering
> they've contributed the world with the one-finger salute even my 75-
> --
Much as I'd like for Americans to be able to claim credit for the
current meaning of the traffic finger, I believe that it was popular
during the Roman Empire. Has it grown more popular, world-wide, since
America's rise to prominence? Absofuckinlutely.
Yours in Christ,
Lisa "honey, it's time to flip the bird" Lundgren
Lee Rudolph
>> Actual story at:
>> http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/tar-baby.html
>
>Do people actually look at the background color/texture versus the
>text formatting before they post pages?
Well, I for one don't, because I never see said "features" of a page:
if I'm not using lynx, I'm using either Netscape Navigator in which
I have checked off "Always use my colors, overriding document" on
the "Colors" preferences checklist, though I do allow Navigator to
load images for me automatically, or Internet Explorer in which
I don't load images at all (and in particular in which the HTML
<background = "foo.bar"> tag is simply ignored). When I want
text (which is most of the time), I want *text*, dammit.
However, in this particular case I don't see what you're on about.
The page-owner has chosen canvas.jpg for the background. It's a
bit grainy but doesn't make it very hard to read the foreground text.
The color could, at a stretch, be called cafe\'e-au-lait--it's hardly
the shade of tar, if that's what you have on your mind.
Lee "it actually looks more like sandpaper than canvas, to me" Rudolph
cms
Deborah Stevenson <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.SGI.4.10.1010201...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu...
In "Orronoko" by Aphra Behn, a 17th century work concerning an African
prince sold as a slave, child slaves being sold in the West Indies
(Suriname, to be specific) are referred to as pickaninnies. If the term was
in current usage 400 years ago for that purpose, it seems like it would have
picked up an offensive connotation pretty quickly to me.
2nd cite in the wild:
"Bourbon Street (in a town named New Orleans) whose sidewalks, said the
tourbook 'may [I liked the 'may'] feature entertainment by pickaninnies who
will [I liked the 'will' even better] tap-dance for pennies" {what fun)"
_Lolita_, by Vladimir Nabokov, p. 156.
cms - who knows what hearbreaks are caused in a dog
David Hatunen
cms <adaor...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>In "Orronoko" by Aphra Behn, a 17th century work concerning an
>African prince sold as a slave, child slaves being sold in the
>West Indies (Suriname, to be specific)
Suriname isn't in the West Indies.
>are referred to as pickaninnies. If the term was in current usage
>400 years ago for that purpose, it seems like it would have picked
>up an offensive connotation pretty quickly to me.
--
Phil Edwards
wrote:
>As for "pickaninny", that is indeed a highly-charged derogatory term
>for a small child of African descent. It's a nasty word.
Depends on your English. In some West Indian Englishes, 'pickney' is
just another word for 'child' (at least, it was 20-30 years ago). In
British English... well, I can't imagine hearing anyone using it, but
I don't think it would sound any more derogatory than saying
"Mussulman" instead of "Muslim". It would sound affected and extremely
outdated, in other words, and as such it would raise suspicions as to
why the speaker chose it. But it wouldn't stand out as a 'nasty word'
in its own right. Still worth avoiding around AmEng speakers, though.
Phil "says more about you" Edwards
--
Phil Edwards http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/amroth/
"I mean you can tease and torment food and drink,
or go along with the design intent." - Casady
david
>On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 18:08:33 GMT, KM <legit_...@lycos.com> wrote:
>
>>At a staff meeting of a bunch of civil rights attorneys the other day,
>>one of the bosses used the term "tarbaby"
<snip>
>>However, another person said in her experience this was a racially
>>derogatory term and that, at her high school graduation, a speaker
>>used the term and the student body walked out in protest. She said it
>>had the meaning of pickaninny (ph).
>
>The only sense I've heard it in comes directly from the story: It's a
>thing that as soon as you touch it, you stick to it and can't get
>loose, and any attempt to get loose gets you more trapped. A
>particularly messy scandal might be described as a "tarbaby". I
>suppose a really ugly political Usenet thread could too.
I've certainly heard it used as a racial epithet, it was quite common
for a period of time. There's a famous Saturday Night Live skit where
Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor trade racial epithets with each other,
and tarbaby heads the list. Part of the joke is that "tarbaby" has
the two meanings, one insulting and one not.
>As for "pickaninny", that is indeed a highly-charged derogatory term
>for a small child of African descent. It's a nasty word. No connection
>to "tarbaby" except through the concepts of "dark" and "baby" in the
>minds of the easily offended.
No. When referring to a person, tarbaby has pretty much the same
connotation. *You* may not have heard it in that context before, but
it was certainly used that way for a long time (and still is, I would
guess, in some circles). Whether to use the term or not is a personal
choice, but one should be aware that the word does have a racially
derogative connotation to many.
Karen J. Cravens
>Huh? Looks fine to me, even if I violate my principles and allow the
>server to control the document's presentation. You got yer browser
>set to a rilly rilly little font or something?
It's got a eeeeevil speckly background. Combine that with the usual serif
font. Yecchh.
'Course, I have got to where I accept ugly web pages as a fact of life, and
just highlight all the text on the page. Ctrl-A is my friend.
--
Karen "or Lynx, for extended reading" Cravens
JamiJo
>> small, probably via the Portuguese "pequenino," meaning very tiny.
>> Nothing to do with picking ninnies, as the folk etymology has it.
>
>Whereas in the West Indies it is used as a regular expression in some of
>the dialects, the shorter form 'pickney' as an endearing term for a
>small child.
>
Weird, I was always told it was a not so friendly term for someone who was a
mixture of African, white, and several other things including Native American
or Chinese. (I forget WHO told me, but I believe it was one of my elementry
school teachers when the term came up in an old book I was reading.)
~Jami JoAnne Russell~
http://users.50megs.com/gambitsgal/intro.html
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Portal/2450/jami1.html
http://www.neopets.com/refer.phtml?username=gambitsjami
JamiJo
>thing that as soon as you touch it, you stick to it and can't get
>loose, and any attempt to get loose gets you more trapped. A
>particularly messy scandal might be described as a "tarbaby". I
>suppose a really ugly political Usenet thread could too.
My mother has a friend, a 60+ years old German woman who grew up during
Hitler's rein of terror and Hildagard is severely racist. I've heard her call
very dark-skinned African-Americans "tar babies" as to say that their skin is
"as black as tar." Though she usually just uses that *disgusting* N-word. (She
also has hateful things to say about Jewish people. Grrr! Forgive me, but her
racism makes me so mad I sometimes just want to take an oak bat to her skull.)
Anyway, the point is, it unfortuantly CAN be used as a racist remark.
Timothy A. McDaniel
Phil Edwards <amr...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 19:43:35 GMT, ran...@visionplace.com (Randy Poe)
>wrote:
>>As for "pickaninny", that is indeed a highly-charged derogatory term
>>for a small child of African descent. It's a nasty word.
>
>Depends on your English. In some West Indian Englishes, 'pickney' is
>just another word for 'child' (at least, it was 20-30 years ago).
Gerald Durrell did some collecting in West Africa (Cameroon, mostly)
in the 1950s. In the pidgen English of the area, "picken" was the
word for "child", or I think for the young of any animal.
--
Tim McDaniel is tm...@jump.net; if that fail,
tm...@us.ibm.com is my work account.
"To join the Clueless Club, send a followup to this message quoting everything
up to and including this sig!" -- Jukka....@hut.fi (Jukka Korpela)
Mike Holmans
>On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 19:43:35 GMT, ran...@visionplace.com (Randy Poe)
>wrote:
>
>>As for "pickaninny", that is indeed a highly-charged derogatory term
>>for a small child of African descent. It's a nasty word.
>
>Depends on your English. In some West Indian Englishes, 'pickney' is
>just another word for 'child' (at least, it was 20-30 years ago). In
>British English... well, I can't imagine hearing anyone using it, but
>I don't think it would sound any more derogatory than saying
>"Mussulman" instead of "Muslim". It would sound affected and extremely
>outdated, in other words, and as such it would raise suspicions as to
>why the speaker chose it. But it wouldn't stand out as a 'nasty word'
>in its own right.
Hmm. I'm not quite sure I get the distinction you're driving at.
"As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to
see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'."
You probably recognise the speech.
60 lines earlier, when Powell was telling his made-up tale about the
lone old lady, he said: "When she goes to the shops, she is followed by
children, charming, wide-grinning picaninnies. They cannot speak English
..."
It seems to me that on April 20, 1968, the word became highly charged.
I've always perceived it as such since. I certainly presume on hearing
someone use the word that they have a fairly unpleasant agenda, at least
secreted somewhere about their person even if it is not overt. And it is
used by some people - nearly all of the ones I've met being gentlemen of
advanced years and of a very right-wing persuasion. (Since I meet these
gentlemen in the members' enclosures at cricket matches, we refrain from
discussing our political views as far as we can, although the odd remark
is bound to slip out. Much like AFU, really.)
Mike "sometimes, though, 'pick a ninny' is exactly what the England
cricket team selectors do" Holmans
--
1982 - last series England didn't lose to Pakistan
1962 - last series England won in Pakistan
2000 - England become first visiting team to win a Test and series in Karachi
R H Draney
>
> >On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 19:43:35 GMT, ran...@visionplace.com (Randy Poe)
> >wrote:
> >
> >>As for "pickaninny", that is indeed a highly-charged derogatory term
> >>for a small child of African descent. It's a nasty word.
> >
Wait a minute...King died on the 4th (see lyrics of "In The Name Of
Love"), what happened two+ weeks later that was such a big deal?...
Am going on faith that we all recognize the question supposedly asked a
cottonfield slave, "are ya pickin' any?", is an especially lame folk
etymology....r
--
"It just *can't* be 2001! I'm still writing 19100 on all my checks!"
Lars Eighner
the lovely and talented David Hatunen
broadcast on alt.folklore.urban:
DH> Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris, also the source of
DH> the Brer Rabbit stories:
DH> http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/anatar.html
DH> Actual story at:
DH> http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/tar-baby.html
DH> I seem to recall that the tarbaby story was included in Disney's
DH> live-action/animated feature "Song of the South", which is not
DH> seen much these days because of the racial implications.
DH> Harris was a white Southern writer who basically transmitted much
DH> of the folktales of the slaves, in dialect, and the tarbaby would
DH> not have been original with him.
An African version of this story can be found in the Oxford Book
of West African Folktales. Brer Rabbit is, in the African versions
of Uncle Remus tales, usually Spider - the trickster character in
West African folklore. Also in the Africa version, the "tarbaby"
is actually in the form of an attractive young woman and Spider
gets stuck trying to cop a feel.
--
Lars Eighner eig...@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
OLE users: My reader discards html and all multipart news and email unread
none of the post-menopausal women at AFU have mustaches. --Susan Vaughn
Sara Moffat Lorimer
> Depends on your English. In some West Indian Englishes, 'pickney' is
> just another word for 'child' (at least, it was 20-30 years ago). In
> British English... well, I can't imagine hearing anyone using it, but
> I don't think it would sound any more derogatory than saying
> "Mussulman" instead of "Muslim".
The textbook I used in my English class in Denmark in 1981 included the
following list:
man woman child
negro negress pickaninny
lion lioness cub
Unfortunately the book, "First Aid In English," is in a box somewhere so
I can't tell you the publication date. I bought the book new, though,
and a quick skim of the web shows it's still for sale.
--
Sara "still remembers how to spell 'blancmange'" Lorimer
Queens, New York
Bill Heyman
>
> : On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 19:43:35 GMT, Randy Poe wrote:
>
> :>As for "pickaninny", that is indeed a highly-charged derogatory term
> :>for a small child of African descent. It's a nasty word.
>
> others, probably) to refer to children in a generic, non-derogatory sort
> of way. TWIAVBP, and a very strange one too.
>
> --Art
Well, I guess "everything" gives offense these days. The US News and
World Report had an excellent article this week on judging people as to
whether they were sensitive enough.
Anyway, I hold in my hand a CD with a collection of Scott Joplin ragtime
piano pieces. One is, "I Am Thinking of My Picanniny Days" (1902) and
it is described as, "Like many other Joplin songs this sentimental tune
was typical of many but musically superior to others of its kind." I
imagine that he wrote it to describe his own childhood, therefore he is
guilty of calling himself an offensive name.
Like most people, I would not use the word myself, but at one time it
was probably just a name. "Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words" edited by
Thomas Brothers has worse words. or listen to the Riverside recordings
of The History of Classic Jazz, which reminds me that the Sacramento
Jazz Jubilee is Memorial Day weekend...I'd better get my cheque in the
mail!
Randy Poe
>No. When referring to a person, tarbaby has pretty much the same
>connotation. *You* may not have heard it in that context before, but
>it was certainly used that way for a long time (and still is, I would
>guess, in some circles).
Apparently so. Up till your post, the consensus seemed to be that no
white person had ever heard it as a racial epithet, and it seemed to
be common knowledge in black culture (most surprisingly, in a quote by
writer Toni Morrison) that every white person meant it racially. I was
puzzling over this disconnect between white society and black
perception of white society.
If I have led a racially-sheltered life (and I have; I have other
clueless personal stories [1]), I'm not the only one on this newsgroup
who has.
- Randy
[1] my first experience with overt racism happened when I was trying
to go dancing with a black friend and couldn't get in to the disco. It
didn't occur to me for over a year what the reason was, till I read an
exposé of the disco.
Mitcho
> Grrr! Forgive me, but her
> racism makes me so mad I sometimes just want to take an oak bat to her skull.
Ah, but then that would be violent misogyny. There's probably an even
more forbidding modifier when applied to elderly immigrant ladies, but
I can't think of one now.
Mitcho
--
The Urban Redneck : red...@goathill.net : Goat Hill, California
http://www.employees.org/~redneck
JamiJo
>> racism makes me so mad I sometimes just want to take an oak bat to her
>skull.
>
>Ah, but then that would be violent misogyny. There's probably an even
>more forbidding modifier when applied to elderly immigrant ladies, but
>I can't think of one now.
Yeah, I just have this strange little thing - I despise racism. It's so -
STUPID!
david
>On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 23:49:30 GMT, da...@noplace.com (david) wrote:
>
>>No. When referring to a person, tarbaby has pretty much the same
>>connotation. *You* may not have heard it in that context before, but
>>it was certainly used that way for a long time (and still is, I would
>>guess, in some circles).
>
>Apparently so. Up till your post, the consensus seemed to be that no
>white person had ever heard it as a racial epithet, and it seemed to
>be common knowledge in black culture (most surprisingly, in a quote by
>writer Toni Morrison) that every white person meant it racially.
When "tarbaby" is used to describe a situation, I think most people,
black and white, recognize the original meaning. When used to
describe a person, however, I really don't see how anybody can hear it
as anything other than racially derogatory (I accept that many may
never have heard it in that setting, though).
>I was
>puzzling over this disconnect between white society and black
>perception of white society.
I wonder how much of the disconnect is generational. I remember when
the Saturday Night Live skit came out, and nobody, black or white,
missed the joke back then (people knew it through Richard Pryor's
albums if nowhere else).
>If I have led a racially-sheltered life (and I have; I have other
>clueless personal stories [1]), I'm not the only one on this newsgroup
>who has.
That's probably pretty common these days, which is definitely a step
forward for the USA. I must admit, though, I was taken aback a bit by
your comment in the original post:
No connection to "tarbaby" except through the concepts of "dark"
and "baby" in the minds of the easily offended.
I find it fascinating, and a bit sad to be honest, that so many
people automatically assume that if somebody takes offence at
something that seems innocuous, that person must be oversensitive and
easily offended, rather than thinking that maybe the offended person
has more knowledge or personal history regarding the offending phrase
than you do.
Deborah Stevenson
On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Randy Poe wrote:
> On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 23:49:30 GMT, da...@noplace.com (david) wrote:
>
> >No. When referring to a person, tarbaby has pretty much the same
> >connotation. *You* may not have heard it in that context before, but
> >it was certainly used that way for a long time (and still is, I would
> >guess, in some circles).
>
> Apparently so. Up till your post, the consensus seemed to be that no
> white person had ever heard it as a racial epithet,
No, I'm white.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
Randy Poe
wrote:
>Anyway, I hold in my hand a CD with a collection of Scott Joplin ragtime
>piano pieces. One is, "I Am Thinking of My Picanniny Days" (1902) and
>it is described as, "Like many other Joplin songs this sentimental tune
>was typical of many but musically superior to others of its kind." I
>imagine that he wrote it to describe his own childhood, therefore he is
>guilty of calling himself an offensive name.
Wouldn't be unheard of for popular songs of the day to use such
language. But it is possible it was changed by the publisher. Not too
long ago in a presentation on Ragtime, I saw a ragtime song that had
been written by the black author as "All Pimps Look Alike" and renamed
"All Coons Look Alike" by the publisher.
I think it's safe to say that using a separate term to refer to the
children of a different race, as if they are a different species, is
offensive.
How do you feel about Jewess?
- Randy
Dan Hartung
da...@noplace.com (david) wrote:
> I've certainly heard it used as a racial epithet, it was quite common
> for a period of time. There's a famous Saturday Night Live skit where
> Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor trade racial epithets with each other,
> and tarbaby heads the list. Part of the joke is that "tarbaby" has
> the two meanings, one insulting and one not.
Ah, but I do believe that there IS a generational disconnect here. I
suspect that at 37, I'm of the last generation to be widely exposed to
the film Song of the South (though I actually read a modernized-English
version of the Harris book long before seeing the Diz Knee version). I
submit that the vast majority of people are increasingly only dimly
aware of the original folktale meaning.
> No. When referring to a person, tarbaby has pretty much the same
> connotation. *You* may not have heard it in that context before, but
> it was certainly used that way for a long time (and still is, I would
> guess, in some circles). Whether to use the term or not is a personal
> choice, but one should be aware that the word does have a racially
> derogative connotation to many.
And I would submit that that is the context in which many, especially
young, black people view the term. Those folktales aren't told anymore.
--
dan (at) dhartung (dot) com
Lake Effect weblog: www.lakefx.nu
Lars Eighner
the lovely and talented david
broadcast on alt.folklore.urban,alt.fan.cecil-adams:
d> I find it fascinating, and a bit sad to be honest, that so many
d> people automatically assume that if somebody takes offence at
d> something that seems innocuous, that person must be oversensitive
d> and easily offended, rather than thinking that maybe the offended
d> person has more knowledge or personal history regarding the
d> offending phrase than you do.
Okay, perhaps I'm treading a bit too close to the BoP here, but at
least this time I know what group I'm in (although substantially the
same query has been posted to alt.fan.cecil-adams and
alt.usage.english).
There is just a tad of folkloric content here as most of these queries
can be related to the urban legend of the person who gets in trouble
with "politically correct" types for using "niggardly" in a memo.
(Yes, this did happen at least once, but readers will recall that
"urban legend" does *not* necessarily mean untrue.) Now the variables
in the story are the exact term: tar baby, pickaninny, picnic, spade
(in "to call a spade, a spade"), white (in "mighty white of you"),
niggardly, and so forth. The setting is usually a politically
sensitive position or a college with "hate speech" rules. The person
using the term is always perfectly innocent. And the point, of
course, is "politically correct" is getting out of hand.
A pretty good real-life example of this kind of thing was an episode
of Bill Cosby's "Who Do You Trust" in which a granny lady type
contestant, in discussing Halloween, said "That's when the spooks come
out." Although Cosby milked this for all it was worth, nothing could
have been clearer than that the granny lady had no idea that she had
said anything that could be taken as offensive.
I think we can distinguish this from two slight variations: namely
stories in which the term is indisputably offensive but the excuse
is "they call themselves that," and stories in which "one of them"
uses the term whether it is clearly offensive or not.
Now of course the "politically correct is getting out of hand" story
is circulated as political propaganda, just as some people who
circulate the P&G trademark stories are Amway reps, and as tract
stories are circulated as religious propaganda. The politically and
religious propaganda-folklore is suspect here, but the commercial
stuff is apparently okay. But there is a genuine problem. "Al Gore
claimed to have invented the Internet." Is that an urban legend or
just oft-repeated political lie? It is not widespread - probably so
thoroughly believed that there are some people who believe they
actually heard Al Gore say that - just as there are people who now
believe they remember "That would be in the butt, Bob."
And while there is a tad of the folkloric in the "politically correct
gets out of hand story," it is also, and perhaps primarily, a piece
of propaganda. The subtext goes something like: "I said something
perfectly okay, but 'they' took it wrong because 'they' are stupid" or
in other words, the point of the story is to be racist by other means.
David Hatunen
Lars Eighner <eig...@io.com> wrote:
>I think we can distinguish this from two slight variations: namely
>stories in which the term is indisputably offensive but the excuse
>is "they call themselves that," and stories in which "one of them"
>uses the term whether it is clearly offensive or not.
When pleading that "they" call themselves that, the one pleading is
willfully ignoring the grand old American custom of insulting your
buddies. Many times when "they" call each other that they are
*intending* to be offensive. It ranks up there with "yo momma"
jokes. Guys call each other "asshole" and "dumbshit" and stuff like
that, too. Applying it to themselves it's meant to be
self-deprecating.
Michael Lorton
> Ah, but I do believe that there IS a generational disconnect here. I
> suspect that at 37, I'm of the last generation to be widely exposed to
> the film Song of the South (though I actually read a modernized-English
> version of the Harris book long before seeing the Diz Knee version).
The corporate toads at Disney have withdrawn the film version from
circulation.
M.
Bill Heyman
I'm an Episcopalian thank you, and it was not changed by the publisher,
and you are offensive.
Lars Eighner
the lovely and talented Michael Lorton
broadcast on alt.folklore.urban,alt.fan.cecil-adams:
ML> Dan Hartung <danha...@my-deja.com> writes:
>> Ah, but I do believe that there IS a generational disconnect
>> here. I suspect that at 37, I'm of the last generation to be widely
>> exposed to the film Song of the South (though I actually read a
>> modernized-English version of the Harris book long before seeing
>> the Diz Knee version).
ML> The corporate toads at Disney have withdrawn the film version from
ML> circulation.
Did they do something special in this case? Making titles completely
unavailable for a number of years is their well-established marketing
strategy.
--
Lars Eighner eig...@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
OLE users: My reader discards html and all multipart news and email unread
Please stop pointing out when I am wrong --Don Whittington
Michael Lorton
> ML> The corporate toads at Disney have withdrawn the film version
> ML> [of _Song of the South_] from circulation.
>
> Did they do something special in this case? Making titles completely
> unavailable for a number of years is their well-established marketing
> strategy.
This seems to be something different. IMDB describes the movies as
"disowned".
M.
david
Wasn't that the joke? I haven't seen the episode, but I presume that
"milked it for all it was worth" means that Cosby got a lot of laughs
out the the situation, not that Cosby indignantly kicked her off the
show. Groucho used to do the same thing with sexual innuendo all the
time. The connection to the "niggardly" stories (where the listener
is portrayed as ignorant, not the speaker) is a bit tenuous.
An interesting comparison is the fact that AFAIK there aren't any
homosexual corrolaries to the "niggardly"-type politically correct
stories. The "Are you Gay? you'll have to leave the plane" story is
always told as a humorous story about a misunderstanding (similar to
the Cosby example); I've never heard a "politically correct getting
out of hand" tone in all its vectors. And I've never heard any
stories about US college students in an uproar because a British
visiting professor used the word "fag" in a lecture, although one
would think that would be an obvious vector (anybody?).
>I think we can distinguish this from two slight variations: namely
>stories in which the term is indisputably offensive but the excuse
>is "they call themselves that," and stories in which "one of them"
>uses the term whether it is clearly offensive or not.
There's a fairly common variation where somebody uses a phrase that
could be innocuous, but obviously means it in a racist fashion. For
example, stories about a landlord who constantly uses the phrase "call
a spade a spade" when describing black tenants. Such stories usually
end with some sort of comeuppance for the landlord/teacher/boss, natch.
>Now of course the "politically correct is getting out of hand" story
>is circulated as political propaganda, just as some people who
>circulate the P&G trademark stories are Amway reps, and as tract
>stories are circulated as religious propaganda. The politically and
>religious propaganda-folklore is suspect here, but the commercial
>stuff is apparently okay.
"Suspect" in what way (and "okay" in what way)?
>But there is a genuine problem. "Al Gore
>claimed to have invented the Internet." Is that an urban legend or
>just oft-repeated political lie? It is not widespread - probably so
>thoroughly believed that there are some people who believe they
>actually heard Al Gore say that
I think most people would describe that by the word "spin", which is
probably a good definition of it. I don't think you can say the
statement is either true or false, and most people who repeat the
line are quite aware of the original clip. It got an awful lot of
airplay.
>And while there is a tad of the folkloric in the "politically correct
>gets out of hand story," it is also, and perhaps primarily, a piece
>of propaganda. The subtext goes something like: "I said something
>perfectly okay, but 'they' took it wrong because 'they' are stupid" or
>in other words, the point of the story is to be racist by other means.
Much of folklore is propaganda.
R H Draney
This has been covered recently on alt.movies.silent...apparently the
film is available on home video elsewhere in the world (as verified by
ams regulars on several landmasses), but not in the US....r
HWM
gambit...@aol.comNOWAY (JamiJo) wrote:
> Weird, I was always told
You went to school in the West Indies yon boogayaaga war-boat?
--
Cheers, HWM | The conformity of purpose will |
hen...@iobox.fi | be achieved through the mutual |
http://www.nullwave.net | satisfaction of requirements.|
Nick Spalding
> A pretty good real-life example of this kind of thing was an episode
> of Bill Cosby's "Who Do You Trust" in which a granny lady type
> contestant, in discussing Halloween, said "That's when the spooks come
> out." Although Cosby milked this for all it was worth, nothing could
> have been clearer than that the granny lady had no idea that she had
> said anything that could be taken as offensive.
Just as I have no idea what is offensive about it.
--
Nick "Grandpa" Spalding
Meredith Robbins
<snip>
> suspect that at 37, I'm of the last generation to be widely exposed to
> the film Song of the South (though I actually read a modernized-English
> version of the Harris book long before seeing the Diz Knee version).
"Song of the South" was given a theatrical re-release in 1986, which is
when I saw it. I had the 1986-vintage movie poster framed in my room
when I was a child. The film isn't available on home video in the US,
although the home video of the "Song of the South" edition of
"Sing-Along Songs" (as I recall, basically the movie edited down to the
main songs [with karaoke subtitles] with brief narrative bits in
between, and possibly selections from other movies and cartoon shorts)
is. I'm not sure how much of the Uncle Remus stories one gleans from
singing along to "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," but there it is.
Meredith "'Song of the South' *and* 'Little Black Sambo'? Maybe I'm
warped and don't know it" Robbins
--
"The magic of VELCRO fasteners unleashes your child's creativity!"
--Package text of VELCRO brand Puppet Magic craft kit
http://www.eclectricity.org | http://www.exileinnetville.com
Randy Poe
wrote:
>> Wouldn't be unheard of for popular songs of the day to use such
>> language. But it is possible it was changed by the publisher. Not too
>> long ago in a presentation on Ragtime, I saw a ragtime song that had
>> been written by the black author as "All Pimps Look Alike" and renamed
>> "All Coons Look Alike" by the publisher.
>>
>> I think it's safe to say that using a separate term to refer to the
>> children of a different race, as if they are a different species, is
>> offensive.
>>
>> How do you feel about Jewess?
>>
>> - Randy
>
>I'm an Episcopalian thank you,
I'm trying but failing to see the relevance of that to the question.
> and it was not changed by the publisher,
I'm trying but failing to see how this is in contradiction to "it is
possible that it was changed by the publisher".
>and you are offensive.
and you appear to have taken offense from innocuous comments, which is
the subject of this thread. But OK. I don't see anything I've said
that I would change on the off-chance that somebody would be offended
for reasons I couldn't possibly anticipate.
- Randy
Gary S. Callison
: I'm not sure how much of the Uncle Remus stories one gleans from
: singing along to "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," but there it is.
Due in some part to some extremely demented people I have become
acquainted with, I cannot help by be reminded of the following quote
(which IIRC sparked a flamewar of sorts the last time I brought it up
here, about six months ago):
"There's two kinds of music: Blues, and Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah"
--Townes Van Zandt
--
Huey
David Hatunen
In American slang, or at least the slang of some decades ago,
"spook" was another variant of "nigger". I haven't heard the word
used that way in maybe 40 years, though.
David Hatunen
Lars Eighner <eig...@io.com> wrote:
>In our last episode, <m3puh1z...@civetsystems.com>,
>the lovely and talented Michael Lorton
>broadcast on alt.folklore.urban,alt.fan.cecil-adams:
>
>ML> Dan Hartung <danha...@my-deja.com> writes:
>>> Ah, but I do believe that there IS a generational disconnect
>>> here. I suspect that at 37, I'm of the last generation to be
>>> widely exposed to the film Song of the South (though I actually
>>> read a modernized-English version of the Harris book long
>>> before seeing the Diz Knee version).
>
>ML> The corporate toads at Disney have withdrawn the film version
>from ML> circulation.
>
>Did they do something special in this case? Making titles
>completely unavailable for a number of years is their
>well-established marketing strategy.
It's an extremely awkward movie. Certainly, the slave life
portrayed is considerably more benign than "Uncle Tom's Cabin", or
many Hollywood films up through the 1950s, bu this is part of the
flaw. One of the user comments on IMDb says that it's unfortunate
that political correctness requires that a movie showing that some
slaves were happy would be so disliked. But it was exactly the
stereotypical depiction of them happy, musical slaves without a
care in the world that was promulgated to justify a great deal of
injustice.
I can understand why Disney wouldn't want to put it out on the
circuit again, although in many ways it was a delightful movie with
some good music and some great stories of Brer Rabbit and the briar
patch. On the other hand, without putting it out to theaters, it
would be nice were it available on video or DVD.
Narcissa
hat...@bolt.sonic.net (David Hatunen) wrote:
> In article <86itmtzjs...@dumpster.io.com>,
> Lars Eighner <eig...@io.com> wrote:
>
> >I think we can distinguish this from two slight variations: namely
> >stories in which the term is indisputably offensive but the excuse
> >is "they call themselves that," and stories in which "one of them"
> >uses the term whether it is clearly offensive or not.
>
> When pleading that "they" call themselves that, the one pleading is
> willfully ignoring the grand old American custom of insulting your
> buddies. Many times when "they" call each other that they are
> *intending* to be offensive. It ranks up there with "yo momma"
> jokes. Guys call each other "asshole" and "dumbshit" and stuff like
> that, too. Applying it to themselves it's meant to be
> self-deprecating.
I'd like to say in advance that the following paragraph contains words
which could be offensive to the sensitive.
I'm not sure what your experience is with people who identify with rap
music, but when certain people call each other "nigga" or talk
about "my niggaz," they aren't trying to insult each other. Now
there's a different spelling and pronunciation of the word which
changes things, but with many young African Americans it's an
appropriation of a derogatory term to show strength, whether
intentionally or not. Same goes with gay people using the
terms, "queer" and "faggot" to describe themselves or their friends.
But then, this whole discussion is touchy, so I'll stop with the point
that this all comes from personal experience.
--
O{+> ~ Narcissa ~ narc...@narcissa.com
Get a Life! Check Out Everything: http://www.narcissa.com
David Hatunen
I should have gone on to mention that, too. It also accords with my
premise that these words are used intra-group *because* they are
offensive; a mild example, Revolutionary America's appropriation of
Yankee Doodle Dandy. The fact that their offensiveness is
diminished during intra-group use does NOT necessarily diminish
their offensiveness when used by outsiders, and it is disengenuous
for outsiders to claim inoffensiveness on that basis.
Amy Gleason
> Meredith "'Song of the South' *and* 'Little Black Sambo'? Maybe I'm
> warped and don't know it" Robbins
When (as in what year) did "Little Black Sambo" become a racial slur? I
ask because when I was a kid we had a book of stories that my mom had when
she was growing up, and one of the stories was "Little Black Sambo". We
had a cat that had kittens, around 1982, and we named the gray kitten with
white feet "Boots" and the black kitten "Sambo".
I didn't know, until I told one person about my cats and they said, "You
named a cat SAMBO?!?" that "Sambo" was not a nice thing to call people...
Or cats, I guess.
So, in 195? it was ok to print in a children's story book.
In 1982 it was ok to call a cat, at least in my white suburban area (my
parents are fairly bright people, and I don't think they would've let us
name him that if they'd known it was offensive).
By 1995 or so, it was a racial slur.
L & k,
Amy - current black cat is Kona
P.S. First trolls and now we're X-posting with AFU. Oi vey.
david
<speaking of Song of the South>
>It's an extremely awkward movie. Certainly, the slave life
>portrayed is considerably more benign than "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
In what way is slave life in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" supposedly benign?
Geez, the lead character gets whipped to death, and the book was
probably the first popular American fiction to openly (well,
obliquely, maybe) speak of the widespread rape inherent in the slave
system.
Maybe we should join this with the "books nobody has ever read"
thread. The character of Uncle Tom has joined in the public mind with
the character of Uncle Remus in ways that bear little resemblance to
Harriett Beecher Stowe's novel.
>, or
>many Hollywood films up through the 1950s, bu this is part of the
>flaw. One of the user comments on IMDb says that it's unfortunate
>that political correctness requires that a movie showing that some
>slaves were happy would be so disliked. But it was exactly the
>stereotypical depiction of them happy, musical slaves without a
>care in the world that was promulgated to justify a great deal of
>injustice.
>
>I can understand why Disney wouldn't want to put it out on the
>circuit again, although in many ways it was a delightful movie with
>some good music and some great stories of Brer Rabbit and the briar
>patch. On the other hand, without putting it out to theaters, it
>would be nice were it available on video or DVD.
It's not just the happy slaves (they aren't slaves, by the way, it's
set after the war), it's the quiet but insistent racism that permeates
the movie that makes it a very difficult marketing task for Disney.
I'd like to see it again as well, but I understand the difficulty of
trying to market a kid's film that isn't really appropriate for kids.
David Hatunen
david <da...@noplace.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 02 Feb 2001 15:11:23 GMT, David Hatunen wrote:
>
><speaking of Song of the South>
>
>>It's an extremely awkward movie. Certainly, the slave life
>>portrayed is considerably more benign than "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
>
>In what way is slave life in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" supposedly
>benign?
Irony is wasted on some people.
>Geez, the lead character gets whipped to death, and the book was
>probably the first popular American fiction to openly (well,
>obliquely, maybe) speak of the widespread rape inherent in the
>slave system.
>
>Maybe we should join this with the "books nobody has ever read"
>thread.
I've read it. I've also read the play version.
>The character of Uncle Tom has joined in the public mind with the
>character of Uncle Remus in ways that bear little resemblance to
>Harriett Beecher Stowe's novel.
At this point I have to ask if you have actually read it.
>>I can understand why Disney wouldn't want to put it out on the
>>circuit again, although in many ways it was a delightful movie
>>with some good music and some great stories of Brer Rabbit and
>>the briar patch. On the other hand, without putting it out to
>>theaters, it would be nice were it available on video or DVD.
>
>It's not just the happy slaves (they aren't slaves, by the way, it's
>set after the war),
I've tried to pin that down, so thank you for clarifying it. I
still remember how much I enjoyed the film on its first release and
the circumstances of my seeing it, although I was only about eight
years old, it was that memorable. But I certainly don't rememeber
the actual time setting.
>it's the quiet but insistent racism that permeates the movie that
>makes it a very difficult marketing task for Disney.
Disney did get a lot of mileage out of the animated characters,
though. There was a Brer Rabbit comic strip for many, many years.
>I'd like to see it again as well, but I understand the difficulty
>of trying to market a kid's film that isn't really appropriate for
>kids.
I'd like to see it gain more out of historical curiousity.
Deborah Stevenson
On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Amy Gleason wrote:
> When (as in what year) did "Little Black Sambo" become a racial slur? I
> ask because when I was a kid we had a book of stories that my mom had when
> she was growing up, and one of the stories was "Little Black Sambo". We
> had a cat that had kittens, around 1982, and we named the gray kitten with
> white feet "Boots" and the black kitten "Sambo".
>
> I didn't know, until I told one person about my cats and they said, "You
> named a cat SAMBO?!?" that "Sambo" was not a nice thing to call people...
> Or cats, I guess.
>
> So, in 195? it was ok to print in a children's story book.
It got printed in a picture book, which isn't the same. It's still
printed in a picture book.
> In 1982 it was ok to call a cat, at least in my white suburban area (my
> parents are fairly bright people, and I don't think they would've let us
> name him that if they'd known it was offensive).
> By 1995 or so, it was a racial slur.
In 1982, I knew people who were offended by the restaurant name, so your
family may have been a little behind the curve.
This isn't the sort of thing that can get pinned down to a particular
date, but as an ed student you've probably got access to a lot of the
writings on the subject, such as those in the Council on Interracial Books
for Children Bulletin and whatever else is listed in ERIC and Library
Literature. I'm suspecting that there was some anti-Sambo writing in the
1960s (you could check Augusta Baker's book lists of the period, for
instance, and see if that's what Sambo disappeared from them), but I'm
away from the office and can't check.
If you're contemplating more than date, you might want to have a Deja
check--the topic of _Little Black Sambo_ was recently covered in AFU and
has come up in the past on rec.arts.books.childrens [sic].
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
HWM
dfo...@dfoster.com wrote:
> I find it fascinating, and a bit sad to be honest, that so many
> people automatically assume that if somebody takes offence at
> something that seems innocuous, that person must be oversensitive and
> easily offended, rather than thinking that maybe the offended person
> has more knowledge or personal history regarding the offending phrase
> than you do.
Or that the person may not be a speaker of standard US English?
"A geht bohku sing foh pikin, boht a noh geht pikin"
I also find it fascinating that the Americans try to police the
colloquial English(es) in this manner, I've brought in 'Kaffir Lime' as
an example. Of course there is the Kaffir Buffalo and a place called
Kafiristan, of course inhabited by Kafirs. The word etymology
is 'unbeliever' in Arabic and thus is widely understood as an offensive
term in even non-english cultures. The South African usage is not
anything novel in that sense (and is not limited to there).
I suppose people would need to go outside and suck a fag or two before
they come explain what is proper English or not. Americans seem to be
offended by any possible term available, quashie or no.
--
Cheers, HWM | The conformity of purpose will |
hen...@iobox.fi | be achieved through the mutual |
http://www.nullwave.net | satisfaction of requirements.|
Michael Lorton
> When (as in what year) did "Little Black Sambo" become a racial slur? I
> ask because when I was a kid we had a book of stories that my mom had when
> she was growing up, and one of the stories was "Little Black
> Sambo".
It was, IIRC, about subcontinental Indians, not Africans or "blacks"
in the American sense to the term.
M.
HWM
ran...@visionplace.com (Randy Poe) wrote:
> As for "pickaninny", that is indeed a highly-charged derogatory term
> for a small child of African descent. It's a nasty word.
Is that been broadcast in church?
1 For this time Caesar Augustus way been be the governor way Rome be
send for commandier Jerusalem, be send order say, make them count all
people.
2 And all this thing them be the pass for the time way Quirinius be day
governor for Syria.
3 All people them be get for go for the place way the born them for go
register them name.
4 Joseph be get for go for Bethlehem, some small country inside Judea.
He be get for pass Galilee way day inside Nazareth. Joseph be get for
go for Bethlehem because say, he and king David them came na from the
same family.
5 Joseph be take Mary he nwe woman for go this waka. For that time Mary
he time for born be dong near.
6 Time way them reach for Bethlehem, Mary he time for born reach.
7 Mary born Jesus, and he wrap he with warm cloth and he put he inside
pan way cow them the drink water, because them no be get room for stay
that night.
8 For that night some shepherd them be the look-out them goat for
outside.
9 One time them see Angel. God He lamp shine for all place. And the
shephard them be fear plenty.
10 The angel tell them say, " Make owner no fear, me I bring owner
plenty good news. And this news na for all people.
11 Today for inside Bethlehem, Mary dong born God He pikin.
12 Na the sing this way go show say, thing way we talk na true. Owner
go see small pikin way the wrap with warm blaket, and them put he for
inside pan way cow them the drink water."
13 Small time the shepherd them see the whole place full-up with plenty
other angel them. And them all begin the sing and glad.
14 Them sing say, " Make all glory go for God way day for heaven and
make God give peace for all people them way them fear He."
15 Time way all this angel them go back for heaven, the shepherd them
talk say, " Make we too go see this wonderful thing way God send angel
them for came tell we."
16 As the shepherd them reach Bethlehem, them see Joseph, and Mary and
the baby way sleep inside pan way cow them the drink water.
17 Time way them see the pikin, them tell all the people the thing way
the angel them talk say this pikin go do.
18 All the people way hear the thing way the shepherd them talk be
wonder plenty.
19 But Mary put all this thing way the shepherd talk inside he heart.
And Mary begin wonder which kind pikin this way she born.
20 Time way the shepherd them finish for see the pikin, them go back
with glad for place way them be leave them goat and sheep them. Them be
glad because them see all thing as way the angel tell them.
R H Draney
>
> I should have gone on to mention that, too. It also accords with my
> premise that these words are used intra-group *because* they are
> offensive; a mild example, Revolutionary America's appropriation of
> Yankee Doodle Dandy. The fact that their offensiveness is
> diminished during intra-group use does NOT necessarily diminish
> their offensiveness when used by outsiders, and it is disengenuous
> for outsiders to claim inoffensiveness on that basis.
For those keeping score, the original implications of this song title:
Yankee: one who eats of makes cheese, from the Dutch "Jan Kaase"....
Doodle: a bumpkin, from a type of folk musical instrument unlikely to be
taken seriously by the civilized....
Dandy: a snappy dresser (often, as in this context, used
sarcastically)....
Not in the title, but also relevant, "macaroni" was 18th-century slang
for "dressed in the latest fashions" (also sarcastic herein)....
R H "father and I went to town along with Captain Gooden" Draney
David Hatunen
Meredith Robbins <meredi...@hellokitty.com> wrote:
>Dan Hartung wrote:
><snip>
>> Ah, but I do believe that there IS a generational disconnect here. I
>> suspect that at 37, I'm of the last generation to be widely exposed to
>> the film Song of the South (though I actually read a modernized-English
>> version of the Harris book long before seeing the Diz Knee version).
><snip>
>
>"Song of the South" was given a theatrical re-release in 1986, which is
>when I saw it. I had the 1986-vintage movie poster framed in my room
>when I was a child. The film isn't available on home video in the US,
>although the home video of the "Song of the South" edition of
>"Sing-Along Songs" (as I recall, basically the movie edited down to the
>main songs [with karaoke subtitles] with brief narrative bits in
>between, and possibly selections from other movies and cartoon shorts)
>is. I'm not sure how much of the Uncle Remus stories one gleans from
>singing along to "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," but there it is.
Bringing it back to legends, IMDb leads to a reference to a page
about the legend that "Disney has refrained from releasing the film
Song of the South on video due in the USA to boycott threats by the
NAACP." Snopes has it at
http://www.snopes2.com/disney/films/sots.htm
The extensive quote from folklorist Patricia A Turner is quite
interesting. For instance, "In the world that Disney made, the
Blacks sublimate their own lives in order to be better servants to
the white family" pointing out that in some ways the moral of the
animated stories is antithetical to the live-action story.
Amy Gleason
> > So, in 195? it was ok to print in a children's story book.
>
> It got printed in a picture book, which isn't the same. It's still
> printed in a picture book.
I don't understand the distinction. I've seen the paperback book that
only contains "Little Black Sambo", but I'm 90% sure that this was in a
Better Homes and Gardens collection of children's stories (it also had the
story about the living dolls, a bunch of poems, and some other stuff. It
was a large book). What's the difference between a "children's story
book" and a "picture book"? Words?
L & k,
Amy
Jon and Mary Frances Miller
> Ah, but I do believe that there IS a generational disconnect here. I
> suspect that at 37, I'm of the last generation to be widely exposed to the
> film Song of the South
Actually, that's arguably a Good Thing.
> (though I actually read a modernized-English version of the Harris book
> long before seeing the Diz Knee version). I submit that the vast majority
> of people are increasingly only dimly aware of the original folktale
> meaning.
>
> <someone else, it doesn't really matter who>:
> > Whether to use the term or not is a personal
> > choice, but one should be aware that the word does have a racially
> > derogative connotation to many.
>
> And I would submit that that is the context in which many, especially
> young, black people view the term. Those folktales aren't told anymore.
Ohmigod. The world really is going to hell in a handbasket.
Unless you are possibly wrong. But I will admit that I can't tell much
about the world from what happens in my family.
Jon "tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail[1]" Miller
[1] Not really. When this happened in the past, the victims not
infrequently died from their injuries. I don't want to examine the possible
psychological connotations of why I made the connection. I choose to
believe it was just the tar.
--
"What can you do with such beggars? They will stay up half the night
telling such tales,
and the bigger the lie, the more they enjoy it." Joseph Conrad, _Lord Jim_.
Amy Gleason
I don't remember it ever being specified. What I do remember is that
there were tigers and pancakes. And somehow Sambo got the tigers to run
in circles until they turned into butter. And he gave them his clothes,
before that, too. Maybe he trades his clothes for pancakes, and then he
turns the tigers into butter.
I was a kid. I don't remember clearly. I'll have to see if Mom can get
me a copy when she gets back from vacation. I'm pretty sure the book is
still on the shelf at home.
L & k,
Amy
Tony Sweeney
>
> Mike Holmans wrote:
> >
> > >On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 19:43:35 GMT, ran...@visionplace.com (Randy Poe)
> > >wrote:
> > >
> > >>As for "pickaninny", that is indeed a highly-charged derogatory term
> > >>for a small child of African descent. It's a nasty word.
> > >
>
> Wait a minute...King died on the 4th (see lyrics of "In The Name Of
> Love"), what happened two+ weeks later that was such a big deal?...
Enoch Powell, a UK politician, made a highly publicised inflammatory
speech concerning the risks of "coloured" immigration to the UK. The
subsequent furore pretty much ended his career.
>
> Am going on faith that we all recognize the question supposedly asked a
> cottonfield slave, "are ya pickin' any?", is an especially lame folk
> etymology....r
See elsewhere in the thread. It's a corruption of a Portuguese word,
originally about as racist as "bambino". Which isn't to say it's
acceptable now, outside the West Indies.
Dave Wilton
wrote:
>So, in 195? it was ok to print in a children's story book.
>In 1982 it was ok to call a cat, at least in my white suburban area (my
>parents are fairly bright people, and I don't think they would've let us
>name him that if they'd known it was offensive).
>By 1995 or so, it was a racial slur.
It's always been a demeaning term that carries connotations of
obsequiousness and low intelligence. Reading the usage cites in the
OED2, the derogatory tone rings through from the 19th century.
I think the question you're asking is when did suburban whites realize
that the term they had been using for years gave offense? The answer
to that one varies.
--Dave Wilton
da...@wilton.net
http://www.wilton.net
Michael Lorton
> > It was, IIRC, about subcontinental Indians, not Africans or "blacks"
> > in the American sense to the term.
>
> I don't remember it ever being specified. What I do remember is that
> there were tigers and pancakes.
No tigers in Africa. Tigers live in Asia, especially India.
M.
Drew Lawson
HWM <henry.w_EGGS_&_SP...@iobox.fi> writes:
>BTW a Jamaican may get a spell of "niggaritis" after a hefty lunch.
>Saying that might cause some raised eyebrows a few hundred miles up
>north.
It raised mine. BTW, what is the local language of Jamaica?
I was there very briefly last week (cruise ship port) but didn't
see much outside the well worn tourist paths.
>ropes..." to a quite large gentleman on the ship. Calling a big person
>"fat boy" is a friendlier term in Barbados apparently than in the US, as
>the gentleman got pretty riled. Don't remember which was worse, being
>called 'boy' or 'fat'... Americans get too easily offended considering
Depends on the American. In the South (and somewhat elsewhere),
particularly before the Civil Rights era, "boy" was an institutionalized
term of class applied toward blacks. It emphasized the inequality.
In some contexts, calling even a black child "boy" is fighting words.
Lately, "fat" is offensive to many people in the era of liposuction.
I'm told that some cultures find it endearing, but I've never felt
inclined to try using it in that way.
If someone called me "fat boy," I wouldn't become violent, but I
also wouldn't have my friendliest attitude.
Drew "wasn't that an H-bomb?" Lawson
--
|Drew Lawson | Mrs. Tweedy! |
|dr...@furrfu.com | The chickens are revolting! |
|http://www.furrfu.com | |
Andy Walton
(David Hatunen) wrote:
:>I'd like to see it again as well, but I understand the difficulty
:>of trying to market a kid's film that isn't really appropriate for
:>kids.
:
:I'd like to see it gain more out of historical curiousity.
There are plenty of offensive cartoons -- "Coal Black and de Sebben
Dwarfs" springs to mind -- that I'd like to see. Tex Avery, Friz Freleng,
and Bob Clampett all made cartoons thick with racial stereotypes, but
behind that, they're icos of the times, and kept black actors employed.
I'd like to see the Cartoon Network do a show of those cartoons, maybe in
the 3 a.m. hour when many cable networks air educational programs for
teachers to tape. Get Henry Louis Gates or another scholar (maybe a panel)
to discuss them in between.
There's an interesting page on "Coal Black" at
<http://www2.wi.net/~rkurer/coalblack.htm>. The cartoon is available as a
real video file at the bottom.
--
"...solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
-- Thomas Hobbes, who was not, contrary to popular opinion, describing me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Walton * att...@mindspring.com * http://atticus.home.mindspring.com/
Leo G Simonetta
<dado...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Michael Lorton wrote:
>>
>> Lars Eighner <eig...@io.com> writes:
>>
>> > ML> The corporate toads at Disney have withdrawn the film version
>> > ML> [of _Song of the South_] from circulation.
>> >
>> > Did they do something special in this case? Making titles completely
>> > unavailable for a number of years is their well-established marketing
>> > strategy.
>>
>> This seems to be something different. IMDB describes the movies as
>> "disowned".
>
>This has been covered recently on alt.movies.silent...apparently the
>film is available on home video elsewhere in the world (as verified by
>ams regulars on several landmasses), but not in the US....r
Shhhhh! http://www.songofthesouth.net/faq/video.html allows USAns
to buy it from UK. "you will receive both the official, sealed
PAL cassette (pictured above) PLUS a FREE NTSC conversion copy
that WILL play in U.S. VCR's!"
According to the Disney website "The film was reissued in 1956,
1972, 1980, and 1986."
Leo "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" Simonetta
--
Leo G. Simonetta
lsimo...@my-dejanews.com
The AFU FAQ is carefully hidden at http://www.urbanlegends.com
david
>On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Meredith Robbins wrote:
>
>> Meredith "'Song of the South' *and* 'Little Black Sambo'? Maybe I'm
>> warped and don't know it" Robbins
>
>When (as in what year) did "Little Black Sambo" become a racial slur?
"Sambo" was already a recognizable racial slur when Bannerman wrote
"Little Black Sambo" in the 1890's, and had been for some time.
>I
>ask because when I was a kid we had a book of stories that my mom had when
>she was growing up, and one of the stories was "Little Black Sambo". We
>had a cat that had kittens, around 1982, and we named the gray kitten with
>white feet "Boots" and the black kitten "Sambo".
>
>I didn't know, until I told one person about my cats and they said, "You
>named a cat SAMBO?!?" that "Sambo" was not a nice thing to call people...
>Or cats, I guess.
>
>So, in 195? it was ok to print in a children's story book.
Sure, in 195? it was perfectly OK to use insensitive language in a
children's book. The word "pickaninny" was still fairly common in
movies of the time.
>In 1982 it was ok to call a cat, at least in my white suburban area (my
>parents are fairly bright people, and I don't think they would've let us
>name him that if they'd known it was offensive).
>By 1995 or so, it was a racial slur.
Well, the NAACP boycott that drove Sambo's Restaurant out of business
was back in the '70s, and that gained a lot of news coverage. So I
hate to break it to you, but either your parents were incredibly
ignorant or they simply didn't care that the cat had an offensive name
(or, more likely, they just didn't have the heart to tell you the
truth as you hugged a little grey kitten while saying "I love little
Sambo soooooo much....).
David Hatunen
Drew Lawson <dr...@furrfu.com> wrote:
>Depends on the American. In the South (and somewhat elsewhere),
>particularly before the Civil Rights era, "boy" was an
>institutionalized term of class applied toward blacks. It
>emphasized the inequality. In some contexts, calling even a black
>child "boy" is fighting words.
Hey, man, the Ken Burns documentary, "Jazz", says that black
musicians started calling each other "man" as an irony against
their having been called "boy" all their lives.
david
>In article <slrn97lmfi...@tristan.local.dom>,
>david <da...@noplace.com> wrote:
>>On Fri, 02 Feb 2001 15:11:23 GMT, David Hatunen wrote:
>>
>><speaking of Song of the South>
>>
>>>It's an extremely awkward movie. Certainly, the slave life
>>>portrayed is considerably more benign than "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
>>
>>In what way is slave life in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" supposedly
>>benign?
>
>Irony is wasted on some people.
Sigh, you're right. I misread what you wrote. My bad.
>>Geez, the lead character gets whipped to death, and the book was
>>probably the first popular American fiction to openly (well,
>>obliquely, maybe) speak of the widespread rape inherent in the
>>slave system.
>>
>>Maybe we should join this with the "books nobody has ever read"
>>thread.
>
>I've read it. I've also read the play version.
>
>>The character of Uncle Tom has joined in the public mind with the
>>character of Uncle Remus in ways that bear little resemblance to
>>Harriett Beecher Stowe's novel.
>
>At this point I have to ask if you have actually read it.
Yep, and I stand by that point. I think the most common conception of
Uncle Tom in the public mind is a sort of Stepin' Fetchitt type
character, a sort of "house nigga" who happily serves the Massa',
which is a pretty gross misreading of the character IMHO.
I think a lot of this comes from all the fireplace knick-knacks of Tom
and Eva, which after a few generations became somewhat
indistinguishable from all the Remus and Toby(?) knick-knacks. People
forget the stories but remember the images.
I'm not entirely sure when "Uncle Tom" became an epithet in the
African-American community. Fred Douglass has a few "I'm not an Uncle
Tom" lines, but I think the "Uncle Tom" stereotype comes much later.
David Hatunen
Andy Walton <att...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>There are plenty of offensive cartoons -- "Coal Black and de
>Sebben Dwarfs" springs to mind -- that I'd like to see. Tex Avery,
>Friz Freleng, and Bob Clampett all made cartoons thick with racial
>stereotypes, but behind that, they're icos of the times, and kept
>black actors employed.
When I was a child back int he 1940s both Disney and Warner
Brothers did comic books, to which my mother subscribed for me. One
or the other had a regular strip called "Little Eight Ball" about a
black child that was pretty racist.
(I think it was the Disney comic that had a strip called "Mary Jane
and Sniffles. Feel free to use your imagination.
>I'd like to see the Cartoon Network do a show of those cartoons,
>maybe in the 3 a.m. hour when many cable networks air educational
>programs for teachers to tape. Get Henry Louis Gates or another
>scholar (maybe a panel) to discuss them in between.
It really sounds like a good documentary for Turner Classic Movies
to make.
Gerald Belton
wrote:
>Like most people, I would not use the word myself, but at one time it
>was probably just a name.
Language is a living thing. Today, the New Orleans Times-Picayune has
a "Toy and Doll Fund" every Christmas to raise money for
"disadvantaged children." In the 1920's, they ran headlines announcing
the success of their "Pickaninny Fund."
And in the novel "Live and Let Die" (but not the movie), one of James
Bond's first clues that something unusual is going on is when he sees
a "negress" driving an automobile.
I don't understand why anyone in either of these groups is surprised
that a word that used to be commonplace has now become unacceptable.
Gerald "not a Chinaman's chance" Belton
--
"The TV business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway
where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs."
- Hunter S. Thompson
JamiJo
>
>You went to school in the West Indies yon boogayaaga war-boat?
Nope. But who knows where my teacher was before she gave up her dreams to teach
a bunch of unruly kids.
~Jami JoAnne Russell~
http://users.50megs.com/gambitsgal/intro.html
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Portal/2450/jami1.html
http://www.neopets.com/refer.phtml?username=gambitsjami
Deborah Stevenson
That's not actually the distinction I was pointing out. You were using
its appearance in a children's book as indication that it was okay, but
it appears in children's books even now. As do even less arguably not
okay epithets. It's not viable to use it as a simple indication of
acceptability.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
Deborah Stevenson
On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Jon and Mary Frances Miller wrote:
> Dan Hartung wrote:
>
> > And I would submit that that is the context in which many, especially
> > young, black people view the term. Those folktales aren't told anymore.
>
> Ohmigod. The world really is going to hell in a handbasket.
>
> Unless you are possibly wrong. But I will admit that I can't tell much
> about the world from what happens in my family.
He's wrong. They may not be told as much and in exactly the same
situations, but they're definitely told. Anansi stories, too.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
JamiJo
>when I saw it. I had the 1986-vintage movie poster framed in my room
>when I was a child. The film isn't available on home video in the US,
We have a copy of Song Of The South in our children's video collection in the
library where I work. I've shelved it a number of times. It gets a lot of
circulation and I've never seen anyone complain about us having it. I also
remember seeing it on TV once or twice when I was a little girl.
Deborah Stevenson
On 2 Feb 2001, Michael Lorton wrote:
Yet the people pictured in Bannerman's illustrations had African features
and the names "Sambo," "Mumbo," and "Jumbo" were evocative of Swahili
(hence the African elephant named "Jumbo").
Basically, it's not supposed to be a geography lesson, and it's not set in
realistic specific location. Tigers don't actually turn into butter,
either.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
JamiJo
>ask because when I was a kid we had a book of stories that my mom had when
>she was growing up, and one of the stories was "Little Black Sambo"
That's something I always wondered too. I have two old records, one with the
song/story of "Little Black Sambo" and one with the title changed to "Little
Brave Sambo." Sambo was one of my childhood *heros* because he out smarted
those old tigers and got some butter out of the deal! To me, as a small child,
Sambo was cooler then Batman. I wanted to be just as cool as Sambo when I grew
up. I never understood how a story and song about someone who's so blasted
clever/smart could be considered racist!
Scott Wilson
Dan Hartung <danha...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <slrn97jtga...@tristan.local.dom>,
> da...@noplace.com (david) wrote:
>> I've certainly heard it used as a racial epithet, it was quite common
>> for a period of time. There's a famous Saturday Night Live skit where
>> Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor trade racial epithets with each other,
>> and tarbaby heads the list. Part of the joke is that "tarbaby" has
>> the two meanings, one insulting and one not.
>
>Ah, but I do believe that there IS a generational disconnect here. I
>suspect that at 37, I'm of the last generation to be widely exposed to
>version of the Harris book long before seeing the Diz Knee version). I
>submit that the vast majority of people are increasingly only dimly
>aware of the original folktale meaning.
Probably only for pretty large values of "generation". I'm 27, and I saw
the movie as a kid, and we even had an Uncle Remus book.
Admittedly, I haven't seen it around in a long while.
--
Scott Wilson "As long as there is, you know, sex and drugs,
swi...@uchicago.edu I can do without the rock 'n' roll." Mick Shrimpton
Drew Lawson
dfo...@dfoster.com writes:
>I'm not entirely sure when "Uncle Tom" became an epithet in the
>African-American community. Fred Douglass has a few "I'm not an Uncle
>Tom" lines, but I think the "Uncle Tom" stereotype comes much later.
ObThreadTieIn: Who has "Lies My Teacher Told Me" handy? I'm pretty
sure that the inversion of Tom's image is covered in there somewhere.
Drew "my copy is at home" Lawson
Jerry Bauer
david <da...@noplace.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 02 Feb 2001 15:11:23 GMT, David Hatunen wrote:
>
><speaking of Song of the South>
>
>>It's an extremely awkward movie. Certainly, the slave life
>>portrayed is considerably more benign than "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
>
>In what way is slave life in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" supposedly benign?
You read that differently than I did. I am sure that David Hatunen
employed an idiomatic rhetorical device, and in no way intended to
imply that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" protrayed slave life as benign.
Jerry Randal Bauer
HWM
> It raised mine. BTW, what is the local language of Jamaica?
> I was there very briefly last week (cruise ship port) but didn't
> see much outside the well worn tourist paths.
Ocho Rios I suppose? The language is English, they claim atleast. The
local blend is called 'patois', say 'Louie Louie' is quite
understandable after you pick up the rythm, which is somewhat
distinctive of West Indian accents in general. The same situation
prevails that 'educated English' is supposedly better as everywhere. I
think we have a Barbadian in our midst who could verify wether Bajan
speak has so many distinctive words as Jamaican.
"lickle bit a brains can gi big mout trouble"
--
Cheers, HWM | The conformity of purpose will |
hen...@iobox.fi | be achieved through the mutual |
http://www.nullwave.net | satisfaction of requirements.|
N Jill Marsh
Deborah Stevenson <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.SGI.4.10.1010202...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu...
> Yet the people pictured in Bannerman's illustrations had African features
> and the names "Sambo," "Mumbo," and "Jumbo" were evocative of Swahili
> (hence the African elephant named "Jumbo").
>
> Basically, it's not supposed to be a geography lesson, and it's not set in
> realistic specific location. Tigers don't actually turn into butter,
> either.
The author's note at the end of "Sam and the Tigers" (Julius Lester, illus.
Jerry Pinkney), a charming 1996 retelling of the tale, has this to say (I
have snipped a bit for brevity):
"In 1899 a book called _Little Black Sambo_ was published. There are
two versions of how it came to be. Helen Bannerman, a Scot, was married to
a doctor in the British military and living in India.......the story was
written as entertainment by a mother for her daughters. Despite its black
characters, the story is not set in Africa. Nor is it set in India, despite
the tigers. The setting is fanciful and was never meant to be taken
literally.
It would be unfair to say Bannerman had a racist intent in creating
_Little Black Sambo_......Intentionally or not, _Little Black Sambo_
reinforced the idea of white superiority through illustrations exaggerating
African physiognomy and a name, Sambo, that had been used negatively for
blacks since the early seventeenth century.
Yet the story transcended its stereotypes. For almost a century
children have enjoyed it. Jerry Pinkney and I read the story as children
and recognized that Sambo was a black hero, but his name and how he was
depicted took away his heroic status...."
For anyone that loved LBS as a kid, but isn't entirely comfortable with some
of its content now, I recommend _Sam and the Tigers_ .
nj"and where parents never say 'don't eat so many'"m
Jay R. Ashworth
Andrew McMichael <amcm...@princeton.edu> wrote:
> Andrew "my selpcheker tries to replace 'Tenny' with 'Teeny'"
> McMichael
Um, Andrew? I think you mispelt "sepulchre".
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth j...@baylink.com
Member of the Technical Staff Baylink
The Suncoast Freenet The Things I Think
Tampa Bay, Florida http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 804 5015
Corvus
da...@noplace.com (david) wrote:
> Well, the NAACP boycott that drove Sambo's Restaurant out of business
> was back in the '70s, and that gained a lot of news coverage.
They weren't driven out of business. They changed their name.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Margaret Kane
"David Hatunen" <hat...@bolt.sonic.net> wrote in message
news:v6Ae6.105$Tf1....@typhoon.sonic.net...
> In article <86elxhzib...@dumpster.io.com>,
> Lars Eighner <eig...@io.com> wrote:
> >In our last episode, <m3puh1z...@civetsystems.com>,
> >the lovely and talented Michael Lorton
> >broadcast on alt.folklore.urban,alt.fan.cecil-adams:
> >
> >ML> Dan Hartung <danha...@my-deja.com> writes:
> >>> Ah, but I do believe that there IS a generational disconnect
> >>> here. I suspect that at 37, I'm of the last generation to be
> >>> widely exposed to the film Song of the South (though I actually
> >>> read a modernized-English version of the Harris book long
> >>> before seeing the Diz Knee version).
> >
> >
As a child, I had a set of Disney books that featured illustrated, condensed
versions of the movies. They had copies of the animation, or pictures from
the live action movies. I seem to recall four books, named for each of the
(then) four parks in Disney World (Adventure Land, Fantasy Land, and um, two
other lands). I distinctly remember the Brer Rabbit stories being in those
books. I was born in 1971, so the books would have been mid-70s.
Actually, now that I have a kid, I kind of wish I still had them. They were
great introductions to the stories, and once I figured out that they were
condensed, I would pester my mom to get me the full versions.
Margaret
yu...@my-deja.com
<atticus-0202...@user-38lciti.dialup.mindspring.com>,
att...@mindspring.com (Andy Walton) wrote:
> In article <FZAe6.115$Tf1....@typhoon.sonic.net>,
hat...@bolt.sonic.net
> (David Hatunen) wrote:
> I'd like to see the Cartoon Network do a show of those cartoons, maybe
in
> the 3 a.m. hour when many cable networks air educational programs for
> teachers to tape. Get Henry Louis Gates or another scholar (maybe a
panel)
> to discuss them in between.
>
> There's an interesting page on "Coal Black" at
> <http://www2.wi.net/~rkurer/coalblack.htm>. The cartoon is available
as a
> real video file at the bottom.
I wandered the net looking for a picture of the tarbaby, which I thought
might be the source of some of the offensiveness of the term. My
impression, filtered through years of memory, was that the tarbaby was a
rather ludicrous caricature of a black child.
In the process, I found several sites devoted to the movie, but alas, no
tarbaby still. What I did find was sevral references to Nick Stewart,
the voice of bre'r bear and Lightnin' from Amos and Andy. He recently
passed away, the last surviving member of the cast of the latter. see
For a description of what he did with the rest of his life.
The site also sells vintage videos. No song of the south, but many of
the cartoons to which you refer. Wasn't "Bosko" an offensive little
black character too?
Joe "Li'l Black Sambo's there too." Yuska the elder.
Jay R. Ashworth
Deborah Stevenson <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> In 1982, I knew people who were offended by the restaurant name, so your
> family may have been a little behind the curve.
So, you know, "people are offended by it" isn't an especially objective
reason to ban something. How many people need to be offended by something
before it's reasonable to feel the need to ban it?
JamiJo
>(then) four parks in Disney World (Adventure Land, Fantasy Land, and um, two
>other lands).
There's also Tomorrow Land, New Orleans Square (my favorite spot, someday I
hope to go to the real New Orleans) which I think is part of Frontier(sp?)
Land, and of course now Toon Town.
BHoover247
>> In 1982, I knew people who were offended by the restaurant name, so your
>> family may have been a little behind the curve.
>
>So, you know, "people are offended by it" isn't an especially objective
>reason to ban something. How many people need to be offended by something
>before it's reasonable to feel the need to ban it?
>
It is a great reason to feel the need to change the name of a restaurant.
david
>In article <slrn97lrou...@tristan.local.dom>,
> da...@noplace.com (david) wrote:
>> Well, the NAACP boycott that drove Sambo's Restaurant out of business
>> was back in the '70s, and that gained a lot of news coverage.
>
>They weren't driven out of business. They changed their name.
After a bit of scrambling with a few name changes that came long after
the damage was done, Sambo's declared bankruptcy, sold off its most of
its assets and after a very short attempt to make a go with a much
smaller chain called "Seasons", they finally sold that as part of the
settlement and dropped back to a single restaurant in Santa Barbara.
Granted, that's not quite "out of business", but it's damn close.
(It's a little unfair to claim that this was all due to the boycott,
poorly planned expansion and bad financial planning had a bit to do
with it as well).
Narcissa
da...@noplace.com (david) wrote:
> Well, the NAACP boycott that drove Sambo's Restaurant out of business
> was back in the '70s, and that gained a lot of news coverage. So I
> hate to break it to you, but either your parents were incredibly
> ignorant or they simply didn't care that the cat had an offensive name
> (or, more likely, they just didn't have the heart to tell you the
> truth as you hugged a little grey kitten while saying "I love little
> Sambo soooooo much....).
Well, when my parents named their new little black puppy "Little Black
Sambo" in 1986, they were aware of the connotation. I thought it was
offensive, but they said it was kind of an in-joke because of the book
they read as kids. It didn't seem offensive to them, because they
weren't going to be broadcasting to the neighborhood that his full name
was "Little Black Sambo;" we just called him "Sam."
Now Sam's getting up there, but I think the name still fits him. Think
about it; if the name had never been used by bigots, it would be a cute
name for a short, black-haired dog!
--
O{+> ~ Narcissa ~ narc...@narcissa.com
Get a Life! Check Out Everything: http://www.narcissa.com
Jon and Mary Frances Miller
> So, you know, "people are offended by it" isn't an especially objective reason
> to ban something. How many people need to be offended by something before it's
> reasonable to feel the need to ban it?
And exactly how long have you been vice president of marketing?
Jon "and when do you plan to run for political office?" Miller
--
"What can you do with such beggars? They will stay up half the night telling such
tales,
and the bigger the lie, the more they enjoy it." Joseph Conrad, _Lord Jim_.
David Hatunen
Jay R. Ashworth <j...@baylink.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 2 Feb 2001 10:16:29 -0600,
> Deborah Stevenson <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>> In 1982, I knew people who were offended by the restaurant name,
>> so your family may have been a little behind the curve.
>
>So, you know, "people are offended by it" isn't an especially
>objective reason to ban something. How many people need to be
>offended by something before it's reasonable to feel the need to
>ban it?
"Ban"? There's no ban on such stuff.
Drew Lawson
HWM <henry.w_EGGS_&_SP...@iobox.fi> writes:
>Drew Lawson wrote:
>
>> It raised mine. BTW, what is the local language of Jamaica?
>> I was there very briefly last week (cruise ship port) but didn't
>> see much outside the well worn tourist paths.
>
>Ocho Rios I suppose? The language is English, they claim atleast. The
That's the place.
Everything that I heard was English based, but I wasn't sure whether
that was just in support of the tourism economy. I'd sort of
expected something based on French, assuming that any pre-colonial
language had been extinguished.
We were only on the island for about 4-5 hours and had a tour
guide/driver with, um, a strong personality and some preconceptions
of where we'd want to go.
Drew "official part of the tourist blight" Lawson
Drew Lawson
yu...@my-deja.com writes:
>I wandered the net looking for a picture of the tarbaby, which I thought
>might be the source of some of the offensiveness of the term. My
>impression, filtered through years of memory, was that the tarbaby was a
>rather ludicrous caricature of a black child.
As best as I can recall (it *was* a long time ago), the tar baby
looked much like any cartoon baby of the era, aside from being
"black as tar" -- round belly and indistinct joints in it's baby-fat
limbs. There may have been a little of that "black face" exagerated
facial features thing mixed in, though.
>The site also sells vintage videos. No song of the south, but many of
>the cartoons to which you refer. Wasn't "Bosko" an offensive little
>black character too?
Hmm, didn't know that. Aside from the drink, I only know "Bosco"
as the name of a neighbor's white german-ish shepherd when I was
a kid. I wonder whether there was joke there that I just didn't
get.
Drew "good dog, when he didn't bite" Lawson
Drew Lawson
j...@baylink.com writes:
>On Fri, 2 Feb 2001 10:16:29 -0600,
> Deborah Stevenson <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>> In 1982, I knew people who were offended by the restaurant name, so your
>> family may have been a little behind the curve.
>
>So, you know, "people are offended by it" isn't an especially objective
>reason to ban something. How many people need to be offended by something
>before it's reasonable to feel the need to ban it?
I have no idea.
But since neither the story, "Little Black Sambo" nor the restaurant
name "Sambo's" (nor the movie, "The Song of the South") have been
banned, the question is pretty pointless.
Drew "business decision" Lawson
Fred Simons
"HWM" <hen...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:95emlb$50s$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <3a79b9c2....@news.newsguy.com>,
> ran...@visionplace.com (Randy Poe) wrote:
>
> > As for "pickaninny", that is indeed a highly-charged derogatory term
> > for a small child of African descent. It's a nasty word.
>
> Is that been broadcast in church?
>
> 1 For this time Caesar Augustus way been be the governor way Rome be
> send for commandier Jerusalem, be send order say, make them count all
> people.
[snip the rest of the Bible story...}
> 20 Time way the shepherd them finish for see the pikin, them go back
> with glad for place way them be leave them goat and sheep them. Them be
> glad because them see all thing as way the angel tell them.
That was really neat! Where did/does it come from?
Fred Simons