Mother Jones: These Racist Collectibles Will Make Your Skin Crawl

[LiberalArkie]

Note: I grew up with this stuff at peoples homes and yards. I agree that these articles is how Jim Crow got subconsciously embedded into society and lives of people.

By Dave Gilson

DAVID PILGRIM bought his first piece of racist memorabilia in the early 1970s, when he was a youngster in Mobile, Alabama. It was a set of salt and pepper shakers meant to caricature African Americans. "I purchased it and broke it" on purpose, recalls Pilgrim, who is black. Yet over the next few decades, he amassed a sizable collection of what he calls "contemptible collectibles"—once-common household objects and products that mock and stereotype black people.

In 1996, Pilgrim transformed his 3,200-item collection into the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Michigan's Ferris State University, where he teaches sociology. He presents a selection of these appalling objects and images in his new book, Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice. As the title implies, the book isn't merely an exercise in shock value. It lays out the philosophy behind Pilgrim's work as a scholar and an activist: that only by acknowledging these artifacts and their persistence in American culture can we honestly confront our not-so-distant past.

Mother Jones: What made you decide to turn your collection into a museum?

David Pilgrim: When I got to Michigan, someone mentioned that they knew this elderly black woman who was an antiques dealer. After many months, she agreed to let me see her personal collection. It was just objects floor to ceiling in a barnlike structure. I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume. It shook me! I thought I'd seen everything. What she had was a testimony to—this is going to sound weird—not just the creativity of racism, but the diversity in it. I remember that day thinking that I wanted to do what she'd done, but in a different way.

Snip

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2016/02/david-pilgrim-understanding-jim-crow-racist-collectibles

[3catwoman3]

1. Bad enough that these items...

...were ever made. That any are still made is reprehensible.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[Wounded Bear]

3. This is our own private holocaust museum...

The Nazis did it for 12 years. We Americans did it for over 200 with active slavery, and another 150 with Jim Crow and active racism and repression. We've managed to drive some of it underground, but it persists and now is celebrated again in the election campaign of one of our major political parties.

As despicable as these items are, and as deplorable as the sentiments behind them are, every American should be required to peruse this museum and listen to the explanations and descriptors about them.

It is time to openly show the contempt that racism truly deserves.

[MineralMan]

4. Stuff like this is still for sale on eBay.

Just search for "black memorabilia," "black americana" or related topics.

[LiberalArkie]

5. My brother has 2 of those "lawn jockeys" at his driveway in Florida

Yes he is racist, but I have not talked to him since 1992.

[MineralMan]

7. Uff da! I can't imagine seeing those today.

I suppose they are still in some yards in some places, but I just can't imagine it where I live.

It's a shame that people still think such things are acceptable anywhere.

I don't know who's buying those things on eBay, either. I'd like to thing it's just black people buying them as illustrations of history, but I suspect that's not the case.

Frankly, I was surprised to see so much of it for sale there.

[LiberalArkie]

9. Even back in the 60's black people had them in their yard

The only reason I could think of is to say to whites that "Hey we aren't uppity"

[Dale Neiburg]

6. I know a black couple

who go the rounds of flea markets selling some of the most obnoxiously racist material. They tell me that almost all their sales are to black parents, who want it to show their children what it used to be like.

[MineralMan]

8. That makes sense, I suppose.

There's some awful stuff on eBay.

[kwassa]

10. My in-laws, who are black, collected some of these ....

they collect everything in the universe. It is a good graphic reminder of exactly how racist this country has been.

[LiberalArkie]

11. I must have destroyed over 100 lawn jockeys back in the 60's when I was a kid.

Kick them into the street and bust them. I hated those things.

[kwassa]

12. I saw some painted white ....

that was a lawn decoration that really needed to disappear.