Racist children's literature

[skygazer]

Just musing here - when I was a kid, I read everything I could get my hands on. I was born in 1961 and I had six older siblings and we were all readers as were my parents. So there were a lot of books around the house, some of them pretty old, and I'd pull them out at random and read them.

I remember when I was about 8 finding several books that belonged to a series. I don't remember the author's name but they were written in maybe the 40's, maybe earlier and were about a girl in Kentucky (I think) named Mimi. There was "Mimi at Camp" and "Mimi at Sheridan School" - possibly others.

Anyway, I got partway through one of them and Mimi and a friend were walking through the woods and they started discussing how scary it was because there might be wild animals or "bad niggers" - exact wording, and in a kid's book!

Even as a little kid, I was shocked senseless. I'm sure my parents weren't aware of it - they wouldn't have had the books in the house - and I never said anything to anyone but it blew my mind.

I'm no fan of censorship but that just drew a line for me. And once I'd seen that statement, I realized how much else in those books was racist and classist.

So I'm wondering - have you ever come across anything like that? It makes me wonder what kid's literature was like in the Jim Crow south. :scared:

[matcom]

1. ....

[WindRavenX]

2. yikes

That's *bad*.

[skygazer]

3. Hell, I'd forgotten about that one

My parents wouldn't have had something like that in the house though I eventually became aware of it. The crap I found was really insidious and a parent would have had to read the darn book to realize how rotten it was.

Little Black Sambo - yeah. And the restaurant of the same name. Yikes!

[cmkramer]

25. The ironic thing

is that Little Black Sambo is not about an African child - it's about a child from India. Tigers are not found in Africa, for one thing. I've read variations of that story where the child is European too.

I had an old children's joke and activity book from around 1900 or so which featured jokes that went "A nigger and a Hebe were walking down the street and met a Dago". Most of the illustrations were pretty stereotypical too.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. It wasn't a kid's book, but...

[WindRavenX]

5. !

oh, btw, GD is a goddamn mess today. I saw some of your posts...

[skygazer]

6. And people wonder why there's so much racial tension

:banghead:

[Left Is Write]

21. I knew that book as Ten Little Indians, but apparently the name has been changed more than once...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None

[LynneSin]

17. My mother still has a copy of that book

I mean, when it was published no one really though much of it's racist overtones but I've read the book - it's bad.

It's stashed away with all of her other childhood books which she has kept in immaculant condition and I can assure you my mother is about as PC as they come.

[RumpusCat]

24. I loved that book as a kid

(although the edition I had at the time wasn't illustrated in that 'golliwog' style) and I was sad when I got older and realized how inappropriate parts of it were. The story itself is inoffensive--the main character is a resourceful boy who outwits the tigers, after all--but the illustrations and cultural baggage of the title are a bit much.

Happily, the story has been retold in a couple of more modern ways, most notably 'Sam and the Tigers.' http://www.amazon.com/Sam-Tigers-Retelling-Picture-Puffins/dp/0140562885/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-2868939-6439149?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176339743&sr=8-1
So now Sam can eat his 169 tiger pancakes without the baggage!

[slj0101]

7. Have you ever read any original Brothers Grimm?

I used to have the complete works, unabridged, before I gave it to an ex-girlfriend. Talk about gory, anti-Semitic, and not at all kid-friendly.

[Kat45]

20. Those stories scared the shit out of me when I was little.

I'm glad I don't really remember them well.

[MistressOverdone]

8. That's why you won't find much

Mark Twain in school libraries.

[Dora]

9. Ah, now this is where the debate begins.

Was Twain's writing racist in and of itself, or was Twain's work reflective of the racist culture he sought to portray?

Does a portrayal of racism constitute a racist act?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[MistressOverdone]

12. He wrote in the context of his times

and Nigger Jim was the kid's name. But I can see why it would cause a stir in a school.

Times change.

[skygazer]

13. But that misses the whole point of the story

Twain was pointing out the blind hypocrisy that couldn't see the worth of a person beyond their color. Jim was the only decent person in the story and that was what Twain was trying to point out.

The book I'm referring to had no redeeming features whatsoever. Twain doesn't belong on a thread about racist literature. Twain taught those who would listen something important about accepting people on their own merits.

[MistressOverdone]

15. Yes, yes, he did

I agree. But unfortunately the name of the character is just not socially acceptable now and many people have never read the book or just don't see past that.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

23. That's why it's so important for them to read it in school...

where they can learn to understand the book in its historical context...and where they have the opportunity to study Twain's true genius.

[Dora]

10. Drunken sot of a priest in "Old MacDonald's Farm"

It was my neighbor's book - rather, her kid's book. The text was harmless, but hidden in one of the illustrations was the village priest with a bottle tucked in his cloak.

[Aristus]

11. In Roald Dahl's "Charlie And The Chocolate Factory", the Oompa-Loompas

were originally illustrated as black pygmies.

The slavery overtones (happy, singing, manual laborers who were "rescued" from a dark, savage land and brought to "civilization" by a white businessman)were unmistakable, so Dahl changed them to white skinned, fair-haired pygmies.

According to friends and family, Dahl was more than a bit racist.

[skygazer]

14. Interesting - I didn't know that

I did of course pick up on the whole patriarchal thing with the Oompa-Loompas but I never knew they were originally illustrated that way to boot.

Yeah, I'd forgotten that book and I did pick up the sort of creepy factor from that as a kid. I guess I was a pretty perceptive kid.

[Sequoia]

16. I'm crushed.

[LynneSin]

18. Well Tim Burton did a better job with the book than that Gene Wilder crap

nuff said

[Sabriel]

19. Same for Babar

Nekkid elephant gets rescued by Caucasian lady, take to "civilization," gets clothes and a car, and returns to the jungle to rule his people. Not TOO colonial!

For more discussion on this and also the "tired Rosa Parks" myth, read the book Should We Burn Babar? by Herbert Kohl (not my senator).

(edtd fr bd splng)

[GoddessOfGuinness]

22. My grandmother had that book!

I remember seeing it on her basement bookshelf years ago. I never read it, but I remember the title; and thinking that it was probably about some goody-goody.

On the same bookshelf was a 1919 printing of "The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of Answers", which I've kept, even though it's falling apart. There's a section of this book devoted to different races. One chart, "Physical and Mental Characters of the Primary Human Groups", contrasts various features of "Caucasians, Mongolians, Negroes, and Americans" (Native Americans).

The "Temperment" category is the most jaw-droppingly offensive bullshit you can imagine reading. The editor's sources for this valuable resource are all LLDs and PhDs, and undoubtedly white:

Caucasian (or White): Serious, steadfast, solid and stolid in the north; fiery, impulsive, fickle in the south; active, enterprising, imaginative everywhere; science, art, and letters highly developed.

Mongolian (or Yellow): Sluggish, somewhat sullen, with little initiative but great endurance, generally frugal and thrifty; moral standard low; little science; art and letters moderately developed.

Negro (or Black): Sensuous, indolent, improvident, fitful, passing easily from comedy to tragedy, little sense of dignity, hence easily enslaved; slight mental development after puberty.

American (or Red): Moody, taciturn, wary, impassivein presence of strangers; science and letters slightly, art moderately developed.

I took this book after my granddad died, because I think it's important that we always remember how ignorant and stupid we are capable of being, regardless of the level of education acquired.