Is racism acceptable in predominantly white areas then?

[beansprout]

Have just been to Lyme Regis for my holiday. Was utterly shocked to repeatedly see golliwogs for sale in toy shops and at craft fairs but the piece de resistance was surely being in a book shop and seeing a book called "The Little Black Sambo" for sale. This was a children's book, which somehow made it worse. I told the manager I was very offended by this but she was incredibly ignorant. She started off by saying "are you black?" (I'm not) so I explained that I don't have to be black to be offended by racism.

To cut a long story short she was adamant that the book was fine and I was the one being ignorant (?!). She was very defensive and absolutely refused to acknowledge what I was saying.

I was born and live in London. You just wouldn't see this stuff here but is it really normal in other areas? Am interested to know!!

I had heard that golliwogs were back in vogue

I have one from childhood was my favourite pal and never thought of it as racist - I only heard that idea from adults.

Can someone explain the actual reason for the title and the picture of this book to be depicted as racist?
(this is a genuine request, i'm struggling to understand!)

I know someone said samba used to be used as a derogatory term, but i didn't know this and i wonder how wide spread that was. As far as i was aware its a dance isn't it?

I had a quick glance through the story and think it sounds lovely and didn't see any of the pictures as being racist.

Samba not sambo

LOL ok what does samba actually mean?

I'm off to google

sambo

OK, so far i have learnt that sambo is a type of martial art and also there is a muscian named Sambo

Where does racism meet with this word?

I thought it related to dance somehow!

here

If you click on the dictionary definition it does explain where the racist descript comes from. But no where else on google results is this term used or considered to be racist.

Just to stick up for country folk. I have lived in Hull and Bradford and Oldham. Give me rural devon any day.

I think that what you are seeing in rural areas is not racism as such just ignorance and curiosity in the most part. If people have never met a black person they are going to stare a bit and they will probably have bizarre preconceptions. They are, however, extremely unlikely to burn down your house while you are in bed which happens in big cities.

I liked the story as a child, (I love the way that the tigers were painted and I desparately wanted to taste ghee) but I wouldn't buy it or read it to my child now unless the language was changed. I don't want my son to ever call anyone black Sambo as it is a racist and derogotory term.

I don't think there's anything inherantly racist to the term "little black sambo". But it's been used as a term of racist abuse, and hence has got some bad associations.

Think of it this way - if someone started calling white people "parsnips", well, they'd just be weird. But if lots and lots of people started calling white people "parsnips" and denying them jobs and housing while they did it, and beating them up sometimes, while shouting "parsnips" and saying horrible things, while using the term "parsnips" ... people would find the term "parsnips" offensive and hurtful. We'd find a new word for the vegetable, and the word would become forbidden. Not because there's anything wrong with the vegetable, but because the word would hurt people.

I know its the same for the terms nigger and spastic and i appreciate that.

Just sambo was one i hadn't heard of.

never heard of sambo either. and agree totally that no word -as in vocolisation of a combination of letters - has the power to hurt anyone, it is the history behind the useage of a word - loved the parsnip example btw!

as to a golly, its a rag doll, I think its cute, my dh bought our kids one. its just a doll.

i think that people see racism where it does not exist, and that there is a lot of oversensitivitity about.

and before i am shot down in flames - my family is me white, dh black, our kids mixed race. we live in a little village where everyone else is white - in fact, believe we are first other ethnic group to ever live here - and frankly, they don't give a damn! dh is down the pub of an evening, necking pints with the best of them and we have not had anything that has upset us.

i once got asked by a black woman what do white people eat. i told her jellied eels and pigs trotters. i COULD have got all huffy and whined racism, but i thought it was funny - so daft questions and ignorance come from all directions!

racism as in abuse, fear, terror, discrimination - is bloody rare and is truly not all around us as some people would have you believe. lets not get paranoid and start seeing things that arent there.

I grew up in Devon, live there again now but spent a number of yuears in SE London (and Oxford, and York and Japan). Have to say the place I heard the most offensive racist comments was SE London. In Devon I've heard some ignorant comments from the older generation (poor choice of words often), but the most offensive came from someone who moved down from the south-east.

Lots of people have said that LBS 'wasn't written with the intention of being racist' and that it's only our modern sensitivities that make us see it that way. But think about it for a minute. This was 1899when the British Empire (along with other European empires) was massively expanding and was justified on the basis that people in Africa and Asia were racially incapable of ruling themselves. British culture in 1899 was absolutely saturated in assumptions of black inferiority. LBS was part of that. It is true that the story is not particularly derogatorybut the characters are called sambo, mumbo, and jumbo which have clear racist connotations. (Mumbo-Jumbo is a term for nonsense that associates nonsense and Africa.) The original illustrations definitely are racist.

This is a very interesting article justifying a US republication with new illustrations.

Agree very much with Ruth21. Great article too.

QueenofQuotes and mytwopenceworth- Really surprised you allow your children to have gollywogs. I would hate my boys to have one. Aren't you worried that they will question you on it when they grow up and realise that many people- black and white- find them hugely offensive? And what about your children's racial identity? Do you think it might be affected by their white mothers being so unwilling to see racism in situations where many others are clear that it is an issue?

"And what about your children's racial identity? Do you think it might be affected by their white mothers being so unwilling to see racism in situations where many others are clear that it is an issue?"

My children's racial idenitity is just fine thanks - and it was DH that accepted the gift of the Golliwogs from my mum - not me.

DH and I call both our children "coloured" - a term which some people in the UK say is racist........but in Zimbabwe (where hopefully one day we'll return to live) "coloured" is the accepted and 'normal' word for a mixed race child. We're not going to stop calling our own chidren coloured because others find it offensive - however we try to make sure we refer to other children with mixed racial backgrounds as "mixed race" - to keep them happy.

and if we're talking about 'images' being racist - what about "little bill" on Nick Jnr.

He's got the 'big eyes, nose and mouth' stereotypical features of black people - don't here many people jumping up and down about that one???

Oh come on,

this is getting silly. Would you rather not see black people at all portrayed in the media and books?

You can see racism in so many situations these days. Sometimes it may be there, other times, it may be all in the mind, or used as a convenient excuse.

I used to have golly dolls when I was a kid. I used to cut out the tokens from the Robertsons jam jars and send off for the dolls. I never had a problem with them and I don't now.

I went to look round a house really and the owner had quite a collection of them. I was surprised, as I hadn't seen them for years, but in apleasntly surprised way.

Mytwopenceworth - i have to disagree with you. Racism is not rare at all. In my large secondary school we regularly deal with racism and I know that surrounding schools have even worse problems than we do.

The kids were recently given a questionnaire to complete and most said there was a lot of racial bullying in thhe school.

When the police visit us they say the local area has problems too.

Fran1 - I think you've got the wrong end of the stick with my post - I'm don't see anything wrong with Little bill (actually one of my favourite Nick Jnr programmes) but I was asking those that feel that Gollywogs and LBS show the 'wrong' image of black people (racist pictures) if Little Bill was any better in their eyes.

I grew up in Devon and didnt see any racism as we never saw anyone not white. Since marrying an Asian and my own families reaction to this I soon realised what my parents really thought.

Yes you're right qofq sorry!

I didn't reread your other posts, but i thought i'd been agreeing with you mostly up until then!

phew thought perhaps you'd misunderstood it

Does anyone remember the seventies sitcom "Love thy neighbour". The white man always called his black neighbour "sambo", and it was acceptable to do it on tv in those days, very racist tv programme, but used to be one of my faves in those days, i've never been racist, the black guy gave the white guy as good back, honky i think he used to call him.