Let's talk about Little Black Sambo
Jun. 16th, 2009 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
I know, you're wondering why on earth I want to talk about that and what purpose it could possibly serve, but I promise I have a point. Plus? You get to snark on rude little Amazon commenters, and that's always fun.
Now, for those of you who have heard the name, and maybe seen a picture of one of the illustrations, but have never read it (that was me until recently) you can go read it now. There are no illustrations attached, but that's probably just as well.
All done? Well, here's the thing. I read that and - the offensive names (and illustrations_ notwithstanding, it's actually kinda a cute story. (Of course, I'm not black, so take that for what it's worth. Interestingly, I've read that in the author's dialect of the time Black Ssmbo would've been understood to be Indian, which explains the tigers and the ghee.) I mean, the kid is bullied by tigers, but... I'd give all my stuff to tigers too if it worked.
But it's been tied down with offensive names and ugly (and offensive) illustrations and so much racist baggage that people who have never been within 20 feet of the book recognize it as "offensive racist stuff". And there's really only so much "judge within the time period it was written" you can really do before you decide not to buy a book for your kids.
Funnily enough, its reputation as being racist might have saved it. Why? Because people who liked the story (but not the implications) have taken the trouble to rewrite it. I know of two versions that appear to be simple swaps where they updated the illustrations and changed the names, and one version, Sam and the Tigers, that's totally altered and expanded. Oh, and one version where, judging from the cover (haven't read it) the protagonist is white. We avoid racism, folks, by eliminating race altogether!
I really like Sam and the Tigers. There's a lot of new detail - apparently everybody in Sam's town is named Sam, which leads to a few amusing conversations, and we get to hear his parents talk about how he's a big kid and can pick out his own clothes, and the pancakes are striped just like the tigers at the end. And it includes a forward by the illustrator saying that as a kid, he never saw the racism in the book (and that he didn't think it was intended by the author, though it's sure there now), it was simply the only book he had ever seen that showed a kid who looked like him. (And that's a sad thing to think, isn't it? The situation is better now, though white people (hi!) are still overrepresented in picture books.)
So far so good. People update old stories all the time. They've been doing it about as long as people have been telling stories, which may even predate language itself for all I know! If you search Amazon for "Cinderella" you'll find various traditional versions, and versions of similar stories from other cultures, and a lot of modern versions - Cinderella as a cowgirl! Cinderella with the genders swapped! Cinderella in a city! Cinderella as a fractured fairy tale! Cinderella where she does everything herself! And no complaints there. Why should there be?
But here... oh, geez.
For the original version of Little Black Sambo there are comments that it's SO not racist and how could ANYbody EVER think that unless they were TAUGHT to see racism EVERYWHERE? (Captain, I feel that they feel a little defensive.)
Apparently, "whatever is considered "bad" in this book is the manufacture of over-sensitive adults" and "EVERYONE has had an unflattering portrayal at sometime". Ye gods. Can you guys, like, NOT insult everybody who has a view of this book opposing your own? If somebody is offended, try to figure out why before you snipe at them. That's not being PC, that's being polite.
But it gets worse when we go to the reviews of the other books. Let's see....
Sam and the Tigers
I thought I would gag. This takes the cake! It is appalling to me, a student of literature, that we must deny people the right to read a story that yes, was racist. But it was of its time and it is a truly charming story.
Because only the original can be a truly charming story. And nobody, ever, has been denied the right to read the original. It's in the gosh-darned public domain! Google it!
My grandmother read the original book to me a decade and a half ago, when I was 5. I loved it and didn't have the slightest inclination that it was unacceptable. Some wide-eyed psychologist, however, thought so, which is why it's been banned.
Yes, of course. People never come to their own conclusions, it's all the fault of that conspiracy of wide-eyed psychologists. Uh-huh. (The US, to my knowledge, does not ban books either. It's not in print, which is a far different thing.)
Recently, I bought this book for my three year old daughter. After reading it once I was very disappointed and vowed to send it back. The story is great and the illustrations are wonderful. Unfortunately, the book is full of bad grammar. The author states that he wanted to preserve the way stories were told in the Old South. There is never a good reason to perpetuate bad grammar especially in children's books.
Irrelevant, but I had to put it down. You know why I don't like this comment.
The Story of Little Babaji
Political correctness has gone completely mad in this world, and this is a great example. This is the politcally correct version of the wonderful children's book, "Little Black Sambo". I am dismayed that there are people who feel that books should be changed when they offend. If a book offends you, you don't rewrite it to suit your views, you just don't read it or share it with your children. There are so many books in this world which can cause offense. Are we going to rewrite them all?
Why *not* rewrite them all? Why *not* have more choices, more variety, more voices instead of less and less of everything? Ye GODS man! (This is the version where the ONLY thing they did is change the names and illustrations, incidentally. The original book went through, what, 20 different sets of pictures?)
So yes, this was all an excuse to mostly snark at people who apparently have never heard of the concept of "privilege". A weird thing, but that's the only explanation for that last review I can think of.
Now, for those of you who have heard the name, and maybe seen a picture of one of the illustrations, but have never read it (that was me until recently) you can go read it now. There are no illustrations attached, but that's probably just as well.
All done? Well, here's the thing. I read that and - the offensive names (and illustrations_ notwithstanding, it's actually kinda a cute story. (Of course, I'm not black, so take that for what it's worth. Interestingly, I've read that in the author's dialect of the time Black Ssmbo would've been understood to be Indian, which explains the tigers and the ghee.) I mean, the kid is bullied by tigers, but... I'd give all my stuff to tigers too if it worked.
But it's been tied down with offensive names and ugly (and offensive) illustrations and so much racist baggage that people who have never been within 20 feet of the book recognize it as "offensive racist stuff". And there's really only so much "judge within the time period it was written" you can really do before you decide not to buy a book for your kids.
Funnily enough, its reputation as being racist might have saved it. Why? Because people who liked the story (but not the implications) have taken the trouble to rewrite it. I know of two versions that appear to be simple swaps where they updated the illustrations and changed the names, and one version, Sam and the Tigers, that's totally altered and expanded. Oh, and one version where, judging from the cover (haven't read it) the protagonist is white. We avoid racism, folks, by eliminating race altogether!
I really like Sam and the Tigers. There's a lot of new detail - apparently everybody in Sam's town is named Sam, which leads to a few amusing conversations, and we get to hear his parents talk about how he's a big kid and can pick out his own clothes, and the pancakes are striped just like the tigers at the end. And it includes a forward by the illustrator saying that as a kid, he never saw the racism in the book (and that he didn't think it was intended by the author, though it's sure there now), it was simply the only book he had ever seen that showed a kid who looked like him. (And that's a sad thing to think, isn't it? The situation is better now, though white people (hi!) are still overrepresented in picture books.)
So far so good. People update old stories all the time. They've been doing it about as long as people have been telling stories, which may even predate language itself for all I know! If you search Amazon for "Cinderella" you'll find various traditional versions, and versions of similar stories from other cultures, and a lot of modern versions - Cinderella as a cowgirl! Cinderella with the genders swapped! Cinderella in a city! Cinderella as a fractured fairy tale! Cinderella where she does everything herself! And no complaints there. Why should there be?
But here... oh, geez.
For the original version of Little Black Sambo there are comments that it's SO not racist and how could ANYbody EVER think that unless they were TAUGHT to see racism EVERYWHERE? (Captain, I feel that they feel a little defensive.)
Apparently, "whatever is considered "bad" in this book is the manufacture of over-sensitive adults" and "EVERYONE has had an unflattering portrayal at sometime". Ye gods. Can you guys, like, NOT insult everybody who has a view of this book opposing your own? If somebody is offended, try to figure out why before you snipe at them. That's not being PC, that's being polite.
But it gets worse when we go to the reviews of the other books. Let's see....
Sam and the Tigers
I thought I would gag. This takes the cake! It is appalling to me, a student of literature, that we must deny people the right to read a story that yes, was racist. But it was of its time and it is a truly charming story.
Because only the original can be a truly charming story. And nobody, ever, has been denied the right to read the original. It's in the gosh-darned public domain! Google it!
My grandmother read the original book to me a decade and a half ago, when I was 5. I loved it and didn't have the slightest inclination that it was unacceptable. Some wide-eyed psychologist, however, thought so, which is why it's been banned.
Yes, of course. People never come to their own conclusions, it's all the fault of that conspiracy of wide-eyed psychologists. Uh-huh. (The US, to my knowledge, does not ban books either. It's not in print, which is a far different thing.)
Recently, I bought this book for my three year old daughter. After reading it once I was very disappointed and vowed to send it back. The story is great and the illustrations are wonderful. Unfortunately, the book is full of bad grammar. The author states that he wanted to preserve the way stories were told in the Old South. There is never a good reason to perpetuate bad grammar especially in children's books.
Irrelevant, but I had to put it down. You know why I don't like this comment.
The Story of Little Babaji
Political correctness has gone completely mad in this world, and this is a great example. This is the politcally correct version of the wonderful children's book, "Little Black Sambo". I am dismayed that there are people who feel that books should be changed when they offend. If a book offends you, you don't rewrite it to suit your views, you just don't read it or share it with your children. There are so many books in this world which can cause offense. Are we going to rewrite them all?
Why *not* rewrite them all? Why *not* have more choices, more variety, more voices instead of less and less of everything? Ye GODS man! (This is the version where the ONLY thing they did is change the names and illustrations, incidentally. The original book went through, what, 20 different sets of pictures?)
So yes, this was all an excuse to mostly snark at people who apparently have never heard of the concept of "privilege". A weird thing, but that's the only explanation for that last review I can think of.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-02 03:05 am (UTC)And the "whole new story based on the old one" mode... I don't think that's censorship either - no more than I think it's censorship when I read one book which sets Cinderella as a Chinese girl and another which puts her as a (male) cowboy and a third which tells the story of CinderEdna who worked for all her "luck". It's just different storytellers telling stories through different lenses. Spin the kaleidoscope again and something else new will come up, but it's still the same object, right?
Even if I did object to this in principle (which I don't), I'm still not sure I'd call it censorship. The racism in Little Black Sambo was, I believe, accidental. I really doubt that Bannerman meant to put it there, and the story stands just fine without it. The misogyny in certain songs can hardly be said to be an accident (although the artist in question might not be thinking too deeply about it), and the song would be very changed by removing it - it's hardly a superficial difference.
Of course, if one artist released two different versions of the same song, one schools and one for grown-ups... that's not censorship either. People do that all the time - they have the original version, and the version that's on THIS CD, and the version that's on THAT CD, and the longer version, and (if they get that far) a couple hundred parody versions all over YouTube. So long as we're able to find, should we want, every version (even the offensive versions), and aren't denied that they exist, I don't see it as censorship even in the broad definition (which includes censorship by non-governmental bodies).
And you *can* buy copies of "the original" (whichever version that is) Little Black Sambo. You can even download them online, cuz it's open source by now. It's not just freely available, it's actually free, which is about as non-censored as you can get.