I just mentioned the book ‘Little Black Sambo’ in a comment or two, in regards to “buttery” artwork, and I was recommending that the person I was commenting to read it and view the wonderful artwork if they get a chance.
Then, I went to look it up online, and what I found is a whole lot of weirdness! None of the books were the one I read as a child. The one I read as a child did call him Little Black Sambo, yes, but there was no Black Mumbo or Black Jumbo and it was completely different artwork. Yet, it was banned, all the same as the other ones.
Here is something I did not find, which I think is quite disturbing: the truth!
The tale of Little Black Sambo, the real tale, the one that was in the book that I read and which the purported author of Little Black Sambo had obviously heavily based her work on, was not a racist commentary made up by a Scottish woman to entertain her daughters! It is an old, old tale of one of the smartest, most cunning ancestors of an African people: Sambo! It’s about how even as a child he was so smart and brave that he could outwit even the most frightening of their enemies, the man eating tigers, and make them powerless against him. It is a tale of bravery and resourcefulness, an honoring of the ancestors, and a reason for being proud to be of that blood and to carry that name.
One of the saddest things I have ever seen is a small family group of two persons, standing in a foreign land, in a library, where they expected freedom of thought and self expression, watching people of other colors and races, insulting their ancestral history ,burning books and crying out that the names of those two persons ancestors was filth and not to even be spoken of in public, .. .and one of them, the little boy, looking up into his mother’s eyes and crying, demanding to know why, if Sambo was so disgusting, she would name him that!
That was at a book burning, that was inspired by people seeing that the library had the book ‘Little Black Sambo.” They went crazy, putting burn barrels into the building and lighting all sorts of books up. I risked life and limb to wrestle one of those books away from them and give it to the young man, while explaining to him how stupid some people are that they think just because their ancestors acted badly they have the right to punish everyone else and how Sambo is a wonderful name, that’s why it was made fun of by bad people who dishonored themselves by their actions, because they waned to take away the goodness and nobility of the name among the people they enslaved.
Well, they didn’t do it, but congratulations to the book burners and banners for succeeding where the racist bastards failed!
However, be aware that there once was a little brown Sambo who clutched the book Little Black Sambo, the good one about his ancestors, to his chest and watched in fear as some of you threatened to tear him and me limb from limb for daring to want to know the story, the dignity, behind the prejudicial silliness. And he did grow up, and I’m still alive, so.. if the truth shall set you free, than he and I have been free for decades, and you still aren’t!
oneillstudios, 3 months ago
They actually had a book burning? Where was this?
Arletta in reply to oneillstudios’s comment, 3 months ago
LOL They’ve had several book burnings, related to Little Black Sambo, Tom Sawyer, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and all those horribly “racist” books. Though ,I have to say the Little Black Sambo that I could find was much more racist than the one who unfairly received the back lash for it at the library I was typing about.
That particular book burning was in Anchorage, Alaska at the Lussac Library. I hope I spelled that right. It was right in the building, sometime back in the mid to late 80’s, and it was never in the news, never reported to the police, etc. as the librarians were in on it, too. So, I can’t prove it, unfortunately did not have a video camera or even a camera camera, but I wish I did.
And when I say “they had several book burnings” I mean that I only know of one that happened in that Library, City, or State; but there was a rash of them going on all across America at the time.
Which, it’s also shocking how many people don’t know about it. Sure, it wasn’t as ear-tingling as listening to tales of Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacey, but it tears at the very fabric of society as a whole when persons are no longer allowed to learn from the past.
That was not a lecture, by the way; just thoughts!
oneillstudios, 3 months ago
Thanks for taking time to share that with me. Sounds like madness—I think similar proscription is happening in all English speaking countries. I have just spent five years in Turkey and I am now in Switzerland (so still out of the EU). Things look crazy.
Arletta in reply to oneillstudios’s comment, 3 months ago
Oi! Here’s something from one of those sort of groups, just so you know: http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1002/bookburning.html
It reads like satire, but, unfortunately, it isn’t!
Mind you, I could fully understand a person who, say, gave up being a Wiccan or a philosopher or whatever, taking their books of that nature out of their own private library and burning them or tearing them apart due to their own choice of changing their life, their wish to follow their new beliefs, and one of those beliefs being that they should never choose to contaminate others with what they have determined to be wrong, I could see that! Hey! I destroyed the Playboys when I quit drawing and painting nudes all the time and decided I would not support the pornography industry anymore. Wasn’t going to give them to anyone else because I hate porn and that would be hypocritical to sell or give them away. So.. I can definitely see it.
But, that and telling my kids and other people my reasons, is as far as it’s my business. Even what those people quoted out of the Bible was not about them ransacking a library and destroying things of others. It was about them willingly giving up the former things that influenced their thinking.
Geez! People will twist shite! I hate book burnings!
oneillstudios, 3 months ago
Checking out that site. Seems quite funny. Thanks for the link Aletta
Arletta in reply to oneillstudios’s comment, 3 months ago
Surely! I am guessing a good Googling would find many more sites about the same sort of thing. I think I finally figured out how to be a Best Selling author!
Jaybe, 3 months ago
I found this rather funny – from the website link:
“The release of the fifth book in the Harry Potter series has been delayed because Christians have been praying to God that he will send angels to scramble Satan’s brain and force him to admit Rowling’s spent body to a mental hospital so that the whole series will never be completed.”
If that’s being a true Christian, wishing someone so generous by nature to be committed then I’m glad I’m not one.
Shocking story – I collect books, especially Children’s books and one of the worst offenders for racist comments is actually Disney!
Arletta in reply to oneillstudios’s comment, 3 months ago
Here’s another link, but not so funny: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/216755/book_burning_in_america.html
oneillstudios, 3 months ago
Thanks again for the link Arletta
Arletta in reply to Jaybe’s comment, 3 months ago
It is shocking, yes. Here’s what else is going to be shocking, later, according to the same Bible that they say gives them the moral imperative to behave the way they do: Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness. I don’t know you!
That may not be a direct quote, but I think most people will get the gist of it.
The only way anyone could take the words of the Holy Scriptures as saying to go out and burn books in that particular manner, is if their brains were already addled or they hadn’t bothered to read it at all but simply took some other human’s word for it that it’s what it says to do.
Personally, I, being Irish and Chinese and Cherokee Indian by blood, do not get offended by comments about potato munchers, chinks, red skins, etc. Most especially if it is in a book that was written 50 years ago! Sometimes you have to laugh at it, as it shows the ignorance of others, and sometimes you have to cry at what others have gone through. But, it’s not the words that hurt .. it’s the intention of the user.
I’d rather someone read me a story about the coolies in an honest attempt to get me to think or to entertain me than to deal with someone who would never use the words but feels guilty for allegedly being something more than I am.
And Uncle Tom’s Cabin .. I never finished it, but, it uses the word nigger because it is about people who use those words for the various reasons and written in a time when it was not considered so very wrong to do so. To ban it, burn it, deny it’s existence is to deny the suffering of the slaves, the bravery of those who helped them, and those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
From everything I saw, by the way, if I was a black woman instead, I’d be reading that book and telling my children to grow up to be an Uncle Tom, but the free version. That man was a loving, devoted husband and father who respected those in authority as God teaches us to do, but who never snitched on another slave who had to go their own way, and who chose not to run away because it would bring more hardship on another slave.
He should be a literary hero and the book should be required reading. Political correctness be damned!
Riyllan, 3 months ago
ANd yet in the world we abid we must be careful not to step on toes and must strife to be P.C. that we lose the truth … lose our heritage lose the point.
Arletta in reply to Riyllan’s comment, 2 months ago
P.C. steps on all toes, all the time, equally .. near as I can see. I’d rather know if I’m in a room full of prejudice people who hate me based on my sex, ethnicity,place of birth, etc. so I know what I’m dealing with, then to deal with the hypocrisy of people who won’t admit their prejudices. Prejudices admitted can be overcome. Prejudices hidden lead to midnight lynchings and concentration camps, once broken free.
Something like that, anyway.
Hence why one man, by the way, said he’s not a part of the world and you shouldn’t be either! lol
Riyllan, 2 months ago
SO true…..nuffsaid
:)