Ah! Here's another edition!
Oct. 29th, 2009 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
Judging by the reviews I'm guessing this is the exact same words Helen Bannerman used, but different illustrations. Well, even before recently her words were tied to many different sets of pictures, something people don't often realize today.
Here's one review that I'm looking at right now:
First of all I think that racism is learned. I found nothing wrong with this story and in fact it was one of my favorites as a kid. Many a time you would find us playing tigers running around a tree and melting into butter. To me, it is a story about a little black boy who has two parents who love him very much and give him gifts. The tigers try to eat him, he gives them his clothes and then, while they're fighting, he gets them back. I loved how the tigers turned to butter and Sambo got to eat 169 pancakes! Wow, a huge stack of pancakes loaded with freshly melted butter. I know my kids would love that. I asked my kids 12 and 10 what they thought of the story. Did they think it was mean to black people. We all agreed that it was a good story and could be written with any race and still be good. As for their names-since we haven't studied the history of how hated dark skinned people across the world have been in such depth, they don't mean a thing to us. Why wait 100 years to read the story just because some people can't get over the past? I hope you'll read the book and enjoy it with your children-that's what it was written for-and when you're done go make some pancakes together:)
Her kids are TEN and TWELVE. When on earth did she intend to teach them about racism? Do they know anything about the world around them? (Oh wait - it's all in the past. GOT it. Of course, it still sounds like they're ignorant of any form of recent history....)
Here's one review that I'm looking at right now:
First of all I think that racism is learned. I found nothing wrong with this story and in fact it was one of my favorites as a kid. Many a time you would find us playing tigers running around a tree and melting into butter. To me, it is a story about a little black boy who has two parents who love him very much and give him gifts. The tigers try to eat him, he gives them his clothes and then, while they're fighting, he gets them back. I loved how the tigers turned to butter and Sambo got to eat 169 pancakes! Wow, a huge stack of pancakes loaded with freshly melted butter. I know my kids would love that. I asked my kids 12 and 10 what they thought of the story. Did they think it was mean to black people. We all agreed that it was a good story and could be written with any race and still be good. As for their names-since we haven't studied the history of how hated dark skinned people across the world have been in such depth, they don't mean a thing to us. Why wait 100 years to read the story just because some people can't get over the past? I hope you'll read the book and enjoy it with your children-that's what it was written for-and when you're done go make some pancakes together:)
Her kids are TEN and TWELVE. When on earth did she intend to teach them about racism? Do they know anything about the world around them? (Oh wait - it's all in the past. GOT it. Of course, it still sounds like they're ignorant of any form of recent history....)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-03 02:57 am (UTC)As far as why it's considered offensive, I think it's really (mostly) the unfortunate word choice. At the time she wrote her book, Sambo was apparently already an offensive term. What I've read is that she unknowingly took her name from another source, but it was still there, you know? The book didn't help matters.
And the illustrations weren't useful either - it's not that they aren't pretty, it's that they follow what was even at the time a fairly offensive caricature. (Well, there were several sets of illustrations, so I don't suppose it matters.)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-03 04:29 am (UTC)We've got an edition with the original illustrations here, and they aren't all that much of a caricature. Looking at the pictures of actual children from that area (http://www.foodrelief.org/articles/51/1/Update-on-Tamil-Nadu-Relief-Efforts/Page1.html), especially the ones in profile, one can see that some of the supposedly-offensive 'stereotypical' facial traits in the illustrations are actually pretty common in that region.
There's nothing wrong with them, either; they look just fine. I know, some unscientific assholes of the last century tried to put across the idea that black people were related to apes by drawing them with chimpanzee faces, and Sambo does look kind of monkey-like in some pictures. But hello, it's the year 2009; the Human Genome Project was finished years ago; surely by now, everyone but the fanatic Fundies knows that we're all equally related to apes, so the pot's got no room to be calling the kettle black, as it were.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-03 04:33 am (UTC)