Little Black Sambo & Licorice Candy

I grew up in the North. Fort Wayne, Indiana, if you're interested. My childhood involved running free: out the door in the morning, home by the time the street-lights came on. Wherever we were at noon-time, that Mom made us lunch. We were busy, we were active, we didn't stop until the "cows came home". We also shared a certain history.

I remember "Little Black Sambo". A simple story about a little boy from India. He tamed some lions while making pancakes. I never thought a thing about it. It was a story.

When I was a teenager, I remember a restaurant chain called "Sambo's" that was based on that story. It was a kind of "Denny's" that specialized in pancakes. The menu talked about the story from my youth. It had changed the name from "Little Black Sambo" to "Sambo's". I never thought a thing about it.

There was a point in my childhood where I accompanied my Chicago buddy to a candy store while visting him in Kenilworth, IL. You know the place. Do you remember when candy stores had all sorts of things in bins? I bought something and my buddy bought something else. He bought "Nigger Babies". They were black licorice candies shaped like a baby. I had never heard of them before. Being that my buddy was from the big city, he knew the best candy to buy. I was used to buying "Good 'n Plenty" at the movies, so I was on board for licorice. I never thought a thing about it. It was candy.

My Lord, tell me I wasn't a racist! I didn't even know what that word meant when I was a kid. We dealt in reality back then. We didn't look at candy and think about the evils of racism, we thought about our sweet tooth. We didn't look at a menu and think about the evils of racism, we thought about pancakes. The racist phrases meant nothing to us, we were kids. We didn't realize that we'd be tainted for life by virtue of our childhood. Am I no longer entitled to criticize a politician?

I remember when "Sambo's" went out of business. It's name was not appropriate. I understood why, but liked the menu. After all, I had never thought a thing about it. It was just pancakes.

I never saw another "Nigger Baby" after my trip to Chicago. I was horrified years later when I thought about it. I never thought of being racist, but felt guilty for eating candy with a "racist" name.

I've learned about the misadventures of my youth. I've dismissed those episodes and learned accordingly. I am not a racist. I wasn't back then. I was just growing up in a culture that was insensitive to certain things. Things that became much more important as I grew older...and wiser.

40-some odd years later, I'm confronted with my youth. I'm called a racist for disagreeing with a man in the White House...just because he's black. I've already learned that prejudice is wrong and I've labored to dismiss the events of my youth. I am not ready to dismiss my beliefs in God and country, although those were there in my youth as well. Things like the Boy Scouts, being an Altar Boy and praying at Church.

I am not a racist, so don't try to label me as such. My overriding concern is whether or not you are. Have you not learned anything in the past 40 years? Instead of empowering the idea of racism, you should be defusing it! I think I speak for the majority of Tea Party protesters when I say our protest is NOT about race, it's about POLICY!