Monday, September 14, 2009

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!

11 comments:

  1. Provocative, but very insightful piece of writing. I think many of us from that time had the same or very similar experiences in our youth. But with only a few rabid and disgusting exceptions, we've grown. Unfortunately, as a nation, we seem to be stuck in apologies for a time that was wrong. Nothing can rewrite history, but there's no need to keep looking to the past to justify today's actions.

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  2. The racist phrases meant nothing to us, we were kids.

    Kids probably didn't know better at the time. That's the whole point. As you grow up you begin to learn the origin of those racist terms and connotations.

    But even back then, the adults were certainly snickering under their breath.

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  3. No, you were not a racist. A racist knows what he is saying is about race. As a child eating "Nigger Baby's" you did not know what that meant, therefor had no racist intent. You have nothing to feel guilty about or apologize for.

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  4. I'm surprised that you mentioned "Nigger Baby" candy. I remember them as a child when I was growing up in Southern California (this was in the 1960's - I'm not exactly ancient). I always wondered if my memory was faulty and that wasn't the real name of the candy. Your mention of it proves that it did indeed exist! By the way, at that time we never thought of the name as being racist.

    Jon
    http://lonestarconcerto.blogspot.com/

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  5. I remember getting them at the drug store at the candy counter. You can still buy them from the Vermont Candy Company online website. My Mom will occassionally get them for me. I am 49 years old!!!

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  6. You can still buy them from the Vermont Candy Company's web site.

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  7. I really do not care for them, but never considered them racist. Just another candy as a child.

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  8. "Am I no longer entitled to criticize a politician?"

    I think that the main thing behind people being so quick to meet criticisms with allegations of racism is that so many people criticize Obama based on sensationalist nonsense and parroting ignorant pundits who focus on entertainment that people encountering such criticisms assume that the source of them can not actually physically be as stupid as they sound so they are branded as racists because it seems to be the only logical explanation.

    Things will die down when the insane people get tired of babbling and the voices of adults are heard more clearly again as the neocons die off and are replaced with actual conservatives that wouldnt even spare the time to engage in useless attack-oriented rhetoric. Until then just ignore anybody who says you are being racist if you are not being racist. They are likely prejudging you based on interactions with other people who have criticised Obama so their slurs are meaningless.

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  9. Wendy.....No more coffee after 10 PM. I almost passed out reading that first paragraph. Flying through the words just hoping to see at least a comma so I could take a quick breath before I slammed into that period.
    Just kidding.

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  10. Actually Sambos was parts of the two owners name and wasn't originally intended to be tied to the children's story little black sambo.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo%27s

    I remember playing eny meny miny mo . . .
    And Brazil nuts being called nigger toes.

    To keep it all in context, none of us kids were racist that is what those things were called.

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  11. In the 70's I was short order cook for Sambo's restaurant, in northwest Florida. The baby Sambo, his lion friend, and yes the pancakes, were our motif.

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