Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and paper dolls. Pondering #7

I don't know why they just don't get rid of these symbols. By the way you were featured on Eureka. They found a mummy named Queen Nyota I had never heard of the Egyptian Queen with that name but apparently you had. I'm sorry to say she came to a bad end. Oh well, just as long as you don't my friend. The only black man symbol that I ever admired was Uncle Remus, Song of The South, he was so wise and intelligent, gentle, kind and love able. I loved that old black man and wished I could be his friend when I was just a child. And not a bad singer. But alas he is no longer with us. I still would like to be his friend and bask in his wealth of knowledge and wisdom.

Nyota, I finally decided that symbols such as you mentioned would in some way remain with us indefinately. Rarely are historic topics such as slavery covered to the extent it would influence many of the children today. That takes a strong family and or church setting to reach those depths. I recall looking at topics in a public school history book and finding a cleansed list and related topics of those blacks chosen by the editors as acceptable. Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima are still acceptable to the marketing world.

You might be interested in a poem I wrote some time ago which covered part of this. He's a part of it: From When I Was Just A Colored Boy

When I was just a colored boy
you refused to call me by name
and used every lousy metaphor
you thought it to be the same.
Your anger rose with my rejection
of your colored moniker and then
as to seek the help from an old relative
you started to call him Uncle Ben.

I only pray that we don't over censor logos! Mine would be insulting I guess to some in the future-LOL

http://www.hbcufamily.com/

No it wouldn't, Joan. Just as your munchkins can wear their hair with many barrettes without much ridicule now. I use 'much' and 'now' because there are still folk alive who may recall Topsy from Uncle Tom's Cabin when seeing someone with beads in their hair or growing out into dreadlocks/sisterlocks, etc.
Around the time cornrows were becoming popular here (before Bo Derek made them acceptable ([;p)]), I was sporting a huge "Angela Davis type" afro. In order to stretch it out, I used to put my hair up into small braids and sponge-curled ends for bed and unbraid it in the morning. One day I was running late for school and still unbraiding my hair on the bus. An older black woman started calling me a devil and making all kinds of derogatory remarks until I disrespectfully told her off. So, it all depends on the perspective and feeling of the viewer, I think.

Lionel, I loved the story Little Black Sambo even though it was done in a racist manner. Sambo and his parents, Black Mumbo and Black Jumbo wore bright red lips against their jet black faces. The story was a great adventure spoiled by it's execution and seemingly negative intent.
Not many years ago I was showing a class of second graders a video of Bugs Bunny classics.
The first image to appear was the quintessential "Black Mammy"! I told the children we weren't going to watch something like that and found another tape. I also left the B. B. tape at the exact place with a note so the regular teacher could witness it for herself.

I agree, Spencer.

I sit in wide-eyed wonder at reasoning like this.

Does Mr. Brown really think (black) child are so feeble minded as to:

"Never realizing all the time that you were cutting, you were defining how you saw yourself, taking in the images of what the mass producers of toys told you was the standard of beauty."

(of course, he is selling a book, so this could be hyperbole)

Personally, I would hope such children would be the exception and not the rule.

Sometime in the early 90's, I became aware of a movement, which I came to call the Meme People in general. And, in general, they proposed human beings were nothing more than sophisticated Pavlovian dogs, mindlessly internalizing and aping what they saw. Of course they don't put it that way. They claim an idea, called a meme, is like a virus and once released, will infect the entire population.

As proof of this, I cynically offer up how in American we don't have diversity of opinion, all 300,000,000 of us agreeing on most things.

Carl Jung, likely in a drug induced fantasy, proposed human beings are magically connected by some unseen force hanging like an invisible cloud, which he called the collective unconscious. Somehow, again with a wave of his magic wand, he proposed all human brains are connected and programmed at birth with certain images and what the images mean. He called these archetypes.

Joseph Campbell was prone to this kind of magical thinking too and as Jung, asserted this to be true, yet offered no evidence.

If you hear hoof clopped outside, think horses not zebras.

In my not so humble opinion, I believe our dreams and stories over time and across societies often carry a similar meaning because human beings are the same animal living in similar environments. Our stories rise from our experiences. Our experiences are universal.

I know, that's not as grand, mystical or amazing.

Maybe an inner city kid wants to belt a gun because he wants juice (do they still say that?) and not because a meme in a rap song infected his brain. Maybe he wants the juice just like Org the Cave Man carried a club.

Maybe people -- ever black children looking at corporate images -- do what they do because they like what they see. Maybe they do what they do because they think it'll get them what they want. Maybe it's just that simple.

Note: the idea of memes fell out of the relatively new science of social psychology also known as social Darwinism. Social darwinism is an interesting concept, The Moral Animal</> is a quick, fun and easy read, by Robert Wright, which gives a great survey of the concept.

So, let me recap:

In our guts, when we're talking about 'human beauty,' meaning what we're attracted to sexually (and that's what human beauty is all about in our guts) it's about what we personally think would make us good babies. The next layer up would deal with what we personally think would best provide for those babies.

In our guts, our core, we're gene machines and our purpose is to populate the future.

Above that, maybe well above that, we have the dance of society. We are a social animal. We impose restraints on the inner animal (which I call the Pagan Man--natural man with no social restraints imposed). In the evolution of society, women were stripped of equality to protect woman from the Pagan Man (there's other factors but I have work in 30 minutes).

Our society has evolved and the restrictions are no longer needed.

Perspective of the viewer. Again, I have little time here.

We, human beings, approach the world with shorthand. We make assumptions and apply these assumptions to 'types.' We have an experience or two and cast that to the general. If black kids beat me up when I'm a kid, I might assume all black people act like this. If I eat apple pie and get sick 30 minutes later, I might grow up hating apple pie, when in fact there was no cause/effect.

Life in shorthand. We REact, not act, but we need to. This is a gift from Darwin. If a tiger jumps out in front of us, we don't have to pause and think if we should run. Likely, we'd be running before we yelled 'Tiger!'

Not all our REactions are good, they just are.

Thank you, Karl. I'm appreciative of your contribution and erudition. And your time.

I do go on -- and off, at times.

But, Nyota, let me say this: I really have a lot of faith in mankind and humanity.

We're a pretty neat creature and not as easily programmed as some might believe.

But soft! Where beats thy curmudgeonly heart? I hardly doth know thee whence thou speaketh thusly!

The article was very interesting to me, Nyota. I like to think that I am never too old to learn and appreciate other's views. I never thought about how those sterotypes would effect a child's vision of themselves. But as I think of it now, there were many sterotypes for white girls also. All my play was centered on being a wife and mother, learning to serve a man. I am glad the world is changing. There is hope for us all.

I agree, Mary.

I grew up not caring about the object that houses the product inside the wrapper. Today I try to understand why we allow the things that are going wrong in our lives and have yet to find answers. Just to listen to people on their views about what builds the character of a racist answers nothing. We must get these answers from the horse itself. We can play around with maybes but if we want to know the TRUTH we must ask for it. Some people are offended because some acting roles had to be accepted to be among those who had similar talents. Sidney and Harry and Ruby Dee well ask them if it was always positive roles in their casting. But whatever it might have been it led to fame and better roles. Yet today we still want to portray roles that are negative to younger viewers. Fools are Fools and it holds them to creating things that will make us laugh and cry at the same time. I don't think that anyone notices the negative until the positive has been recognized or we would have put an end to all that is unjust.

good points, Dwayne.

There is also Farmer John, who sells produce and bacon, Sausage in California,. His brother said, 'he picked the name himself'.

But 'farmer' isn't a using a too familiar title that was given with such a degrading intention during the times it was given.
'Aunt' and 'Uncle' were meant as being slightly better than calling a man 'boy' and a woman 'girl'; I guess to show some sort of connect, appreciation and the minimum of respect. Why not mister, mistress or miss?
And it's not the same as terming our government "Uncle Sam".

Excellent! Featuring this on "Fifty States of Whatever You Want"!

Thanks, Pam! We do have a good conversation going here!

Hi Nyota:
General Powell is even attacking stereotypes this week -- why can't a seven year old muslim boy identify with a presidential candidate.

We have a long way to go!

Or--why don't most Americans realize Christianity is not practiced by all of Americans?