In the race toward cultural insensitivity, Japan proves to be a proud contender once again! Next month, Japanese publisher Zuiunsha will revive the Japanese version of Little Black Sambo: LINK
I’m buying, like, a thousand copies to hand out in place of business cards.
Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
You used to like the pancakes at Sambo’s Restaurant, remember? All that melted “tiger-butter…it used to make me uneasy to look up at the Little Black Sambo sign and wonder how blacks felt…reminds me a bit of the racist retail humor promoted unapologetically by a certain retailer who was sued by its own employess for being told to hire people (whites only) who looked like the models in their catalogues…and remember this? http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/04/18/MN109646.DTL
y’know, the fucked up thing about Sambo isn’t just that it’s racist, but that Sambo is actually dissing both people of African & Indian descent. I think that Sambo was originally Indian, & then got re-translated by ol’ whitey as an African. Way to go, dumbasses. I don’t know if it was Raj racism that got translated into Jim Crow racism, or what.
I don’t know where the Japanese come in after that. Maybe Commodore Perry’s ship was passing out copies of Sambo instead of bibles.
Peace… you may be interested in this link http://protestchibikurosambo.blogspot.com