“I know that I am not the only person who heard the stories during early childhood. About the little black boy who is chased by tigers around a tree until the tigers turn into a syrup. Uncle Remus telling tales about Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear, Brer Fox, and the briar patch while singing “zippa di do da” with a bluebird on his shoulder. With Amos and Andy, black-faced white guys acting as black clowns on the radio.”
These stories stuck with me and many other white children through our youth without questioning it.
Without thinking anything about it, I read Life magazine and other publications in the 1940s and 1950s never seeing a black person in any advertising pictures. Without reflection, I saw movies that only portrayed black actors as servants, butlers, or dancers.
The social and cultural indoctrination from early years, for good or ill, tend to last a lifetime. No matter how farfetched, Little Black Sambo’s story stayed with me. Uncle Remus lived a happy, carefree life as a slave. Amos and Andy portrayed comical, ignorant black men.
Fortunately for me, I was raised in Braidwood, a town comprised of white and black citizens. My black friends and neighbors were genuine people, not caricatures or cardboard cutouts. Their kids were teammates. By reading and studying history, I quickly learned that slaves had a horrible life and that dark skinned people had always been and were currently treated unfairly by my generation and my country.
By the time I was 20, I had many experiences in sports – particularly baseball and basketball – where my teammates and opponents were black and white. The stereotypes about blacks that I heard from my white friends didn’t fit. At all. And I saw racism, prejudice, and fear all around me via mean spirited, ignorant actions being played out. But I still had a lot to learn.
I have been lucky. Although my early life racial programming would never completely vanish, it has been crushed by reality. When the specters of happy Remus emerge, my intellect swats it down and the blue bird flies away. Sadly, and unfortunately, the images of Uncle Remus continue to live without remorse in so many of my generation.
Braidwood Beginnings 