Little Black Sambo

When I was a child, I recited for my class during kindergarten nap time the story we knew as "Little Black Sambo".  Yes, I too cringe at the title, but this would have been in 1943.  I am told that I did this so well I was asked to recite it for the whole school in one of the regular all school assemblies at which families were invited to attend.  My mother affirmed this story, saying that I should have remembered this story because I had made her read it to me over and over, no matter how many other stories she offered to read.  She also noted that I had recited the story flawlessly at the school assembly including the exact inflections that Mother had always used.

This memory arose as I have been reading a recent Alexander McCall Smith novel from his Isabel Dalhousie series in which the main character has a toddler son who insisted his mother read this story to him over and over again.  As the author wrote, "The current enthusiasm was a once-suppressed book about a small boy who is stalked by a tribe of fightening tigers. . . ."  I know that story.  It ends with the tigers chasing each other round and round a palm tree until they turn into butter.  In the novel Isabel in discussing the story noted "'I know it's a classic, but I really have had enough.  And it's so full of . . . well, every sort of assumptioin that we don't want people to make.'"

I can assure Mr. Smith, a favorite author, and his charachter, Isabel, that I have grown up to be no more biased than any other crusading liberal civil rights advocate. Perhaps as little children we don't recognize the stereotypes more knowledgeable adults see.  Or at least we don't adopt them as stereotypes when we are really just enjoying the thought of bright clothes and tigers chasing themselves in circles until they turn to butter.