Remembering Sambo's and the customers who made sure they went out of business

[Mikkel]

I think I remember an American politician had to retire after using the word "niggardly". Anybody should know it has nothing to do with the N-word (except similar sounds, of course) but he still had to first apologize and then retire .

[Auto]

Sorry that my first post here (I was a member at one of the old boards some time ago) will put me in the minority, but I can certainly understand why people would be offended and not want to patronize an establishment with that name.

While dragonflygrrl has pretty much summed up the originating story to a tee, the story has been stained with the artwork in the original US versions which portrayed Sambo in the minstrel "blackface" coloring, and also the use of a character named Sambo in Rudyrad Kipling's story on How the Leopard got his Spots (I won't quote word for word, but suffice to say the infamous "N-word" was used.)

The fact of the matter is that the English language (like most languages, I'd reckon) does not stand still. Unfortunately, it matters little what the original meaning or story behind a name is, it's the evolution of usage that is of import. That's why you'll never see a bundle of sticks or metal referred to as what's now a slur for homosexuals. That's why people don't use the word gay synonomously with happy or joyous. Over time, different words develop different meanings.

Just my two cents.

exactly right.

Whatever the origins of the term, by the late 1970s Sambo was a derogatory term for black people. The success of the civil rights revolution meant that blacks did not have to tolerate a restaurant chain run by white people where the motif was an offensive, racist depiction of blacks.

That it would go out of business seems kinda obvious.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I'm wondering why then that black people don't seem to mind the n word if it's a black person saying it... *thinks of Pulp Fiction*

[Barefootgirl]

I'm wondering why then that black people don't seem to mind the n word if it's a black person saying it... *thinks of Pulp Fiction*

Because they are stupid. "Nigger" is an ugly, offensive, demeaning, intimidating word and black people who use it and somehow think they are "re-claiming" the word have completely missed the point.

Have you seen Coach Carter? Its apparently a true story, about a basketball coach who caused no end of controversy at his school by requiring that the players actually worked at their academic work as well as their basketball, and shut the team down when they got bad grades. In the film, Coach Carter (played by Samuel L Jackson, just to continue the Pulp Fiction theme) walks into the gym to meet his team, wearing a suit with a shirt and tie. One of the boys asks him why he's dressed up like "one of them country church niggers" and SLJ gives the kid a lecture on why black people who have respect for themselves don't use that word.

I don't have a lot of time for basketball movies per se, but I thought the message of Coach Carter was extremely good.

[dragonflygrrl]

I agree totally that English, and all other modern languages change with time. Words that were once used innocently or in a completely different context are now offensive. Words that were once offensive are now quaint and laughable. That's part of what makes linguistics so much fun for geeky folks like myself. My problem, though, is with taking a story or novel from before the language changed and viewing it not as a snapshot of a bygone era, but as a modern statement that it was never meant to be. Of course, I would never want to offend anyone by my own choice of words, but to judge a Rudyard Kipling story by the same measure as a modern work is like saying women shouldn't wear pants in public. Rudyard Kipling was an important and influential writer of his era, and by gosh I like my jeans! So that's my for what it's worth.

PS for nick1091- Don't feel you need to apologize for being in the minority. You may very well be right, and you definitely have a point. In any event, this is a more interesting discussion because we don't all have the same opinion.

[AFpheonix]

What I don't understand is why they couldn't have altered their name, kept the same flair and flavor of the restaurant, and continued to be successful?

I'm having a wierd Ghost World flashback with this thread....

[MadMike]

What I don't understand is why they couldn't have altered their name, kept the same flair and flavor of the restaurant, and continued to be successful?

I think they might have tried that. I seem to remember a brief period where they called themselves "Sam's", before they disappeared completely.

Or maybe I'm just imagining things. I wasn't very old when that chain was still in existence, and I had never been in one of their restaurants.

[nick1091]

My problem, though, is with taking a story or novel from before the language changed and viewing it not as a snapshot of a bygone era, but as a modern statement that it was never meant to be. Of course, I would never want to offend anyone by my own choice of words, but to judge a Rudyard Kipling story by the same measure as a modern work is like saying women shouldn't wear pants in public. Rudyard Kipling was an important and influential writer of his era, and by gosh I like my jeans! So that's my for what it's worth.

Understood, and feel free to wear whichever trousers you'd like But I think there's a way you can preserve the importance of an author like Rudyard Kipling without trying to justify a particular usage of a word when its usage then was different (or should I say, seen as more benign than it is today.) You can still admire the style of a film like Birth of a Nation without agreeing about its portrayal of African Americans on film.

PS for nick1091- Don't feel you need to apologize for being in the minority. You may very well be right, and you definitely have a point. In any event, this is a more interesting discussion because we don't all have the same opinion.

Appreciated, and agreed. I just didn't want to appear contrary just for the sake of being so.

PS - To Lace Neil Singer who said,

I'm wondering why then that black people don't seem to mind the n word if it's a black person saying it...

I humbly submit that there are plenty of people who are more than happy to be referred to as a Redneck. I assure you, the origins of the term were not meant to flatter.

[wagegoth]

A few comments (yeah, Wagegoth is at it again):

Little Black Sambo was apparently set in India, not Africa. The original book cover pictured a very dark Indian boy.

Kipling's use of the N-word was common, and was used by many white people to refer to any person who, while not white, was not specifically Asian or Native American. A more debased version of WOG.


As to a soul food restaurant named The Plantation: Soul food came from slave food. They were given the worst pieces of meat (often fatty, and very little at that), cheap vegetables (which were often supplemented by the slaves gathering "greens" and other wild plants), beans, rice or corn (whichever was prevalent in the area) and a little flour.

The food tends to be made from inexpensive ingredients and have a lot of fat in it. (My family's technically from the South, and the traditional meals we had were very similar.) However, the higher fat content often seems to derive from the fact that it is more available now, and a certain status issue.

If you get Cartoon Network, there was a show based on the comic strip The Boondocks. One of the episodes was called "The Itis." It was about the way the grandfather cooked, very high in fat, pork, etc., and people became addicted to the food. They got fat, high blood pressure, heart disease, and artheriosclerosis. And the episode was painfully, hysterically funny.

Common Southern recipe: Wilted Greens. Fry up a bit (two slices) of bacon in a cast-iron pan. Remove the bacon and invert the pan over a bowl of fresh greens that have been splashed with vinegar. Almost any green, leafy vegetable will do. Collard greens and turnip greens are also traditional, and for the really poor it could be dandelion greens. Leave it for a few minutes. The greens should warm and appear wilted (not soggy messes). Stir and serve. Optionally, crumble the bacon into the greens as an extra treat. If the greens are bitter, throw some sugar in with the bacon grease before putting it in the bowl.

[Cosmic Cat]

People will bitch about anything just to be bitching. I remember that at one time the NAACP was complaining that "all hurricanes have white names." Wtf?

[MystyGlyttyr]

Okay, I understand why names are supposedly "white" or "black" or whatever. So how come I know a black girl named Brittany and a white girl named Shurika?

I understand how history goes and how stories are and all that, but to be frank the whole "race" thing confuses me. If I've got blonde hair and blue eyes but I'm born in South America or Central America or wherever, aren't I Latino? If I'm born pale but get a really, really deep tan, do I turn black?

The whole concept of "race" seems so poorly defined to me as to be utterly baseless...

[Seanette]

I humbly submit that there are plenty of people who are more than happy to be referred to as a Redneck. I assure you, the origins of the term were not meant to flatter.

I like Jeff Foxworthy's take on rednecks (I swear the guy's GOT to be a relative of mine, since he seems to know my family VERY well).

[TYFSOK]

There was a Sambo's in my hometown for a long time. I recall going there for a steak-and-eggs breakfast before the debate team went off for a meet. If I recall correctly, the decor included cartoonish tigers and Indian boys...

On a slightly off-topic note, what do you think the public reaction would be if the movie "Blazing Saddles" hadn't been made in 1974, and Mel Brooks tried to make it today?

[Jester]

That's why you'll never see a bundle of sticks or metal referred to as what's now a slur for homosexuals. That's why people don't use the word gay synonomously with happy or joyous. Over time, different words develop different meanings.

An amusing sidenote to this whole discussion: Several years ago, in an effort to be more politically correct, the powers that be decided that the Jewfish needed to be renamed, and settled on "Goliath Grouper," as a Jewfish basically is a huge grouper (as far as I know, that is). The amusing part is that when contacted for their reaction to this change, many Jewish leaders expressed puzzlement more than anything, as none of them found the original name in the least bit offensive. Some of them even found the original name complimentary, and had no problems with it at all. Yet someone decided that calling this large fish a Jewfish would be bad and offensive. It seems that that person just never bothered to ask any Jews if they were, in fact, offended.

People will bitch about anything just to be bitching. I remember that at one time the NAACP was complaining that "all hurricanes have white names." Wtf?

I vaguely remember that, and my thoughts now are the same as my thoughts then: Why the hell would you want names associated with your people to be associated with devastating and destructive forces of nature, esepcially if you happen to be a people who are fighting against stereotypes that depict you as violent and destructive? I know that there are going to be very few people in the Gulf Coast region who are going to be naming their daughters Katrina any time soon, and I can speak from exprience that the name Wilma is a much cursed one here in the Keys. So why would you fight to have your names attached to such things? Hell, as I recall, the reason they started using male names was because women's groups complained that hurricanes were ONLY named after women, and that that was not fair. And now groups are complaining that their names AREN'T being used? Idiocy knows no boundaries.

If I've got blonde hair and blue eyes but I'm born in South America or Central America or wherever, aren't I Latino?

Actually, you would be Latino (or a Latina) in such a case. Myself, I had a brief dalliance with a lovely young lady from Uraguay once, a girl who was fair, blonde, and blue-eyed, utterly stunning....and without question Hispanic/Latina. We in this country think of Hispanics and Latinos to be dark complected with dark hair, there are many people from Latin countries who are anything but. Not all of them are Mexicans, my friends. (And probably not all Mexicans look like what we think of as typical Mexican, either.)

The whole concept of "race" seems so poorly defined to me as to be utterly baseless...

Precisely. Most often, those who seek to define race in certain ways are people who are trying to make others who are different from them somehow seem inferior. Nazis and the KKK types are notorious for going on about defining race, for example.

On a slightly off-topic note, what do you think the public reaction would be if the movie "Blazing Saddles" hadn't been made in 1974, and Mel Brooks tried to make it today?

It would be extraordinarily unlikely that Brooks or someone like him could make that movie today, more's the pity. When was the last truly brilliant comedic movie that was also a brilliant social commentary?

[Palsgraf]

... He's a smart kid that outsmarts a bunch of tigers. He has nice clothes and parents that love him, and at the end they all sit around a table and eat pancakes together. ....

Yep. Incredibly offensive.