I grew up reading about Tintin and his little dog, Snowy.  In one of the books, Tintin stumbles upon a diamond smuggling ring operating in the Congo.  While there, he meets some of the natives, the Congolese. The Congolese were depicted as dark-skinned, thick-lipped brutes who could not form a proper sentence.  When Tintin gave a man medicine, they automatically thought of it as magic and hailed him as a sorcerer.  As a child, I honestly did not even understand that they were human.  I assumed that the characters were just some brutes living in the forest, without a nation or any sort of government.  They were never explicitly stated to be Congolese, but it became obvious through the story.

The reason they were drawn this way was because the author of Tintin, Herge, was very imperialistic.  He drew them so ridiculously, that I could not tell that they were supposed to be people, much less representative of a group of people, which I believe Herge was trying to cover up.

As a kid, I liked watching The Jungle Book because it was a production where the main character Mowgli would interact with animals typically found in the jungle. It was fun and entertaining but I didn’t find a hint of racism (not that I knew what is was back then) when I watched it.

There’s this particular scene where King Louie, who has met with Mowgli, is singing the jazz song “I wan’na be like you.” As he is singing the lyrics of the song, he also sings “Doo-Doot-Doot-Doo-Doot-Deel.” But in jazz music, this type of singing has a term: Scat Singing. Scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables and nonsense syllables. Jazz music is an African-American classical music genre. Has the writer done this on purpose considering that King Louie is an ape? I believe there’s a subliminal association made between African Americans and apes.

In the subsequent scene, King Louie offers and gives Mowgli two bananas while displaying three fingers on his left hand. I wonder if this was also done on purpose to deliver the notion that African-Americans are ignorant or uneducated.

Throughout the clip, there are a few more scenes that appear to be racist but are hidden within the acceptable norms of society. King Louie sings “I wan’na be like you” maybe because he wants to be looked as a man; as someone normal, and not someone who is sub-human.

Wolfgang Reitherman, Walt Disney. “The Jungle Book.” Walt Disney Productions. October 18, 1967.

EENIE, MEENIE, MINEY, MO

“Eenie, meenie, minie mo
Catch a tiger by the toe
If he hollers, let him go
Eenie, meenie, minie mo.”

This modern day nursery song seems innocent in its catching a tiger by the toe. However, just like Ten Little Indians, it has been changed over time. When I was a child it was catch a piggy by the toe. The original version of this song was catch a nigger by the toe.

Butler, Megan. “Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo: Racist Nursery Rhymes You Didn’t Know You Were Learning.” Madame Noire. Madame Noire, 29 October 2014. Web. 6 December 2015. http://madamenoire.com/484055/racist-nursery-rhymes/2/

One text I found that highlights racial innocence in a contemporary children’s text is Roald Dahl’s book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This book is about a young boy named Charlie Bucket who is poor and wins a golden ticket that brings him to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. At the factory he is accompanied by his Grandpa Joe, other children, and their adult companions. As this group of people travel through the factory they occasionally see the little workers called Oompa-Loompas. According to Corbin’s research article in the Berkeley McNair Research Journal, the depiction of the Oompa-Loompas has changed since the book has originally published in 1964 throughout the various revised texts and films (48). The Oompa-Loompas were originally seen as “black Pygymy people from Africa” (48). However they begin to change throughout the text and filmed texts as stated by Corbin:

Yet, in 1971 Mel Stuart’s film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory the Oompa-Loompas are portrayed as little people with orange skin and green hair. In Dahl’s 1973 revision he depicts the Oompa-Loompas as white. Finally, in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) Tim Burton portrays the Oompa-Loompas as brown skin people (48).

After reading Corbin’s research article about the historical and political contexts behind Dahl’s book I can understand why changes were made. Change in perspectives and events that occur affect how people view a text. The racial innocence does not just come from the fact that there was a need to change how the skin color Oompa-Loompas looked like, but the original fact that they became the workers in Willy Wonka’s factory. They were originally hired because his employees were stealing his recipes. As Corbin states, in her article the Oompa-Loompas were smuggled by Wonka from Africa (53). There is a clear connection that race is deeply rooted in the text.
One point I noticed is that when the Oompa-Loompas were brought to films, these “little people” suffer from dwarfism, a medical disorder which results in a shorter height. The book depicts Wonka as a person who gives these people jobs, but this does not hide the fact that they are always hidden within the factory. They are not seen in public and this implies a social discrimination towards them in the society of the book. The Oompa-Loompas do not have a voice in the text and are considered at Wonka’s employees.

Works Cited

Corbin, Chryl. “Deconstructing Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory: Race, Labor, and the Changing Depictions of the Oompa-Loompas.” The Berkeley McNair Research Journal 19 (2012): 47-63. Web. 6 Dec. 2015.
Dahl, Roald, and Joseph Schindelman. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1964. Print.

When I was growing up, one of my favorite shows was the PBS historical fiction series “Liberty’s Kids”. There are three main characters- a British girl named Sarah, a young French boy named Henri, and the lead, a white teenager named James. Henri is the plucky, unintelligent kid with an exaggerated French accent while Sarah is a slightly smarter damsel in distress. James is the one who is the start and end of plans, and is always in the center of the action.

Moreover, there is a recurring character named Moses. Moses is a freed slave from Africa- despite this, he has no accent to speak of. He works for Ben Franklin and seems content to go on adventures with the kids. In the episode I’m citing, he watches his brother get sold and then tries to free him. His brother resists, calling it “too dangerous” and both Moses and his brother submit to the will of their oppressors. Moses seems perfectly happy to be a freed slave in America and is not shown to be struggling or a second-class citizen at all. He agrees to let his brother take a deal, in which he is freed if he fights for the British army. This is seen as an opportunity on the show, whereas in real life this seems like a terribly unfair deal. I’m attaching the segment of the episode below for reference.

McIntyre, Doug, and Jim Staahl. “Librty or Death.” Liberty’s Kids. PBS. 5 Sept. 2002. Television.