Oh the humanity! It is gone gone gone!!

[Sirius Glass]

No, "Pardon me Roy".

 

[lxdude]

I suppose that, too.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Some days are like this:

 

[Truzi]

Hmm... all my life I thought the singer was addressing a child. I never thought about the song that deeply until this thread. Unfortunately, although I never cared for the song, I now cannot get it out of my head - thanks to this thread. (Worse than that, the lyrics I can't get out of my head are the "cat that ate your new shoes," since that is the joke I'd heard sung repeatedly as a child.)

I choose to continue my original interpretation.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Just another gift that just keeps on taking.

 

[lxdude]

the lyrics I can't get out of my head are the "cat that ate your new shoes," since that is the joke I'd heard sung repeatedly as a child.

I believe it goes, "cat that chewed your new shoes".

 

[Photo Engineer]

The original lyrics address a person asking for a shoe shine in a train station. Children did not do that for the most part, it was men who shined shoes. I have seen it at train stations and airports all over the USA until we all wised up to the fact that we are all the human race.

PE

 

[Sirius Glass]

So is the book "Huckleberry Finn" racist or is it a contemporary [19th century] book commenting on the racism of one Huckleberry Finn in the book "Huckleberry Finn"?

One should no judge past works by today's values alone. Huck was taking advantage of a slave which even at that time was racist. To bring the issue to the public forum the book was written. Does that make the book racist or abolitionist?

The two lines in the movie reflect the time that it was made. That characterization does not appear anywhere else in the movie. Does that make the movie or the song racist? If so then the US Constitution is racist because it discussed the 3/5 rule. By that logic the Constitution should be destroyed because it is unAmerican.

Sometimes things are just as they are without reinterpretation or revisionism.

All of that is very much off topic. The topic is the deletion of the deleted thread.

 

[ambaker]

Not that I really want to belabor the point, but often children did, and do, perform this service. As child labor laws changed the face of the work force, they became replaced by adults; here in the US. (Most often those of lesser education, or who were unable to obtain higher paying jobs due to discrimination; even though qualified.)

I do agree that the term "boy" has all too often been used as a pejorative towards adult minority males.

Indeed, we are all human beings. The sooner the last few of us get it through our thick skulls, the better.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Photo Engineer]

I pointed the lyrics out because it seemed that we were skirting an issue which most did not seem to understand and which should be dropped. Instead, it is being belabored.

Men and boys from minorities both performed menial tasks. And I remember my first visit to Atlanta GA from Pittsburg PA and seeing segregated fountains and rest rooms. I was "rescued" from using the wrong room by a kindly old shoe shine man, next to the door of the "Black Only" mens room. He said "you don't want to go in there, use that one over there" and he pointed for me..

So, shoot me down for being sensitive.

I did read Huck Finn, and have copies of most of Twain. I read them through as a teen and saw people, not skin color even then, so I didn't and don't judge the books.

I might add that in the 50s, my selection of friends crossed lines of race and faith, and because my parents were old fashioned, some were banned from visiting our home.

So, I'm sorry if I made anyone angry for my being sensitive. Most of the stories behind my reactions are better left unsaid here.

PE

 

[lxdude]

I think the lyrics show the insensitivity and different thinking of another time. My mom, a strong civil-rights liberal born in 1923, used to sing the song without a thought.
As stated, "boy" was used to address people doing menial tasks. Bellboy, for example. Before it was romanticized, a cowboy was just a man doing a low-level job that lots of people could do- handling cattle.
But "boy" was also used generally to address black men in much of this country, and is a particularly objectionable term for that reason.

Yet white males in parts of this country still refer to each other as "boy" or "ol' boy" (e.g. "good ol' boy").
So as it is with certain other words, who is saying it and in what context makes considerable difference.

 

[lxdude]

And now I can't get that song out of my head!:w00t:

 

[Truzi]

Yes, I meant "chewed" instead of "ate."

Although I was born after the time of the song and pejorative term, unfortunately I still see the bigotry today (though not as bad as it was before my time).
However, I was raised to not even consider it an issue - differences between sub-groups were no reason to judge a person. So while I saw prejudice growing up, and understood it, the whole concept was foreign to me.

I also knew the history of shoe-shines, and since young children had filled the role at one time, that is how I interpreted the song. Perhaps because I was thankfully raised in an environment where "boy" was never used in the pejorative (save for a few adults pointing out a teen was not of the age of majority), I only associated the term with young males.

I pointed the lyrics out because it seemed that we were skirting an issue which most did not seem to understand and which should be dropped. Instead, it is being belabored.

Men and boys from minorities both performed menial tasks. And I remember my first visit to Atlanta GA from Pittsburg PA and seeing segregated fountains and rest rooms. I was "rescued" from using the wrong room by a kindly old shoe shine man, next to the door of the "Black Only" mens room. He said "you don't want to go in there, use that one over there" and he pointed for me..

So, shoot me down for being sensitive.

I did read Huck Finn, and have copies of most of Twain. I read them through as a teen and saw people, not skin color even then, so I didn't and don't judge the books.

I might add that in the 50s, my selection of friends crossed lines of race and faith, and because my parents were old fashioned, some were banned from visiting our home.

So, I'm sorry if I made anyone angry for my being sensitive. Most of the stories behind my reactions are better left unsaid here.

PE

I think the progress and example of those who came before us has created a situation where many slurs have lost much of their import - which is good (and reminds me of a Lenny Bruce routine). You are right to remind us, as we still have a long way to go.

My Paternal Grandfather was stationed in Biloxi Mississippi during WWII, and my Grandmother had gone down to be with him at one point - they were both born and raised in Ohio. He told stories of how bigoted and segregated it was down South. Even though they were both prejudiced, they felt ashamed of how blacks were treated in the South. In Mississippi my Grandmother was told she should sit in the front of the buses and theaters. She preferred sitting in the back and was unaware of the segregation before traveling down there. It was foreign to her, despite her own prejudice, that any place would separate people like that.

On the other hand, my Maternal Grandparents (whom I was closer to), and both my parents, couldn't care less what someone was; they only cared who someone was as a person. My Maternal Grandfather had friends of all "races" as a child in the 1920s and 1930s.

 

[lxdude]

Too serious for Sirius.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Not too serious. When I was ten we were on a trip to Skyline Drive for the Fall Colors. We stopped for gas in Front Royal. In front of the gas station was a new electric cooled water cooler with a sign above it that said "Whites Only". Next to the water cooler was a rusty faucet that was about two feet above the ground. It was labelled "Coloreds". I never forgot that.

 

[lxdude]

Yeah, "Separate but Equal" was an odious fallacy the Supreme Court indulged. It was never enforced, and was impossible to guarantee anyway. Your example illustrates that perfectly.

Sometimes I marvel at all the craziness that people accept as normal.

 

[Sirius Glass]

lxdude, the Supreme Court was against "Separate but equal." See the Brown vs Board of Ed in 1954.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

 

[Photo Engineer]

Our schools in PA were integrated in the 40s. I never saw a sign of segregation but I did see discrimination.

PE

 

[lxdude]

lxdude, the Supreme Court was against "Separate but equal." See the Brown vs Board of Ed in 1954.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

See Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Yes, people tend to forget PvF. It was quite a different time back then.

PE

 

[lxdude]

Yeah, "Separate but Equal" was an odious fallacy the Supreme Court indulged. It was never enforced, and was impossible to guarantee anyway.

I should clarify that it was the equal part that was never enforced. The separate part was enforced-savagely in many places. Every inequality on the basis of race was a violation of Plessy v. Ferguson. To my knowledge, there were no prosecutions for violating that part of the law.

But it was a fallacy anyway. That those with power would treat equally those without was a fantasy.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Learned something today.

 

[lxdude]

Well, the two reletions of the deleted thread have been "deleted". That's OK, because the deleted thread will always find a way to relete.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Is that like exgesting and increting?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Dueling deletions.