"shambo" (was " Charlie")

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated  Tue, 12 Oct 2004 13:45:02 -0400,  "Mark A. Mandel"
<mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU> carped:
>  Subject: Re: "shambo" (was " Charlie")
>  MIME-Version: 1.0
>  Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>
>  "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM> says:
>
>  >>>>>
>   [Gerald Leonard Cohen:]
>  >  Just a guess: ["shambo"] Seems to be an alteration of "Sambo."
>
>  I hate to disappoint you, but "Little Black Sambo" was a Caucasian!
>
>  In the story little Sambo has to deal with a pride (?) of tigers.  Now
>  tigers are found only in Asia (any tigers in Africa, the limerick about the
>  "young lady from the Niger" to the contrary, are in zoos).  Hence Sambo
>  lived in India.  Now many Indians have very dark ("black") skins, but they
>  are all Caucasians.
>   <<<<<
>
>  Uh, Jim? We aren't dealing with ethnology here, but with etymology. The
>  people who might have created "shambo" as an alteration of "Sambo" weren't
>  taking their knowledge of the fictional character from ethno-geography, but
>  from a then-popular children's book called _Little Black Sambo_.
>
>  And as long as we're nitpicking, residents of India don't come from the
>  Caucasus. ;-)

Of course I realize that few people in the US realize "Little Black Sambo" is
set in India rather than Africa.  I just couldn't resist sticking a nitpick
on the list.

I used the word "Caucasian" deliberately because it was too absurd to refer
to dark-skinned Indians as "white".

Seriously, in the US the word "black" when applied to a person (and for that
matter the N-word) imply the person in question ia of African descent.  This
however is NOT true in Britain (of course.  Britain and not the US once ruled
India.)  For example, Ali Khan (son of the late Aga Khan and father of the
present one) once said, when asked about his career as a playboy, "They called me
a N***** so I took all their women".
Ali Khan was of course from the Indian subcontinent.

(Question: is the N-word as offensive in Britain as it is in the US?  Judging
from Ali Khan's comment, the answer is yes.)

>From the Amazon.com website, URL
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0397300069?v=glance, here are two reviews of "Little Black Sambo".

"I grew up in Africa (I'm white!) and I read this book when I was in
Kindergarten and loved it! Children only see the hatred of things different through
the eyes of their parents. Sambo is not a nasty name in Africa and the children
there do not see the book as racist or derogatory as it is so obviously a
fantasy tale."

"Until I read the history of this book, I thought Little Black Sambo was a
harmless story about a little black boy who is clever enough to trick the
tigers. Closer examination of the book reveals the use of hurtful stereotypes such
as the pejorative name of Sambo. The Oxford English Dictionary definition
reads: 1. Sambo is a nickname for a Negro. Now used only as a term of abuse. Also
attributed especially with reference to the appearance or subservient mentality
held to be typical of the black American slave. The qualities of a Sambo
include being shiftless, dolt, lazy, docile, and happy to be a slave."

Take your pick.

Here's a serious story.  You may be familiar with the book _Black Like Me_ by
John Howard Griffin.  Griffin darkened his skin with medication and shaved
his head so that he could "pass" as what was then called a "Negro".  According
to his account, which I do believe is accurate, not one person, white or black,
ever recognized that he was a white man in disguise.

A couple of years later I attended a lecture by Mr. Griffin and made a point
of joining the reception line so that I could examine him at hand-shaking
distance.  I wish to report that he has about as Caucasian a set of features as
can be imagined.  I honestly believed then, and still do now, that had I met him
without warning when he was in his darkened-skin (and shaven-head) disguise,
that I personally would have spotted him as a Caucasian, presumably one of
South Asian ancestry.

The point of this story?  In the US, dark ("black") skin is universally and
automatically linked to African ancestry, by both those of African and those of
European descent.  Or at least this was true circa 1960.  This is not true in
Britain, where people from South Asia probably outnumber those from Africa.

I must caveat my account by stating that while people from South Asia were
quite rare in the US circa 1960 (and even rarer in Louisville, Kentucky), my
parents were acquainted with several and had introduced them to me.  So I was
better acquainted with South Asians than 99+ % of people in the city of
Louisville.  (I say "South Asian" because one of those I met was perhaps the only
native of Afghanistan in the entire city.)

              - James A. Landau