"little joe from kokomo" and "african billiards"

[Mullins, Bill]

One of the many little things I have learned while going
through newspapers of the last hundred and fifty years is
how creative man can be in coming up with ways to insult.

I don't mean in the least to imply that race relations in this
country are perfect, but periodicals of even fifty years ago
would print, with no sense of irony or shame at all, stuff that
would get them into serious trouble today.


> Okay. I've long been familiar with " ,,, dominoes" from
> literature, but " ... billiards" I've neither read nor heard
> before today. Given that actual dominoes is an *extremely*
> popular game amongst the colored, I can assume only that
> "African ... " term must have been thought up by some member
> of the other group with nothing better to do than to heap
> further opprobrium onto the backs of the members of an
> already much-maligned minority. ;-)
>
> -Wilson