Realizing as adult how racist some of the songs you sang/heard as a child were (40s,50s)

[bobbieinok]

*Shortnin' Bread

*Oh Mammy, Mammy t err ll me

*The cannibal king

* 10 little Indians

* We are redmen, tall and quaint

Just glad I don't remember any more

I see there are many youtube videos about Shortnin' Bread. One titled Racism in the Kitchen

[Coventina]

1. Rum & Coca-Cola

Not a kids' song, though.

on edit: I should clarify, as written by Lord Invader - it was a protest song.
As made famous by the Andrews Sisters - racist
(sorry, I don't buy the idea that they intended to protest the US military's abuse of native women)

[dflprincess]

5. I remember my mom telling me that there were

people who thought that song was inappropriate in it's day. I believe it was an older/ younger generation divide. Mom, at the time being the younger generation.

[guillaumeb]

2. What is wrong with rum and Coke?

In moderation.

[bobbieinok]

3. And what about Stephen Foster songs?

* Old Black Joe

* Camptown Races

* My Old Kentucky Home

[Coventina]

7. My Old Kentucky Home was meant to be anti-slavery

But, it certainly uses racist terminology.

[bobbieinok]

9. I did not know that. Thanks for info

[Manifestor_of_Light]

12. They play it every year at the Kentucky Derby.

They have had a choir singing it. I realized they changed the words from "darkies" to "Young folks roll on the floor".
I believe they changed "The darkies are gay" to "the people are gay". It may have had the word "pickaninny" in it. I'm not sure.

I once worked for an old, white haired, mean state district judge who called black people "Darkies". And he was from Pennsylvania and had graduated from St. Mary's University Law School in San Antonio.

[woodsprite]

4. Climbing up the Golden Stairs - I can remember my dad singing that to me.

I even thought it was bad back then when I was a little girl.

[Coventina]

10. Yikes! I just read the lyrics

Wow, what a creepy song!

[woodsprite]

14. I think that and "Old Dan Tucker" were songs they sang when they performed.

When my dad was growing up, he played guitar in our family's country band. I'm sure there were other songs as well, but I don't remember them off the top of my head.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

6. I don't even like to think about what a neighbor woman...

... called Brazil nuts that she offered me when I was a kid. I was shocked even then, at that young age, but she said the words without batting an eye.

[bobbieinok]

11. Yep. Also shocked when I heard that for the 1st time

[bobbieinok]

13. And the count-out rhyme Eeny meeny miney moe. Mom made sure we only said 'correct' version

I remember feeling so special because I knew there was a 'right' way and a 'wrong' way to count out

In 40s. We were in OK, Mom grew up in MO

I rember being very shocked by her uncle's casual racist comments when we visited her family in St Louis in the 40s

[Ohiogal]

15. I remember both

Brazil nuts and eeny, meeny, miney, moe

[Buckeye_Democrat]

16. Some kind of weird fascination with toes, it seems.

I was a kid in the 70's and heard that too.

The neighbor woman was from Pittsburgh PA, btw. We had a large number of them in my neighborhood (which was a new development when my family moved there) after steel factories around Pittsburgh started shutting down.

They moved to work for the labor unions around here until those places started shutting down too. Then off they went again to parts unknown. My parents remained there from before they arrived until after all of them had moved away.

It was weird going to elementary school and hearing most of the other kids were rooting for the Pirates during the 1979 NLCS.

[Wolf Frankula]

22. I preferred the Rocky and Bullwinkle version

It began Eeny meeny, chili beany.

Wolf

[bobbieinok]

23. A German countout starts Eins, zwei Polizei. Drei , vier Wein und Bier

My son, 9 or so , redid it as

Eins, zwei hit you in the eye
Drei, vier kick you in the rear

A student of kids' rhymes said where 2 language areas overlap, the kids will redo the rhymes, combining the 2 languages. My son illustrated that observation quite unexpectedly!

[bobbieinok]

8. And what to think of Dem Bones? Written by same black poet who wrote The Black National Anthem

Like for The Anthem, James Weldon Johnson wrote the wirds, his brother wrote the tune

Be sure and at least check out the 'Creation' section of God's Trombones, Johnson's poem cycle based on the black preacher's traditional preaching style

[Aristus]

17. "Jimmy Crack Corn."

It's especially cringe-worthy when sung in a stereotypical "Massa" slave-dialect.

[bobbieinok]

18. Sang it as kid. Never paid attention to words til I was 50 or so. Was really shocked

[bobbieinok]

19. As an aside---what about the song Sweet Betsy from Pike? Read somewhere it's about an 'improper rela

'Improper relationship' between Sweet Betsy and Old Uncle Ike

[lillypaddle]

21. What about poor Tommy

and weird Uncle Ernie?

[lillypaddle]

20. I can't hear eenie meenie miney moe

without cringing to this day, even though the words have changed.

Little Black Sambo. And of course there was "Sambo's restaurant/pancake house. My friends and I used to meet there every Sunday for breakfast. Didn't think a thing about it.

[brush]

24. The third verse of "The Star Spangled Banner" also.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.