'Cause there are some readily available at a little shop just outside of Cloudcroft, NM. The girlfriend and I were vacationing there about a week ago and I saw these in the store, unfortunately after I’d already bought something. I was floored. There are heavyset black maids with bright white eyes, red lips, and kerchiefs in their hair. There is also a charming one of a little black boy eating watermelon. Then there is your standard Mammymodel.
I’m not kidding.
Even if the store’s owners were racist as hell, why, in 2010, would any proprietor risk having pictures of this shit get out across the globe, and perhaps make it on the news as the next Outrage du Jour? Before cell phone cameras, blogs, and whatnot, I could see putting this stuff out as a calculated risk to appeal to a certain type of customer who finds this stuff charming, because anyone who took offense only had a very limited number of people to influence. But now, when a single click of a button can send a picture of one’s store around the world and make it a subject of mockery and disdain, it just seems like an insane risk to take.
I have been working out what exactly to say to the owner when I call (I say “when” because I really think I need to register my opinion in the hopes that it might make a difference). Anyone have any ideas about the best way to approach this? The people working there seemed very nice. Who knows, maybe they really are that oblivious to the potential of these figurines to offend people. We’re talking about a small shop outside a small mountain village in New Mexico, not an area known for having its fingers on the pulse of the nation.
BTW, if anyone is planning a trip to Cloudcroft and would like to avoid this place, I’ll reply in a PM as to the name of the store.
Again, something being taken out of context – i.e., the time in which it was produced – and having today’s values applied to it.
People do collect this kind of stuff. Surprisingly, most of them don’t have any kind of agenda, or harbor any kind of racist beliefs, or are White Supremacists, or anything.
I guess they may run the risk of being misunderstood by those who are unenlightened, though.
There’s still a good collectibles market on minstrelsy-era figures and art. Because it has been so un-pc for so long, its sort of made a little more rare.
Obviously some people won’t touch this stuff, but there’s still plenty of collectors out there. There’s even weird sub-genres like little black kids in danger of getting eaten by gators.
There’s also a whole museum devoted to this sort of stuff.
One question, i guess, is whether the stuff the OP saw was old memorabilia, or whether it was new stuff that depicts the old stereotypes.
I tend to think it’s less problematic if the memorabilia is old, and is a hangover from a different time. We can and should preserve that stuff to remind us of past attitudes and injustices. I’m not sure i see much point in continuing to produce and sell the same sort of stuff now, though. That would, to my mind, indicate some sort of inclination to perpetuate the racist images.
Ha, I saw a pair of golliwogs in the window of a local florist the other day and pondered how that would go down in the US. Australians don’t often realise they have a racist heritage, seeing them only as a beloved toy and a relic of a bygone era.
Yep, people do collect it and many of them are Black/African-American. Not all, of course. My mother-in-law, one of the sweetest people you’d ever want to meet,(White) has this shit all over her house. She is a rather celebrated tole painter of country-crafty crap (my term for it :p) and she just thinks little “pickaninnys” eating watermelon or big fat Black “mammies” performing domestic chores are the CUTEST dang things in the WORLD! :rolleyes:
Used to really put me right off, but I got over it. Stupid and stereotypical but not the end of the world.
Some have decided to embrace that period of “folk art” and reclaim it as empowering instead of allowing it to offend. I can see that perspective; not only does this document the way WHITES saw and portrayed Blacks (and not the way they actually were) the “Mammy” character can be seen as a strong female archetype.
Sort of in the same way that on the surface, Al Jolson doing blackface can be taken as highly offensive, but look deeper and you see a Jewish man who broke unprecedented ground in the entertainment industry for Blacks, Jews, and others by playing off the stereotypes of White culture and turning it into something ridiculous.
All in all, I would hesitate before protesting to the store owners…that form of folk art is as valid in many ways as naked statues or paintings which some find offensive and vulgar and others consider high art. Their offering it doesn’t nec. indicate racism or insensitivity. JMHO.
Good point. My description of the display was lacking.
There were at least 10 of each kind that I mentioned on the shelves, each identical. One type that I saw (the Mammy), was a piggy bank of some kind. Each figurine cost about $20.
No, this wasn’t some stuff lying around that someone decided to sell.
It’s not so much being taken out of context as being put there by the store owners. I"m sure some people collect this stuff, and the store owners think there is enough market for them to stock and sell them for $20 and up each. But up until I read a few posts in this thread, I didn’t realize how popular this stuff can still be. And I still think it’s in kind of poor taste to display it.
I’m looking at it like this. I wouldn’t put a big old Swastika and an SS Uniform out in my store for purchase, even though I’m sure people collect stuff from the Third Reich, lest customers get the wrong idea.
I don’t really think the nice ladies in the store are racist, on second thought. My concern is that selling this type of stuff just sends a weird message and might cause them problems down the line. I’d like to go back there because they have excellent fudge!
Hey, that looks a lot like what I saw. Maybe this stuff is more common than I thought.
So, what if these nice ladies decided that they wanted to add to the charm of the place by setting up a “Colored Only” restroom to enhance the “charm?” Besides maybe being illegal, I can’t see that working out well.
What troubles me, I guess, is what exactly people love so much about these things. What makes them cute and charming? Do lots of people pine for the days when blacks were servants?
Are they really being taken out of context? It’s not like they were meant to be complimentary to black people in the old days and we’re just seeing them as racist now. They were meant to be racist/derogatory back then. I don’t think everyone who collects them is necessarily a racist–though it would make me think twice if I saw them in someone’s house on a shelf.
There are a really ridiculous number of antique stores in my hometown. Once when I was a teenager, I was in one of them with my parents (no doubt both my dad and I were dragged by my mom) and they had some Nazi paraphernalia* on display.
My dad, who’s not exactly a shrinking violet, let the person behind the counter have it and stomped out of the store in a rage.
