Journal Marxist Hacker 42's Journal: On Racism, and Restaurants for byolinux 4
Too bad we became friends so late. I'm not black- but I do in fact know the truth about something that may have led to That story your grandmother told you that you wrote about on January 4, 2004.
While there was no connection to McDonald's other than that they were both restaurants (I think, might be wrong, both chains might have been owned by the same parent company, Ray Krok's McDonald's which he purchased from the McDonald Brothers who owned the first drive-through fast food restaurant in LA), at one time in the Western United States there was another chain called Little Black Sambo's. It also used a cartoon character for promotion- Little Black Sambo, who was African in looks. I can't say African-American in this case because it was the SAME Little Black Sambo from the children's story who whipped tigers into butter. It was a family theme restaurant, the 24 hour kind that serve breakfast all day, like an IHOP or a Denny's.
Anyhow, back in the late 1970s (not sure when, I wasn't even 10 yet) the chain got hit with a lawsuit for discrimination. Seems they had been paying their white managers more than the black ones or some such thing. Anyway, the lawsuit caused a bankruptcy- and most restaurants in the chain went out of business. Since you put it in my mind, I did a google search and a RoadsideAmerica.com search, and came up with the following links:
The original children's story from 1898
Slow loading page supposedly has graphics taken from the wallpaper of a restaurant
An interesting discussin on the story and restaurants, including pictures of some restaurant swag
Apparently not a single one still exists, a search on "Sambo" at Roadside America shows absolutely nothing. But there's some hint in the other links that many of the restaurants in the name did survive- some got sold to Denny's and Shari's, others kept the name Sambo but dropped "Little Black".
P.S.- now that I read the story again, it appears to have been written by an Englishwoman during the occupation of India- so despite all the contraversy, Sambo himself may never have been African to begin with- makes for a nice humorous end for my story, don't you think?
While there was no connection to McDonald's other than that they were both restaurants (I think, might be wrong, both chains might have been owned by the same parent company, Ray Krok's McDonald's which he purchased from the McDonald Brothers who owned the first drive-through fast food restaurant in LA), at one time in the Western United States there was another chain called Little Black Sambo's. It also used a cartoon character for promotion- Little Black Sambo, who was African in looks. I can't say African-American in this case because it was the SAME Little Black Sambo from the children's story who whipped tigers into butter. It was a family theme restaurant, the 24 hour kind that serve breakfast all day, like an IHOP or a Denny's.
Anyhow, back in the late 1970s (not sure when, I wasn't even 10 yet) the chain got hit with a lawsuit for discrimination. Seems they had been paying their white managers more than the black ones or some such thing. Anyway, the lawsuit caused a bankruptcy- and most restaurants in the chain went out of business. Since you put it in my mind, I did a google search and a RoadsideAmerica.com search, and came up with the following links:
The original children's story from 1898
Slow loading page supposedly has graphics taken from the wallpaper of a restaurant
An interesting discussin on the story and restaurants, including pictures of some restaurant swag
Apparently not a single one still exists, a search on "Sambo" at Roadside America shows absolutely nothing. But there's some hint in the other links that many of the restaurants in the name did survive- some got sold to Denny's and Shari's, others kept the name Sambo but dropped "Little Black".
P.S.- now that I read the story again, it appears to have been written by an Englishwoman during the occupation of India- so despite all the contraversy, Sambo himself may never have been African to begin with- makes for a nice humorous end for my story, don't you think?
I remember those places... (Score:1)
Re:I remember those places... (Score:2)
A lesson worthy of Little Black Sambo himself- you only need to be faster than the other guy they're chasing....
Related ? (Score:1)
Re:Related ? (Score:2)
Personally, I thought the story was relatively harmless on re-reading it, there's more racism in your average rap song today. Plus- there's a DIRECT mention of the Hindu word for butter- leading me to believe that the original intention of the "race" of the blac