I thought this was going to be a different topic...

...but sometimes you have to take what the world gives you. In this case, a minor story about the re-issue in Japan of a book that was banned mainly due to US pressure: "Little Black Sambo," a story that is presumably about a boy in India outwitting a pair of tigers. But it's most famous for it's presumably racist illustrations of a golliwog negro, complete with large red lips and bulging white eyes. In the US the book hadn't been domestically published for quite some time, but new editions are easily available from online distributors.

But the point I'm curious about is the question of intent. Most of the defenders of the book seem to fall into two categories. The first group says that it's not really racist because the original author and illustrator had no racist intent. The second is that it's a beloved piece of nostalgia, and Sambo outwits all his opponents and wins in the end, and anyway the story's setting in India makes Sambo Asian and not Black to boot.

But trying to decide if racism can be eliminated from a situation by deciding on intent is tricky. Kazuo Mori, an educational psychologist at Shinshu University in Nagano, re-illustrated the story, but

with the central character drawn as a black Labrador puppy. The test groups [in Japan] found both illustrated versions equally amusing.
Ergo, no racism, Mori concluded.
He then fine-tuned the drawings of the puppy, found himself a publisher, and in 1997 released a "nonracist" version of the tale, titled "Chikiburo Sampo."

It's worth noting that the name, Chibikuro, literally translates as "Little Black," but with a ring of affection. Not unlike "L'il Abner" or "Little Lulu." And "Sampo", which can also be transliterated as "sanpo," means walk or stroll. Thus, the new name comes to mean something like "Walking the Black Lab Puppy" in Japanese. And even this wound up being argued over.

I guess the only thing i can add is that most of these disputes seem to boil down to perception, both of things and of the intent of others. I'd like to sum this up, but it's too broad and too sprawling. Should the history of America and Europe have anything to do with the book sales in Japan? Can the anyone take something that's so loaded with meaning for one group and use it somewhere else with no problems at all? Is it even fair to expect understanding of why something might be inflamatory from a group that has no real history with any of the root issues? And is it possible that all this thinking and guessing and examination is just making things worse?

Fuck, I'm starting to understand Rodney's feeling when he uttered those famous words, But I keep wanting to change it a bit.

"Why can't we get along here?"

Why?