Racism in comics

[steven]

After looking at the Daily Record yesterday reading about a black guy who found the word 'nigger' on a reprinted issue of the 1939 Dandy annual featuring Smarty Grandpa, Is there anyone there who have had comics or annuals that have had racist words?

[Peter Gray]

Its been reported in the Daily Mail today.....they want the books to be censored...which is a shame....and where would it stop!!!

Dudley D Watkins Smarty Grandpa used the word.......not in a hateful way.......but he wanted to help and raise money for them has they were poor. My Dad a jazz fan
in the 80's used the word Negro to describe them. It used to be a respectable word and full of honour. We now all use the word black today.

Was the word n..g.r a good word in the 30's and then got twisted into a nasty word...?

I'm sure Dudley D Watkins wasn't intentionally rasist.....I think he liked the different nationalities.....he often included them in his strips and could be said he was doing good by not missing them out...

[Cap Haggis]

Peter - the "N" word was never a good word to use in any form, although I would imagine it was used in innocence in these cases (or is that ignorance?)and of course people of African origin can call each other that and it has a different meaning alltogether (they are , they say taking the word back to use so as to destroy it etc) If the book was reprinted, in my mind , there is no doubt that the "N" word should be edited it is not acceptable in today's society in any form (unless it wa used in a historical educational term - ie not a reprint of the strip for comic book purposes alone). The word Negro has a long and complicated history (its roots are Spanish and Greek for black / dead respectively) it has in reallity nothing to do with African people (they are African) there is, after all, no place called Negroland or a language called Negro etc ect - it was always used as a white term for a person of African origin and was never a word of honour in any sense - so its a minefield - best to just call people "people"

[Peter Gray]

Is there anyone there who have had comics or annuals that have had racist words?

There is hard nut n..g.r in the first Beano book.....

Anyway its amazing how disabled people were looked at......Cripple Charlie was in the first Beano book.....it was a strange different world.......glad as a disabled person myself things have changed for the better.....

I don't think the facsmile books should be edited...
maybe a warning note could be added to the book outside cover

[brisey]

While the N word-whilst in no way a good word,was not meant usuallymeant as an offensive word-it more reflected an innocence/naivety.

You could get N--ger Black shoe polish.My neighbour growing up in the 60's called her black cat by this name even though we had a Jamaican family opposite.Even the Goodies made a joke about it in the Black Pantomime Horse Sketch

I did read a 1973ish Sandie comic and a Girl had her Black cat called Sambo.

In DC Archive Editions-they point out that it they are historic documents and should be viewed as such.

The fact that it has become an issue of censorship is the frightening part of this topic-this is a book with a high price and is not going to find its way into many children's hands.

Brian

[colcool007]

Interesting topic to bring up as I have just been enjoying my latest Ebay purchase and I am also reading Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. In the Victor, I have spotted at least one use of 'Sambo' in a 1964 Johhny B Quick story, but the word was used in the sense that it was a generic term for folks from Africa. So infer your own good or bad from that.

My understanding is that these two terms were used, in the most part, as ways of identifying people. The racism is not inherent in the words themselves but in the context that they are used. The other word that springs to mind is Golliwog. As that was part and parcel of Robertsons Jam, I never ever considered the word in a racist context until I left school.

The first non-white characters (for want of a better way of putting it! ) that had an impact on me were Bearpaw Jay from Crunch and Rayker from Warlord. These were hard ass guys who didn't put up with rubbish from anyone. So for me, it was positive reinforcement that just because the guy is not the same as you, it doesn't make him a bad guy.

Plus because the stories were in black and white, the idea of people being different because of their skin colour never occured to me and still doesn't. I am colour blind in more ways than one!

And this is from a guy that grew up in the 70's when three of my favourite programs were Love Thy Neighbour, Rising Damp and Bless This House!

So for me, I rarely saw any overt racism in comics and saw some quite strong positive role models. Call me naive, but I am a man of my youth. Just goes to show that you can take the boy out of the 70's, but you can't the the 70's out of the boy!

[Lew Stringer]

In DC Archive Editions-they point out that it they are historic documents and should be viewed as such.

That seems to be the most sensible thing to do.

And that's what it comes down to: common sense. Society is supposed to evolve. We as a society should know by now that giving a derogatory label to someone because of their skin colour, or because of a disability, is ignorant, needlessly hurtful, and therefore wrong.

Likewise, to "rewrite the past" is equally wrong. Sometimes we need to see how ugly some aspects of the past were to learn that the "golden age" wasn't always as pleasant as some like to believe.

Lew

[David McDonald]

Interesting topic, whats ones recisim is anothers sterotype.
I remember reading an Alan Moore article in Daredevil, He priased charleys war while describing older british comics as racist.
Are the word 'Tommy, Hun, and Nip Racist terms? I dont know, but they are certainly offensive used in the wrong way.

Im irish and the term 'paddy' is often used over here as a noun for Irish people, wheras if a non Irish person used the word, it could possibly be offensive and racist depending on the use.

One story that used to annoy me as a kid was Paddywhack from Whoopee, but in my view that story was a sterotype, not racist.

David

[Captain Storm]

I read all the replies to this post and found some interesting and some ludicrous!I think it's time everybody grew up and stopped trying to be so politically correct.Of course I disagree that different nationalities should be slandered,but put in its historical context that's just what the comics of their time were.I seem to remember Enid Blyton's books getting similiar treatment a while back,with terms such as "Gollywog" being edited out!!!Even nursery rhymes such as "Baa Baa Black Sheep" were changed to "Rainbow Sheep".ENOUGH!Let the madness end here and now.If I find something offensive,I treat it with the contempt it deserves and ignore it,rather than waste precious time arguing the toss.I find I only insult my own intelligence by being drawn into such an arena.A lot of these terms when they were originally used probably caussed no offence at all and only cause offence in the modern era where their connotations are quite different.So treat them as the historical documents they are and if you don't like what they say,don't read them!!!!Now,what could be simpler :!:Now as to the topic of Disabled people being made fun of,that should never have been tolerated especially as it didn't matter what colour or creed you were.I would put that down as simply a lack of education all those years ago(not academic education).

[Lew Stringer]

I seem to remember Enid Blyton's books getting similiar treatment a while back,with terms such as "Gollywog" being edited out!!!Even nursery rhymes such as "Baa Baa Black Sheep" were changed to "Rainbow Sheep".ENOUGH!

The big problem with being overly "PC" is that changes like those anger people so much that there's then a backlash against sensible changes in society. (Also, some of the anti-PC brigade always blame ethnic minorities for such changes when it's often white people who have implimented them.)

As regards the Enid Blyton Noddy books, the changes were much more drastic than editing terminology. They republished the books and redrew the Golliwog characters as other kinds of toy characters.

I read the Noddy books as a kid and didn't associate Golliwogs with black people at all. Around the same time I was reading Corporal Clott in The Dandy, where the term "darkies" was still being used in 1964! (Same time they were working on the caricature of Sparky. Why were Thomsons so behind the times back then? A topic for another day perhaps.)

Lew

[Peter Gray]

One strange thing they did.........was turning Golly town into monkey town.......which is PC going wrong

[David McDonald]

I only have a handful of Sparkeys, but it always thought that it was very odd to have such an offensive character on the front cover and then to have a serialisation of Uncle Toms Cabin on the inside.
Were there two people in charge!?

David

[brisey]

Are the word 'Tommy, Hun, and Nip Racist terms? I dont know, but they are certainly offensive used in the wrong way.

I remember in the early 70,s when DC Comics reprinted a 4 page war story filler in New Gods which used the word Nip-the furore went on for quite sometime.Led to DC Comics being very vary about it's reprint policy for quite some time.

Brian

[Cap Haggis]

Not sure I would say that any of the comments made were overly PC or indeed ludicrous, I thought that everyone made very sensible and well tohught out points with no hint of being overly PC (on this site or indeed in the newspaper article I read on this). However, just to clarify my comments (as I think I was the only perosn directly saying I felt the "N" word should not be used) all I was saying was that given the choice of printing the "N" word or not in a children's facsimile comic then I would rather it wasn't used (just incase I was getting viewed as a PC nut). I also noted it would be ok to use it in a historic/ educational setting (its a matter of opinion if a comic is that educational / historical by some I suppose). My main comment was in answer to the comment / question that the "N" word used to be a good word to use - it is not, and never has been a positive term - the comments on the origins of the "N" word are taken directly from a United Nations Geneology book on race relations (and confimed in Equal opportunity documents). I think Lew's comments on the overly PC are spot on - maybe if more folk in the "real" world read comics it would be a better world, we seem to be more rational and open in my opinion. Oh one last thing re Enid Blyton the Gollywogs- they were painted out in the later books and replaced by elves - I also never thought of a Golly as racist (to younger kids that may sound strange- but I honestly never viewed them as coloured people stereotype - ignorance or what Im not sure).

[HighAndMighty]

It would be nice to see a reprints comic that moved beyond simply re-producing old strips and provided a historic context for them. e.g. editorial articles in Classics for the Comics

I'm sure there are people on this forum who could provide interesting articles on for example:
race in comics
sexual equality in comics
corporal punishment in comics

It may even be a useful learning resource that could be aimed at primary school children to get them to discuss these issues through the use of comics....