So I'm on my last day in New Orleans and a longer post on my time here will follow, but here's an interesting snippet. Today I was looking in some souvenir shops for trinkets (things for my heathens... I mean nieces and nephew). When all the shopping was done my friend asked if I had gotten anything for myself. I said no because honestly, I have way too much shit. If I learned anything from my moving excursion is that I need to cut back on accumulating things... THINGS...EVERYWHERE! Things I don't need, don't serve a purpose, hell things I may not even like a few years later (say for instance those tacky name plates from random states...) but I buy 'em... So I'm trying to break myself of those hoarding tendencies. So this trip I decided that I'll only buy things for myself that are practical. Things that I like, can use or are decorative (I got these really weird pixie figurines in San Gimignano, Italy that I love but sort of creep other people out, which makes me love them more).
At first I wasn't finding anything to tickle my fancy until... in a random store on Decatur I hit the jackpot!
Yes, these are... interesting little figurines of... pickininnies? baby Mammy? Buck? Sambo? Hell I don't know. The minute I saw them I just knew I had to make them mine.
Why?
Um... well... maybe... gingham never looked so... that girl's barrettes are... their skin is so... well, you know I always appreciate when friends are so close they color coordinate.
Okay maybe not.
Well maybe it's because as a historian, as a black person these things are unbelievably offensive. Maybe it's because the man who sold them was pleased that people buy these things everyday. Possibly it's the fact that the majority of people in this country act as if these sorts of blatantly racist portrayals are relics of the past that you'd be hard pressed to find. And it's almost definitely because those jackoffs are wrong.
I don't know how to write this blog and be funny, because this situation is not funny... No, this situation right here is unbelievably tragic... And it makes me angry. And the next time a student tells me that racism doesn't exist anymore I'll bring these little dolls and tell them when I got them and where and ask: If images like these (which were also featured prominently on commemorative postcards advertised as nostalgic images of New Orleans history) then what the fuck is so passe about racism?*
as a parting note, some photos to make you think...
*Note: My computer dictionary defines nostalgia as "a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.
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