Comments on: Remembering Sambo’s

By: Ernie McCray

Ernie McCray — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 05:17:50 +0000

It shows that you enjoy reflecting on growing up. Me too. When we lose our remembrances, we lose an essential part of ourselves. Too many people, I think, look at the past as something to run from; they talk of “moving one.” Well, I’m all for moving on but in moving on without bringing with you the good stuff from your beginning stages of life, well, one won’t get very far. It’s a vital connection. Oh, well, here I am writing a blog. Have a good one. Read my TC. Guest Blog piece, if you get a chance. It’s full of some of my remembrances: “Studies that Inspire Love and Unity.”

By: tylerwods

tylerwods — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 02:56:56 +0000

Loved Tim Conway as the dentist priceless! Good points you bring up….I just enjoy reflecting on growing up and what I recall…

By: tylerwods

tylerwods — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 02:52:34 +0000

Yes too bad we can’t stay that way the world would be a little calmer…

By: songlady

songlady — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:38:59 +0000

Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett, thanks, Joe, I never knew that. We used to love going to Sambo's. Too bad it can't come back, along with Hires root beer extract, so I could have some home made root beer like my Grandma used to make. But, they say it had a carcinigen?

By: Ernie McCray

Ernie McCray — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:28:48 +0000

JoeS, as I mentioned I enjoyed dining at Sambos, but I could have done without the name but, even as an activist, it wasn’t something I particularly wanted to fight. But I understood why so many protested the name. It’s a matter of whether or not a society wants to get away from a past that wasn’t respectful of all people. I see it more as social correctness than political correctness. Why, as a business, make someone feel uncomfortable is a question I would ask? But it’s all academic now, as they say, huh?

By: tiponeill

tiponeill — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 22:38:28 +0000

>So what does the so called “Cartoon Version” have to do with Sambo’s restaraunt
It is an example of the racism of the US “Little Black Sambo”, and the author’s description of it as a Tamil child with a turban is not historically correct.

By: JoeS

JoeS — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 22:27:01 +0000

started in 1957 by Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett....

By: JoeS

JoeS — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 22:15:25 +0000

So what does the so called “Cartoon Version” have to do with Sambo’s restaraunts?

By: Ernie McCray

Ernie McCray — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 20:24:05 +0000

Hey, I used to love to stop by Sambos near Main and Speedway, in my old neighborhood. I remember the cheerful service and the reasonable prices and running into good friends. But let’s not just pass over the symbol. There was more at play in Sambo’s demise than political correctness.
Helen Bannerman wrote a nice little story but racism raised it’s ugly head and the story morphed into Little Black Sambo being a little black child drawn in the way Jim Crow liked drawing black folks. Have you ever seen the old Sambo cartoon with Little Black Sambo and a little dog basically chilling (to use today’s vernacular), looking on, while a big black mama is washing clothes, with a scarf on her head, slave/sharecropper style, humming, issuing warnings to Sambo like: “Now, you watch out for dem there tigers, honey, cuz they sho do likes demselves some dark meat.”
A beautiful story was bastardized by hateful minds and eventually the negative symbols generated from that caught up with the Sambo restaurants. But there are MANY wonderful children’s books today, filled with magic and wonder.
It’s a new world and we need to make it as positive and hopeful for our children as we can, keeping in mind that we sometimes glamorize the good times we had (and, I like you, had a ball growing up) as the “Good Old Days!” There was never such a thing from what I remember. Those days are ahead if we make them so.
But, anyway, I love the reminiscing you cause me to do with your writing. Keep it coming. Which reminds me, and I wrote a longer piece about it a little while back and something happened to it, that my favorite Carol Burnett moments were: Tim Conway as a dentist, I think, or patient, I can’t remember which, and he novocaines himself and then becomes ridiculously funny with his deadened arms and legs and all; all the “mama” episodes.

By: songlady

songlady — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 20:09:12 +0000

Know what? I read this and went to look,.. and yes, it’s there, a wood coin from Sambos, good for a cup of coffee. In a little box with some other things that have disappeared, an aluminum ashtray from Mcdonald’s,… part of an arrowhead, not saved for any specal reason. Anyway, it was an nice little story for kids. We had kids of all colors in our neighborhood and we all read it and I was just glad the tiger never ate the little boy, being turned into butter was lots better than being bitten by those big tiger teeth. Do little kids ever really think about what color someone is? No, because it doesn’t matter. Too bad people can’t stay that way. Is Sambo’s still around with a new name? Does anyone know?