AUGH

The above comic, which I find very funny, is from Pictures for Sad Children. I recommend it.

When I was a kid I read several racist children's books by Helen Bannerman, whose most famous was probably Little Black Sambo. I'm pretty sure I've seen them re-released in a bookshop not too long ago, which I think is not a good thing. They really were deeply, deeply offensive and I think I even knew that as at a very young age. Of course they're also silly and kitsch and a re-release is probably a supposedly ironic move, but nostalgia for a period when open racism was ok isn't something I can encourage.

Bannerman, who was writing around 1900, also created The Story of Little Kettle-Head which is only slightly racist but also very compelling and eerie. Check it out.



Both of these links come from the blog My First Dictionary, which is quite rather funny.

That's all.