Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

I often find interesting things when I go out on my walks. Lately is no exception.

I noticed a couple weeks ago that the neighbor who had been over in Iraq serving with a military intelligence unit and has now returned had placed signs on his lawn that said, "Kerry for a Stronger America."

Well, this certainly explained why we get along so well. But I'd had previous hints of that when we talked about the Philadelphia Folk Festival and, of course, about dogs.

Today, I noticed that he's put some stickers on his SUV. One says, "You don't have to like Bush to be patriotic." And the other one said, "Veterans for Kerry." I thought this was very encouraging.

The other interesting thing was something I found on the ground yesterday at the end of my walk, lying in front of the Seventh Day Adventist Church (which replaced the AME Church and all their beautiful music, which used to spill out of the windows).

It was a little piece of stylized paper with lines of the back, as if it was supposed to be used for messages. The side with the lines was facing up when I found it:

I couldn't believe what I was seeing, at first, because it looked just like the stereotypical racist image of a pickaninny from 60 years ago.

When I turned it over, I discovered it's a character called Spike who promotes Aramark, one of the largest providers of catering and hospitality services. They have a huge building in downtown Philadelphia, and they handle exclusive contracts for places like the Baltimore Convention Center.

Now admittedly, the character has blue skin, instead of brown skin and blonde hair instead of black, but the side without color shows how closely it imitates those old racist images. You've got the monkey-like features: a big smile and squashed face with large cheeks, small rounded ears.

I can't be the first person to have noticed this. I'm just wondering how a huge corporation is getting away with using a thinly disguised racist image as their mascot. OK, besides the Cleveland Indians.

Here are some other examples so you can compare:

There must be one of two reasons: first, that they're actually so clueless they have no idea what their mascot resembles. Knowing a little about corporate think, that's not entirely unlikely.

The second possibility is that they know the image could be seen as being stereotypical but would argue that it's blue. "Nobody is blue. How could it be racist if it's blue?" By that logic, we could have racist stereotypes all over the media, provided we painted them pretty colors.

Maybe they know the pickaninnies are wrong, but they just can't help themselves. It reminds them of comfort and home. It reminds them of 1940s cartoons starring Bugs Bunny in drag. It reminds them of when they felt like they belonged, like they were the most important people here. There was no place better to live and nowhere better to be than in a country where you knew your place. Maybe that's what they think. It's impossible to tell.

At any rate, I find it wholly ironic that the character is named Spike, because Spike Lee wouldn't definitely not appreciate being this character's namesake. In fact, he did a little movie about the subject, which I highly recommend, called Bamboozled.

If you watch that movie, which really explores racist stereotyping of African-Americans, I think immediately afterwards you should go back to this web page and look at it. You will see exactly what I mean.

I also highly recommend visiting the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, which has a special online exhibit on the pickaninny.

Don't be bamboozled just because your pickaninny is blue.

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

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