The goodie bag from hell at the SF Zoo

[Liberal_in_LA]

click on the link to see a pic of the cards included in the goodie bag. The 'old maid' cards included a 'jim crow' card and a card with an actual pic of what was considered an 'old maid' back inthe day - lady with cat.

The goodie bag from hell at the SF Zoo

We got these "Old Maid" cards as part of the party favor package provided by the San Francisco Zoo -- a package that included stickers, a pencil, a pad of paper and some other animal-themed ... stuff.

Now, I admit that the zoo birthday party sounds appealing. You provide the money, and the zoo provides the rest -- everything from pizza to cake to party favors. You basically show up and they throw you a party. Awesome.

My only problem is the "Old Maid" party favor. We've talked before about the evils of the goodie bag, but this one truly takes the cake.

If the zoo is going to lock parents into a special birthday package and not permit them to hand out their own favors, the least the place could do is make sure the toy giveaways aren't racist throwbacks from a sad era. Did no one at the zoo even look at this game? Or if they did look, did they simply not care?


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/parenting/detail?blogid=29&entry_id=66297#ixzz0rdIgzsvG

[Toucano]

1. Hyper-sensitivity is getting pathetic.

That game is so old and those symbols so irrelevant, this is almost on par with taking offense with Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[Skip Intro]

9. AMEN!!!!!!!!!! nt

[ORDagnabbit]

2. seriously????? you're upset over this? n/t

[SunnySong]

3. Well I understand the objection to the Jim Crow card...

but the rest of the article does seem a bit of making a mountain out of a molehill.

[Xithras]

13. I don't.

The accompanying photo had nothing to do with African Americans or the South in general, so the objection seems to be to the simple use of the NAME Jim Crow.

If you're in Central California any time soon, I can introduce you to a very nice guy named Jim Crow. He sells ag pump supplies to farmers and is a friend of the family.

Crow (and Crowe) are common names in England and parts of Ireland, and are common last names in the U.S. "Jim" is shorthand for "James", which is still one of the most common names in the U.S. As a result, there are a LOT of Jim Crow's in the U.S. today. Few people find that objectionable. It's just a name.

The fact that it was attached to a picture of a bird playing golf in a kids card game is hardly cause for concern. If it had been under a photo of a black person, or some southern looking redneck type, I could see the indignation. But the placement of a common English name under the picture of a golfing bird? What is there to object to?

[tabasco]

4. A thread got locked the other day because of the joke

about a wedding ring curtailing marital sex.

PATHETIC PC!

[SwampG8r]

14. i been married for 32 years and

thats is no joke
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
my reply is though

[stevedeshazer]

5. Aw, jeez. I played Old Maid with those cards as a kid.

We didn't know anything about that OTHER Jim Crow.

That was 40 years ago. We've all (well, most) moved on. I don't see it as a big deal. I can certainly remember much worse.

[Politicub]

6. BWAHAHAHA - Best.comment.ever: "As for the old maid herself...

shall she be replaced by a hootchie Samantha from Sex and the City or just a few pieces of unpopped corn kernels?"

[Webster Green]

7. Excellent!

Hopefully that poster is working on a novel.

[nemo137]

8. When I worked at a pool, I don't think I ever saw the inside of anything in the goodie-bag

the cards are inappropriate, to be sure, but the blame lies with the catalog they got them from or the company that made the cards, I think.

[FreedomRain]

10. well yeah

I have no problem with the game, but certainly the zoo should let you replace it if you want to. Your money.

[MineralMan]

11. Here are some of the cards from the set we had when I was a kid:

[Generic Other]

12. Who Was Jim Crow?

Jim Crow Rice, a White man, was one of the first performers to wear blackface makeup -- his skin was darkened with burnt cork. His Jim Crow song-and-dance routine was an astounding success that took him from Louisville to Cincinnati to Pittsburg to Philadelphia and finally to New York in 1832. He then performed to great acclaim in London and Dublin. By then "Jim Crow" was a stock character in minstrel shows, along with counterparts Jim Dandy and Zip Coon. Rice's subsequent blackface characters were Sambos, Coons, and Dandies. White audiences were receptive to the portrayals of Blacks as singing, dancing, grinning fools.

By 1838, the term "Jim Crow" was being used as a collective racial epithet for Blacks, not as offensive as , but as offensive as coon or darkie. Obviously, the popularity of minstrel shows aided the spread of Jim Crow as a racial slur. This use of the term did not last past a half century. By the end of the 19th Century, the words Jim Crow were less likely to be used to derisively describe Blacks; instead, the phrase Jim Crow was being used to describe laws and customs which oppressed Blacks.

http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/who.htm

[Lance_Boyle]

15. I truly love the author's picture at the top of the article. n/t