Is the book LITTLE BLACK SAMBO for kids racist or not?
The book isn’t racist. Sambo was a brave little boy and a good role model for all races. Putting -bo on the end of a name is an Indian construction, so Sambo is a pet form of Samuel equivalent to Sammy. The problem for the book has been its popularity. Little black sambo became a term of abuse and eventually sambo became a term of contempt for black people. This was reinforced by the 1970s “comedy” series “Love thy neighbour” where the racist character referred to his West Indian neighbour as sambo. I don’t know of any way we could rescue the title. If we changed it to Little Black George, we’d find george becomes a term of racist abuse in a generation’s time.
