I got an email from an old High School classmate (Yo, Denise!) asking about the origin of our youngest son's nickname, "Little White Sambo." Excellent question. First, let me explain that the name "Sam" is from 2 different inspirations, my best friend in grade school, and my favorite beer. Ok, my second favorite beer. But, can you imagine a 5 year old trying to learn how to spell Leinenkueggel? (My oldest, Nicholas Adam, got the second part of the beer name, Sam Adams.) So we named him Sam. Quickly, Sam turned into Sambo. Well, here is where the story get's interesting.....
Once upon a time in a grocery store far, far away, there was a little boy and his name was Sambo. This little boy was behaving very badly in the store, running and grabbing, and generally acting like a little shit. Well, when Sambo was in the cereal aisle, he really went on a tear. Running up ahead of his parents, he started pulling boxes off the shelves. This made his father, Big Jumbo, very unhappy. His father yelled for his son to stop. "SAMBO!," he shouted. As luck would have it, about half-way down the aisle, there was a family of people with darker skin than Big Jumbo or Sambo. These people gave Big Jumbo a very stern look of disapproval. That dark skinned man looked at Big Jumbo like he was going to beat him so hard his dog would be retarded. Big Jumbo could not figure out why. He decided to ask one of his dark skinned friends. He got the answer he was most affraid of.
From that day on, Sambo was only Sambo in private. And between his father Big Jumbo and his mother Big Mumbo, they always laughed when they muttered under their breath, "that's little WHITE Sambo."
The moral of the story is that sometimes, when we least expect it, we can be very racist and not even realize it. I'm not going to stop calling my boy Sambo, but I am going to attach the disclaimer whenever I'm in doubt as to who might be offended just to remind myself of my past mistakes. When one is looking to adopt a minority child, it is best to not have a Mark Fuhrmann-esque reputation.
Once upon a time in a grocery store far, far away, there was a little boy and his name was Sambo. This little boy was behaving very badly in the store, running and grabbing, and generally acting like a little shit. Well, when Sambo was in the cereal aisle, he really went on a tear. Running up ahead of his parents, he started pulling boxes off the shelves. This made his father, Big Jumbo, very unhappy. His father yelled for his son to stop. "SAMBO!," he shouted. As luck would have it, about half-way down the aisle, there was a family of people with darker skin than Big Jumbo or Sambo. These people gave Big Jumbo a very stern look of disapproval. That dark skinned man looked at Big Jumbo like he was going to beat him so hard his dog would be retarded. Big Jumbo could not figure out why. He decided to ask one of his dark skinned friends. He got the answer he was most affraid of.
From that day on, Sambo was only Sambo in private. And between his father Big Jumbo and his mother Big Mumbo, they always laughed when they muttered under their breath, "that's little WHITE Sambo."
The moral of the story is that sometimes, when we least expect it, we can be very racist and not even realize it. I'm not going to stop calling my boy Sambo, but I am going to attach the disclaimer whenever I'm in doubt as to who might be offended just to remind myself of my past mistakes. When one is looking to adopt a minority child, it is best to not have a Mark Fuhrmann-esque reputation.
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