This part of the "Star Wars/Preganancy" thread got me thinking about black and white imagery in literature and film. As you know, black almost always symbolizes evil, white almost always symbolizes good:



for the rest of this funniness:
http://www.theskyiscrape.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=20256

In particular, I remember a big hoopla about a kid's book called "Harry the Dirty Dog" in which a white dog got all sooty from playing down by the RR tracks (and looking very much like a "black face" from old vaudeville shows), Harry came home and his family rejected him saying, "My dog is white, this dog is black." The family took him back once the black washed off.



Black and white imagery has been around for literally ages, and from my teaching days, I gathered from my students that they were unaffected by the black=bad white=good thing when it came to skin, but there are groups who consider this deep-roots cultural imagery to be a subtle and pervasive racism.

What do you think?

I think for the most part it goes back to biblical notions/perceptions of good and evil and has nothing to do with the black race. I'm not saying it was never an issue, but I think that weighs much more on to it than black and white people.

Couldn't it go back to the fact that Jews and Romans were considerably lighter than the unGodly Persians and Egyptians.

This is an interesting idea: I never thought black and white imagery ever had anything to do with skin, rather it had more to do with an ancient fear of the blackness of night that caused this imagery to become so ingrained in our psyches.

I think it stems more from light/dark rather than color alone. Light always implied being able to see, ie, knowledge. Dark implies ignorance. I would bet that the black/white symbolism stems more from this idea than a race issue.

ditto

well in terms of dark implying ignorance, think about the term "dark ages" which is used to describe a time of ingnorance in the worlds history. So that leads to a kinda chicken and egg thing. Which came first the imagery of the dawning of a new day and the that enlightenment, whcih lead to the dark skinned people of the world being the unfortunate victims of life. Or maybe people first being scared of these different human beings.

Definitely.

This has always been my opinion as well.

I assume none of you have read Harry the Dirty Dog, but that book does indeed contain some barely concealed racism (IMO).

So another question for everyone: do you think this ancient concept of light/dark white/black imagery has been taken and used as concealment for racism, either in the past or present?

Further, do you think think that the people who complain about the black/white imagery have a serious arguement?

I think the analogy may have at some point been used in a racist manner, but I think that's pretty rare these days.

As far as people having a right to complain... If the specific work is racist, sure--but the analogy itself is not racist, and the whole thing is merely an unfortunate coincidence.

I had that book as a kid. Hell, Aimee might have my copy in her school books. Ultimately, you have to think quite abstractly to pull the racism out of that story. No kid would every know the difference.



Not really, but if I was black, I'd probably just get sick of black/dark always being the "evil" color, so I'd bitch anyhow.

I always loved this story when I was a kid, but some people get this crazy idea that it was racist.

If Aimee has it, I suggest you read it again. The imagery is not terribly subtle and while one book like this will certainly not register to kids as "oh gee I should dislike black things", a number of books with the same not-so-subtle message may cause some confusion in little developing brains.

But liek I said, I never saw any such thing when I was teaching. This one book was startling to me when I was studying kids' lit in college...but maybe that is all just part of my "dangerous" liberal education brainwashing

How about the most basic survival instinct of black=dark=i can't see therefore, danger.

See also, post #5.

You counted?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5
It's not so hard.

Persians and Egyptians are caucasoids, the persians are even considered indo-europeans

I might have the wrong locations, but there was someone in the Bible who was dark and ungodly.

Lucifer?