 Cover of box, partially damaged | |
| Publishers | McLoughlin Brothers |
|---|---|
| Publication | 1890 |
| Years active | About 1890–1915 |
| Players | two or more |
| Setup time | less than one minute |
The Jolly Darkie Target Game was a game developed and manufactured by the McLoughlin Brothers (now part of Milton Bradley Company) [1] which was released in 1890. [2] It was produced until at least 1915. [3] Other companies produced similar games, such as Alabama Coon by J. W. Spear & Sons.
The objective of the game was to throw a wooden ball into a bullseye, the "gaping mouth" of the target in cardboard decorated using imagery of Sambo [2] [4] and that could open and close. [5] It was one of many products and media of late 19th century in the United States depicting African Americans as "beasts" and associating the black male face Sambo images with racial slur terms such as "coon", "darky", "nigger", and "pickaninny". [2] Among these was another Milton Bradley game, Darky's Coon Game. [2] The term "darkie" referred to the "exaggerated physiognomic features" depicting black people and associated with minstrel shows. [6] In the book Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture, Patricia Turner reported that she had heard of a black man sitting outside a theatre preceding a minstrel show, with his mouth open and children throwing balls into it for entertainment. [6] The Cuban poet and journalist José Martí witnessed a similar scene at Coney Island and wrote about it. [7]
It was one of many games produced at the time with a theme involving violence against black people, who were "encountering growing hostility" throughout the United States. [8] The game depicted "a symbolic form of violence" that reinforced the servitude of black people. [9] Another game with a more obvious theme of violence was "Hit the Dodger! Knock him Out!". [8] It was also one of the objects produced at the time featuring a mouth and "black ingestion" as a stereotype of African Americans, such as the watermelon stereotype, also exemplified by the "Jolly Nigger Bank" into which coins are inserted into a mouth-shaped slot. [5] The target consumer for the game was white people, who bought it for their children. [3] [4] These games and images reinforced "an encompassing theme of domination" by white people and subordination of black people. [10] Turner states that such products reflected means by which "American consumers found acceptable ways of buying and selling the souls of black folk" even after the abolition of slavery in the United States, and the use of black images in advertising "figured prominently in commodity capitalism". [11]
Today, the game is considered a collector's item. [12] It is part of collectable black memorabilia, consisting of objects such as dolls, toys, and postcards that include those that are offensive or racist, [3] even the "most contemptible examples" of such works. [13] By 1993, there were about 50,000 black memorabilia collectors in the United States, about 70% of whom were African Americans. [14]
Blackface is the practice of non-black performers using burnt cork or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment.
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of comically portraying racial stereotypes of African Americans. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows stereotyped blacks as dimwitted, lazy, buffoonish, cowardly, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent.
Aunt Jemima was an American breakfast brand for pancake mix, table syrup, and other breakfast food products. The original version of the pancake mix was developed in 1888–1889 by the Pearl Milling Company and was advertised as the first "ready-mix" cooking product.
The Story of Little Black Sambo is a children's book written and illustrated by Scottish author Helen Bannerman and published by Grant Richards in October 1899. As one in a series of small-format books called The Dumpy Books for Children, the story was popular for more than half a century.
A mammy is a U.S. historical stereotype depicting black women, usually enslaved, who did domestic work, including nursing children. The fictionalized mammy character is often visualized as a dark-skinned woman with a motherly personality. The origin of the mammy figure stereotype is rooted in the history of slavery in the United States, as slave women were often tasked with domestic and childcare work in American slave-holding households. The mammy caricature was used to create a narrative of black women being happy within slavery or within a role of servitude. The mammy stereotype associates black women with domestic roles and it has been argued that it, combined with segregation and discrimination, limited job opportunities for black women during the Jim Crow era, approximately 1877 to 1966.
In the post-Reconstruction United States, Black Buck was a racial slur used to describe a certain type of African American man. In particular, the caricature was used to describe black men who absolutely refused to bend to the law of white authority and were seen as irredeemably violent, rude, and lecherous.
Sunday Go to Meetin' Time is a 1936 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on August 8, 1936. The name of the short comes from the colloquial adjective "sunday-go-to-meeting," describing something appropriate for church or otherwise presentable.
Billy Kersands was an African-American comedian and dancer. He was the most popular black comedian of his day, best known for his work in blackface minstrelsy. In addition to his skillful acrobatics, dancing, singing, and instrument playing, Kersands was renowned for his comic routines involving his large mouth, which he could contort comically or fill with objects such as billiard balls or saucers. His stage persona was that of the dim-witted black man of the type that had been popularized in white minstrel shows. Modern commentators such as Mel Watkins cite him as one of the earliest black entertainers to have faced the dilemma of striking a balance between social satire and the reinforcement of negative stereotypes.
Darlie is an oral care brand owned and manufactured by the Hawley & Hazel Company with focus on Chinese and Southeast Asian markets. The company is headquartered in Hong Kong with manufacturing facilities in Zhongshan. The name, logo, and brand-mascot of the company had been the subject of controversy regarding racial stereotyping.
Coon Chicken Inn was an American chain of three restaurants that was founded by Maxon Lester Graham and Adelaide Burt in 1925, which prospered until the late 1950s. The restaurant's name contained the word Coon, considered a racial slur, and the trademarks and entrances of the restaurants were designed to look like a smiling caricature of an African-American porter. The smiling capped porter head also appeared on menus, dishes, and promotional items. Due to changes in popular culture and the general consideration of being culturally and racially offensive, the chain was closed by 1957.
Stereotypes of African Americans are misleading beliefs about the culture of people with partial or total ancestry from any black racial groups of Africa whose ancestors resided in the United States since before 1865, largely connected to the racism and the discrimination to which African Americans are subjected. These beliefs date back to the slavery of black people during the colonial era and they have evolved within American society.
Coon songs were a genre of music that presented a stereotype of Black people. They were popular in the United States and Australia from around 1880 to 1920, though the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far back as 1848, when they were not yet identified with "coon" epithet. The genre became extremely popular, with white and Black men giving performances in blackface and making recordings. Women known as coon shouters also gained popularity in the genre.
The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University, Big Rapids, Michigan, displays a wide variety of everyday artifacts depicting the history of racist portrayals of African Americans in American popular culture. The mission of the Jim Crow Museum is to use objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice.
The representation of African Americans in speech, writing, still or moving pictures has been a major concern in mainstream American culture and a component of media bias in the United States.
The watermelon stereotype is an anti-Black racist trope originating in the Southern United States. It first arose as a backlash against African-American emancipation and economic self-sufficiency in the late 1860s.
Patricia A. Turner is an American folklorist who documents and analyzes the stories that define the African American experience. A professor in World Arts and Cultures/Dance and African American Studies at UCLA, Turner is the author of five books on topics ranging from rumors, legends and conspiracy theories to African American quilters and images of African Americans in popular culture. She is the 2021 recipient of the Linda Dégh Lifetime Achievement Award.
Ethnic Notions is a 1987 documentary film directed by Marlon Riggs. It examines anti-Black stereotypes that permeated popular culture from the ante-bellum period until the advent of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
The word nigger has historically been used in the names of products, colors, plants, as place names, and as people's nicknames, among others, but has fallen out of favor since the 20th century.
Depicting African-American children as alligator bait was a common trope in American popular culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. The motif was present in a wide array of media, including newspaper reports, songs, sheet music, and visual art. There is an urban legend claiming that black children or infants were in fact used as bait to lure alligators, although there is no meaningful evidence that children of any race were ever used for this purpose. In American slang, alligator bait is a racial slur for African-Americans.