Nothing like a little light racism to help out your eBay auction...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5633380250&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

A co-worker sent this to me this morning. Perhaps I'm just being overly sensitive, but I wasn't the only one who read the captions below the pictures in this auction as racist. The fact that the item being auctioned is some sort of monkey-type doll doesn't really help matters.

I've already reported it to eBay for inappropriate content. Perhaps you'd like to do the same?

Racism with plausible deniability.

But they're not fooling ME. :mad:

something in that isn't there.

It's stupid, but I didn't take it in a racial way.

get an "awww" factor. I'm guessing the person has had little or no exposure to how little kids really talk.

I think it's SUPPOSED to be baby talk, but it doesn't actually read like baby talk. I can see how people might pick up on a racist tone.

It could be that the seller is innocently making this out as baby talk, not a racial thing. I don't know one way or another, so I won't be alerting. It could be entirely innocent:shrug:

I mean, I think the whole idea of a monkey doll is a tad... odd, but to each his or her own. However, I agree with you - those captions are absolutely creepy. I collect magazines from the teens and '20s and this reminds me of something you'd read in one of those.

It's a monkey doll. I don't get what you're saying really. Explain how this is racist. Maybe I'm just naive.

it is racist as hell.

I don't see any racism. :shrug:

Maybe you're seeing something that's not there?

:shrug:

if you've ever seen baby talk written down, it pretty much looks like this

Like others are saying, it seems like the seller was trying to make it "cute" and sound like baby-talk.

never used sentences such as "I dus lobes bananas" etc. This is a throwback to the dialogue used in the past (think Mark Twain). Now, I don't know enough abaout Twain to call him a racist, but I do think that the captions can be used to foment a racist attitude.

I have to say that no babies talk like adults trying to talk like a "wittle babeeeeee".

Scuse me! Scuse me! Could you help me opens dis pweez? I dus lobes bananas and I be hungry again."

It does to me. :shrug:

There is a post farther down where someone mentioned that a familiarity with the seller may be helpful to interpret the true meaning of the captions. Perhaps she has it right!

I will say though, my mother is a doll collector and they are a little "out there" sometimes on those things..lol.

Move along, nothing to see here.

The captions are a little creepy, but not necessarily meant to be racist.

It's language used to quote Black people to make them seem stupid. There are enough examples of it in written form to make it recognizeable.

It could just be innocent baby talk. Or as you interpreted it, it could be racial. :shrug: Without knowing the intentions of the seller, it is hard to tell. I hate to assume that it is racist if it isn't.

I could definitely read it as either racist or baby talk. Either way, it's extremely poor judgement.

Here is a song about the emancipation of slaves following the Union invasion of their plantation. It was written by a Union-sympathizing white man and attempts to parody the language of the slaves. Henry Work probably did not believe the song is rascist, but it obviously is. I don't see the seller's language in the ad as being substantially different.

"Kingdom Coming" (1862)
by Henry Clay Work, No. 10

1.
Say, darkeys, hab you seen de massa,
Wid de muffstash on his face,
Go long de road some time dis mornin',
Like he gwine to leag de place?
He seen a smoke, way up de ribber,
Whar de Linkum gumboats lay;
He took his hat, an' lef berry sudden,
An' I spec he's run away!

CHORUS
De massa run? ha, ha!
De darkey stay? ho, ho!
It mus' be now de kingdom comin',
An' de year of Jubilo!

2.
He six foot one way, two foot tudder,
An' he weigh tree hundred pound,
His coat so big, he couldn't pay de tailor,
An' it won't go half way round.
He drill so much they call him Cap'an,
An' he get so drefful tann'd,
I spec he try an' fool dem Yankees
For to tink he's contraband.

(CHORUS)

3.
De darkey's feel so lonesome libing
in de loghouse on de lawn,
Dey move dar things to massa's parlor
For to keep it while he's gone.
Dar's wine an' cider in de kitchen,
An' de darkey's dey'll hab some;
I spose dey'll all be cornfiscated
When de Linkum sojers come.

(CHORUS)

4.
De oberseer he make us trouble,
An' he dribe us round a spell;
We lock him up in de smokehouse cellar,
Wid de key trown in de well.
De whip is lost, de han'cuff broken,
But de massa'll hab his pay;
He's ole enough, big enough, ought to known better
Dan to went an' run away.

(CHORUS)

The baby talk is evident, the racism is the use of "be" before verbs. Like, "I be likin' this." That's definitely not baby talk.

all of you duers saying this is harmless baby talk are idiots

...the main character of which spoke in a manner influenced by the "King Fish" character on Amos and Andy. Others have suggested that Zappa's "Mammy Nun" character from the same album was based on Al Jolson's particular brand of stagecraft.

Sounds like a baby talking. :shrug:

:eyes:

If there's one thing I've learned in my years of trading on eBay it's that 95% of eBayers are totally fucking stupid, and are getting stupider by the day. That's a conservative estimate, btw.

what on earth are you implying? :wow: :hi:

Do an eBay search for the kind of material mentioned in the monkey one. There's some freaky crap on there.

still creepy, but I don't think baby talk is racist :shrug:

like enough to make me throw up.

would be astonished to know somebody thought it was racist. He is obviously not the brightest bulb in the box.

What might be coming across to you as black dialect I think the seller believes is very cute baby talk.

I'm not completely discounting that the seller is a rabid racist, but if he/she is, it is very subtle.

I think he/she is just STUPID.

I used to work in a newborn nursery and a lot of people would say that the black babies looked like monkeys, so there is a history with this symbolism.

The use of "de" is suspicious, but kids do say it, too.