On Nov 10, 2007, at 11:57 AM, Sean Andrews wrote:
> What did you search for? I looked for just baa baa sheep (no quotes)
> and all of them that came up had the black in the middle.
With quotes. I had to go about 50 down the list to find some good stuff though.
> It does look like there was an instance, in the UK last year, where a
> parents group tried to replace the "black" with "rainbow."
>
> http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/
> article738220.ece
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4782856.stm
Several of the anti-PC rants were from Britain. so it appears to be an issue there. Some seem to drop the color, some alternate black and white - and then there's this rainbow.
> I guess I don't understand the origin of the song and I'm sure it is
> naive to think that the use of "black" in the verse is just a result
> of black sheep being a naturally occurring phenomenon, but it really
> doesn't seem like a racist rant.
One of the blogs - and we know how well they're fact-checked! - said that black sheep were considered cursed, and yielded less wool. That certainly does stigmatize blackness, even if it's not overtly and literally racist.
> In fact, since I assume it comes
> from England, I'd think it had something to do with class or
> enclosures since sheep themselves were hardly an a-political topic.
> But I can't quite get that out of the rhyme just by reading it.
Another blog - similar user warning incorporated by reference to the above - said that the song refers both to the wool tax of 1245 (!) and to enclosure.
A bag for my master, even if it does bear an obsolete feudal association, certainly does help naturalize hierarchy, and owing something to your exploiting overlord, doesn't it? Even if there is some trace of protest.
Oh, and in older versions there was "none" for the boy down the lane; we've sanitized that into "one" for the neighbor.
Doug