Not Cute, Not Funny, Not Cool
bella | Jun 08, 2007 | Comments 58
I first saw the Sparkling Wiggles video over at Racialicious, and I’ve been thinking about it all week. In case you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a big hit on CollegeHumor.com, and features an adorable, little blonde white girl being spoon fed lines by her parents. They tell to say these things: “No sparkling wiggles here!” “Get a job, sparkling wiggles!” And when the mother prompts her to say these things, she puts her cell phone up to the kid’s face, to capture the phrase. They titled the video, “What? She said sparkling wiggles. What did you think she said?â€
** Edited 13: 45 a.m. Monday June 11: VIDEO REMOVED BY REQUEST OF YOU TUBE POSTER. Click HERE to see it on CollegeHumor.com.
Well, racist parents, we know what you were trying to encourage her to say. And we obviously get where YOU’RE coming from, and that’s all that matters.It’s one thing to grow up and become a racist, and quite another to have your parents teach hate to you from a young age. That’s the way of the KKK, and it explains why the young teenage band Prussian Blue exists. Because parents are teaching their little ones how to hate and discriminate from an early age.
The “racist” tag on College Humor also turned up a clip of Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves, a notorious 1943 Merrie Melody cartoon I’ve always wanted to see. (I have a fascination with racist cartoons and the whitewashing of that part of history.) I’m pretty sure there were clips of “Coal Black” included in the end montage of Bamboozled, it’s among the Censored Eleven, and is probably the most infamous of the racist cartoons of that era. (It might surprise you to learn that Dorothy Dandridge’s mother and sister played the voices in this cartoon). It’s fascinating to me that once upon a time audiences — parents with their children — probably laughed uproariously at this depiction of black people, complete with oversize lips, gold-teethed “Prince Chawmings,” and shocking references to killing the Japanese. Now it probably won’t even make you crack a smile. I almost didn’t make it all the way through the video, the feelings it stirred up inside me were so strong — despite the cool soundtrack and the fact that this cartoon was reportedly intended as a loving homage to the then-thriving jazz scene.
Perhaps someday, people will feel like that about the “Sparkling Wiggles” video, too — perhaps someday it won’t make people laugh and share it with their friends as a humorous clip. Right now, the response seems to be sharply divided, and judging from some of the responses on YouTube, many people are skewing to the “black people are oversensitive hypocrites” side of the fence. And HOLD UP — yes, this is a disgusting blackface response to the video.
It’s crazy to me that so many people summarize this by saying, “It’s just a joke, people lighten up.” Kids mispronouncing words is often funny, but the whole crux of this matter is the parents. They fed her lines that reveal their line of thinking, filmed the whole thing, and shared it with the world. The comments on sites like Ebaums World to this video reveal the underpinnings of that message: “I hope my kid is exactly like her,” “I can’t wait to have a little sparkling wiggles hater myself someday,” and it just gets worse and worse from there.
I think the Avenue Q song is right — Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist. Myself included, apparently. I just did the Project Implicit test, which is a Harvard run study that “blends basic research and educational outreach in a virtual laboratory at which visitors can examine their own hidden biases.” It’s a way to kind of test how racist you are, and in what way exactly. I find the concept fascinating.
After doing the Skin Tone demonstration, I got this response: “Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for Dark Skin compared to Light Skin.”
That data makes me part of 4% of people who took the study. Keep in mind, 27% feel the opposite way, and have a strong automatic preference for light skin compared to dark skin, another 27% had a moderate automatic preference for light over dark skin, and 10% had a slight automatic preference. So I’m in the decided minority, here. That doesn’t displease me, but still – I’m not sure what to think about that, especially in light of the other statistics.
I know when I have kids, I’d never foster the kind of thoughts that the Sparkling Wiggles parents have. I’m going to raise my children to celebrate their heritage and be proud of who they are, but I also plan to encourage them to live that Sesame Street dream that I did, by having friends of many different ethnicities. I’d like to keep my children’s minds wide open for as long as possible, rather than foster prejudice when they’re not even old enough to clearly state — or have — an opinion of their own. What do you think about this issue, bellas and fellas?
Filed Under: Issues
Annyeong haseyo Felicia S. I’m glad you’re having such a great time in Seoul. I agree that it’s an amazing city and that Koreans are very warm hearted people.
But, you make it seem like Koreans are much happier than Americans. I have to disagree with you as Koreans face even more societal and family pressures and often bottle up feelings within themselves. Having many Korean friends, I see the internal struggles firsthand. It’s no wonder that Korea has the highest suicide rate in the world.
That said, enjoy your time in Korea! I can’t wait to get back there : )
You know if the world only looked one way, and everything was one type, food, clothes, faces everything! How wonderful would that be? the differences that separate us are what makes life interesting! For all those white or black persons that
feel they are above the other in race, where do you both go when you die? what do you have in both your veins? YOU are BOTH subjected to the same things, separated only by varying backgrounds, and the sooner
the unintelligent people who love to hate gets this, then things will start to get better. France redesigned, you need help, sick minds do sick things, so get help.If you don’t want the world to know your heart is lacking don’t show it, Bella did nothing wrong.
Raw reality, please do not try to justify the twisted
sick joke on youtube, by giving data on army rape crimes. “rape don’t justify brewing hate” if it did, then every time some thing offensive was said or done to a black person, then we would be drawing data from what use to happen on the slave plantations.
Raw Reality, could you provide a link for “raped by Blacks in the Army” story? I searched the Time Magazine site for this story. I did find stories on military rapes but none regarding the specific story that you spoke about so thoroughly and in such detail.
I find it difficult to believe that this story did not make the evening news since I know the media does not ever miss an opportunity to publish or report unflattering information about black folks — not ever.
I really don’t understand your reason for posting this story except what? To say that those parents were justified in coaching the little girl to spew that hatred because enlisted Black men raped white girls in the Army?
I too could come up with many, many, many truths about white men raping Black women, killing Black men “just because”, and no investigation ever took place and the media (print or otherwise) never reported it. However, it still does not relate directly or indirectly to teaching your kids to hate another group of people.
I don’t want to feed into Raw Reality’s agenda, because it is obvious that there is one…I would like to point out, however, that there is such a thing as unreported crime. I’m not going to try to change anyone’s mind, that can’t happen unless you want to be objective and truly are open. However, it is a fact that many times people who have a history of being victimized for one reason or another do not report crimes against their person because either they fail to appreciate that a true crime against their person has been committed, or they feel that it would be pointless as they have no real recourse. What do you think about the fact that of the 200 people cleared by DNA of terrible crimes recently, most of them have been Black? I find that interesting, and a reflection of why the numbers you quote so very eagerly may not be entirely accurate in actuality. Yes, they are accurate as to what was REPORTED, but not, perhaps, as to what was actually perpetuated. In spite of the fact that you obviously believe that all Blacks are screaming and “whining” from every roof top about every insult to their person, I don’t feel that it’s true. But, I will stop there because I PROMISED myself I would not get drawn into commenting from an emotinal standpoint.
Oh, and by the by, I am not saying that Blacks never commit crimes against whites, nor am I saying that it should be excused based on our history. That would be reducing Blacks to the child-like mentality that so many believed we had and DID use to excuse their treatment of us. However, I do feel that for some reason Raw Reality used this incident as a springboard to excuse attitudes that contribute to dissension.
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I agree that the video is neither cute, funny, nor cool. As old as this child appears (I’m guessing about 4), and with such a marked speech impediment, you’d think her parents would spend their time trying to improve her enunciation rather than exploit her on YouTube.