Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents comments from a 2006 online discussion thread that documents some White people's memories of racially offensive versions of "Eeenie Meenie Miney Mo" counting out rhymes and/or some other racially offensive children's rhymes. These comments include the bloggers' memories about their reactions and others' reactions to and feelings about those rhymes.
The commenters who participated in this ablemuse.com/erato discussion are members or guests of that forum who are from Europe or the United States.
The content of this post is presented for folkloric, historical, and socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners,
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2021/05/versions-of-eenie-meenie-miney-mo.html for the pancocojams post "Examples Of "Eenie Meenie Miney Mo" Counting Out Rhymes In The United States" .
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2021/05/versions-of-eenie-meenie-miney-mo_5.html for the closely related pancocojams post entitled "Versions Of "Eenie Meenie Miney Mo" Counting Out Rhymes In The United Kingdom".
Also, click for https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2021/05/versions-of-eenie-meenie-miney-mo_5.html for Part I and http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2015/02/examples-of-eeny-meeny-miney-mo-in_17.html for Part II of a 2015 pancocojams series about "Versions Of "Eenie Meenie Miney Mo" Counting Out Rhymes In The United States."
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
I happened upon these examples today while searching online for examples of a completely different counting out rhyme (i.e. "Mickey Mouse Built d A House").
I considered not publishing these examples and comments and examples, partly because I have published several other pancocojams post on "Eeny Meenie Miney Mo" rhymes, but mostly because I detest racially offensive rhymes. However, I decided to do publish this post because it includes different comments on this subject and different examples than those which I've published before.
As is the case with other posts in this pancocojams blog, I use modified spelling for what is commonly referred to as "the n word": In this post I'm using the spelling "nig--r" * The asterisk indicates that the spelling has been modified, and that the original comment has the complete spelling of that word.
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SELECTED COMMENTS ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE'S MEMORIES OF "EENIE MEENIE MINEY MO" & SOME OTHER RACIALLY OFFENSIVE CHILDREN'S RHYMES
This pancocojams post includes all of the examples and comments in that discussion thread about this subject. The word "selected" in this post means that there are other comments in that discussion thread that include examples and comments that don't refer to this topic.
I added numbers to these comments for referencing purposes only.
From .https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=810 "ablemuse.com/eato - Skipping/playground rhymes
1.
02-13-2006
David Anthony
Location: Stoke Poges, Bucks, UK
"There's a world of tradition there.
Anyone else interested?
Here's a couple for starters.
Best,
David
My mother said I never should
Play with the gypsies in the wood.
When I did, she would say
You naughty girl to disobey:
Your hair won't grow, your shoes won't shine
You naughty girl, you shan't be mine!' "
****
2.
02-13-2006
David Anthony
Location: Stoke Poges, Bucks, UK
"Well, Alan, may as well get this one down before it finally
disappears:
Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,
Catch a nig--r* by his toe;
If he squeals let him go,
Eeeny, meeny, miny, mo.
YOU ARE IT.
I think there are many variations. Amazingly by today's standards,
we thought nothing of it at primary school; it was just a counting rhyme.
Best,
David
**
3.
02-13-2006
Golias
Location: Lewisburg, PA, USA
"Here's the variation I remember from childhood:
Eeny Meeny Miney Mo
Catch a nig--r* by his toe
If he hollers make him pay
Fifty dollars every day.
O-U-T spells out goes you,
You old dirty dishrag YOU!
We thought nothing of that one, either. But this next one I
knew was naughty, because it made me feel sorry for the one little quadroon or
mulatto boy in our rural Alabama elementary school (first through 4th grades,
1935-9). Of course we children were thoughtless, but so were our
teachers...good teachers and otherwise kind ladies but, in
retrospect...thoughtless:
Nig--r*, Nig--r*, pull your trigger
Up and down the Coosa River.
Snotty nose, ragged clothes,
That's the way the nig--r* goes.
My mammy told me to choose this very ONE!"
****
4.
02-14-2006
Kevin Andrew Murphy
Location: San Jose, California, USA
"By the time it came to me in northern California in the late
60s/early 70s, it had become significantly more PC:...
Eenie Meanie Minie Moe
Catch a tiger by the toe
If he hollers, make him pay
Twenty dollars every day.
My mother said to pick the very best one and you are not
IT.…"
**
5.
02-14-2006
A. E. Stallings
Location: Athens, Greece
…"As for un-PC nursery rhymes, this one seems innocent
enough:
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear,
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair,
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?
until you realize that Fuzzy Wuzzy was a term British
soldiers used for warriors in the Sudan, see Kipling's Fuzzy Wuzzy."
6.
02-14-2006
Golias
Location: Lewisburg, PA, USA
…"If a fight began, bystanders would chant:
Fight! fight!
Nig--r* and a white.
Who's the nig--er*
and who's the white?"
**
7.
02-14-2006
Marcia Karp
Location: Outside Boston, Mass
"
“We thought nothing of it"
[end of quote]
"Depends who gets to be one of us.
Best,
Marcia"
****
From https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=810&page=2
8.
02-14-2006
Michael Cantor
Plum Island, MA; Santa Fe, NM
"The Bronx version of the counting-out rhyme that David posted was:
Eenie meenie miny mo
Catch a nig--r* by the toe
If he hollers let him go
My mother said to pick this one
Out goes Y-O-U
Sometime during my childhood, "nig--r"* becamed
"tiger". PC from the start!”…
****
From https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=810&page=4
9.
02-19-2006
Katy Evans-Bush
Location: London
..."Of course we used to do the counting-out ones too, definitely a tiger, and definitely there was an odd-even thing as to who you;d end up picking! There were several endings to eenie-meenie-miney-mo, and you could draw it out almost indefinitely if you wanted to pick a certain person."
10.
02-24-2006
Kate Benedict
Location: New York, NY, USA
"I don't remember the tiger replacing the N word in that
little ditty but I didn't hear the N word version in my yard. My mother
must have changed the word herself, teaching it to me thusly: "Catch a
piggy by the toe." I look back on little graces like that and smile."
From
11.
03-28-2006
Julie Steiner
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
"[EDITED to group the innocent chants at the beginning, and
the offensive ones at the end. An essay explaining why I chose to include the
offensive ones appears a few posts down in this thread. Original post,
re-organized:]
I'm late to the party, as usual, but I can't believe that no one's mentioned these yet:
[…]
OFFENSIVE RHYMES
My father is a German,
My mother is a spy,
And I'm the little blabbermouth
Who told the F.B.I.
My father is a butcher,
My mother cuts the meat,
And I'm the little hot dog
Who runs around the street.
There were many, many verses on this theme--I'm sure some of you know more of them.
[…]
Staring contest chants, in order of ascending cultural
insensitivity:
THIS!
Is a VER-y!
SER-i-ous!
GAME!
[Chant faster and faster, in ascending pitch, while staring
into each other's eyes, until someone breaks eye contact or smiles.]
My name is
Owl-Eye, Owl-Eye,
Chicken-Eye, Chicken-Eye,
Pom-Pom Beauty,
Don't Like Whiskey,
Chinese, Japanese,
Indian CHIEF!
[At "chief", each kid crosses arms in front of his
chest
and stares into his opponent's eyes. First kid to blink,
look away, twitch, or laugh is the loser.]
My mother's Chinese.
[Each contestant pulls outside corners of own eyelids down.]
My father's Japanese.
[Outside corners of eyelids pulled up.]
I'm Chin-apanese.
[Each contestant pulls one eyelid up and one eyelid down,
and staring contest begins--same rules as above.]
The latter rhyme lost all its luster for me when my
schoolmates started using it (and the last quatrain of "Not last night but
the night before," provided below) to taunt my best friend, Tamiko
Kobayashi. Political incorrectness does have nasty consequences!”…
-snip-
This commented used italics for those words.
From
03-28-2006
Marcia Karp
Location: Outside Boston, Mass
"Julie,
One consequence of having behaved badly when young might be to consider from then on the price of future behavior. This thread is a nice memory romp; not much poetic sensibility here, but every discussion need not have it. Is it worth joining in the fun to once again not be aware that not everyone finds stupid racism to be acceptable? Political incorrectness is a lying use of language -- a use that people who are concerned with language and how it can be used to distort might challenge; a more accurate description of your rhymes might be hateful.
You post is not the first on this thread that has moved me to reply and I mean this for the others, too. The child you were behaved self-centeredly and unthinkingly; he or she isn't my concern. Where is the adult who can acknowledge now that once again you haven't considered how others might feel, not about how PC you are, but about being treated as invisible or about seeing others treated that way? A wagging finger at your younger self doesn't show any real understanding. There are ways to discuss the nasty rhymes, but I've yet to see them here.
Marcia Karp"
-snip-
This commenter used bold font to that word.
****
03-29-2006
Julie Steiner
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
"Yes, Marcia, many of the verses I included are, indeed, nothing short of hateful. I certainly would not mention them to my own kids while they are at the age when they might revive these deservedly dormant "rhymes of insult and humiliation" by repeating them. Some antiques shouldn't be passed on to younger generations.
So why on earth did I pass them on to Eratosphere?
My purpose in posting them here was not to preserve such filth for posterity, but to see if others had a glimmer of recognition--"Oh, yeah, we used to say that one, too--how horrifying in retrospect." (I assume that members of this list will not be tempted to start--or resume--giving people wedgies at this late date; or to teach their kids this kind of hatemongering.)
I said above that some antiques shouldn't be passed on to younger generations. I do plan to discuss some of these rhymes with my kids when they are old enough to learn about the Chinese Exclusion Acts, the internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry, and the laws which would have made it impossible for me to marry their Chinese-American father in California only a few decades ago.
The all-purpose rhymes of insult and humiliation are not too distant from the ethnic ones, though; they are all pathetic attempts at self-empowerment by insecure people. They're all shorthand for the same message: "Circumstances or my own shortcomings keep me from the degree of success to which I feel entitled, but I needn't feel inferior if I can demonstrate that someone else is less worthy than I am."
Granted, that's not as catchy as "See my thumb? Gee, you're dumb," but it's one explanation for how so many people could have found Hitler's scapegoating so appealing. He tapped into the powerful urge to feel superior by tearing others down. I do not wish to believe that such a negative urge is universal, but it certainly permeated the childhood culture of many of us. If we are to change that culture for future generations, we need to recognize what is innocent nonsense and what is ugliness in nursery-rhymes' clothing.
I am truly sorry that I did not provide more context for the more hurtful chants and rhymes I shared. My intent wasn't to giggle over what a naughty little "politically incorrect" rascal I was, but to show that, as I said in my original post, political incorrectness does have very real and very nasty consequences. I will attempt to remedy that lack of context in my original posting.
Thank you for having the courage to speak out against hate-mongering when and where you see it.
Julie Stoner
-snip-
This commenter used bold font to those words.
14.
04-03-2006
Katy Evans-Bush
Location: London
… "I'll just point out for anyone who hasn't read page one of
this thread that Julie was far from the first person to post
"offensive" rhymes. I'm just sorry she felt the need to go back and
re-order her thread, post a disclaimer etc. Are we censoring our own
experiences now???
And as to our own children, let's trust them: we used to say these rhymes and we KNEW they were figurative. You can't censor children's exploration of the world; you can only hope to guide their conclusions and even that not indefinitely.
[...]
It's also worth realising the extent to which these archaic rhymes (eg the nig--r* ones) helped us to make sense of the racism we could see around us: pace Robin's childhood observations, I can remember being mystified by racism when I discovered it - and horrified when I encountered racial hatred, which I did in the form of a school friend's parents (unfortunately I was on a trip with them at the time, so I was stuck. Strange holiday.) I can't imagine what would have happened to me at home if I had said the N-word; but then I was far too brooding a child. Maybe I do remember Paul saying it and getting spanked (well, there ya go!).".
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