This is Part I of a three part pancocojams series that showcases the vlog [video blog] entitled "Let's Discuss: Black Girl Childhood Hand Games and Sing Songs" which was published on YouTube in 2014 by Ebony Janice Peace.
Part I showcases this vlog and presents my (unofficial) transcription of that video.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/03/black-girls-rhyme-examples-selected.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. Part II presents every comment from the discussion thread of the 2014 vlog "Let's Discuss: Black Girl Childhood Hand Games and Sing Songs" that include examples of children's hand game rhymes. This post also includes some other comments from that video's discussion thread.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-black-womans-comments-about-2014-vlog.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. Part III presents my response to some points that were made in the 2014 vlog "Let's Discuss: Black Girl Childhood Hand Games and Sing Songs".
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural, folkloric purposes, and educational purposes.
This transcript is also given for those who are deaf or have some difficulty hearing.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to EbonyJanice Peace and thanks to all others who are quoted in this post.
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Pancocojams Editor's Note: This transcription doesn't mean that I agree with everything that EbonyJanice Peace said in her 2014 video log (vlog) that is found in this post. My comments about that vlog will be published ASAP.
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SHOWCASE VLOG: Let's Discuss: Black Girl Childhood Hand Games and Sing Songs
EbonyJanice Peace, Aug 4, 2014
Years ago I read Joan Morgan's "When Chicken Heads Come Home to Roost" and this was a conversation inspired by that book.
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MY UNOFFICIAL TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VLOG "LET'S DISCUSS: BLACK GIRL CHILDHOOD HAND GAMES AND SING SONGS"
Comments given in italics within brackets either provide information about this vlog or describe what the vlogger said or what she gestured. Additions and corrections are welcome.
Note: This video begins in the middle of a sentence.
..."book called When Chickens Came Home To Roost by Joan Morgan. It had to have been a good ten years ago, maybe longer. And I can't remember everything that it was about. But I remember after reading it having a conversation with a girlfriend of mine about Black girl hand games- how I thought that it was incredible that Black girls in Chicago, Black girls in Virginia, and Black girls in Ohio, and Black girls in California all had learned these same songs/hand games/rhymes. How did that happen? Who was transporting these messages from Virginia to California? Miss Mary Mack for example. Who taught girls in Virginia, little Black girls in Idaho Miss Mary Mack? And on top of that, 'cause I know that "Miss Mary Mack" isn't necessarily a Black girl hand game, but the way that Black girls but their own spin on it, I mean, who taught us that? And I don't even feel like this was what When Chickens Came Home To Roost was about, but it just made me think of that. It made me think about the conversation that are, are just in our DNA or something? How do we just know these things?
Years later, I was mentoring these little girls in these projects* in Decatur, Georgia. And one day-we were just out having free time-and so they started playing hand games which I thought was really dope because I'm like "Look, hand games life on. They're just gonna be here forever." And they start doing, you know, some of the older ones that we know like
Down, down baby
down down the rollercoaster
Sweet sweet baby
Sweet sweet don't let me go
shimmy shimmy cocopa
Shimmy shimmy pow
Shimmy shimmy cocopa
Shimmy shimmy breakdown
And they started doing those. They started doing "Miss Mary Mack" and then they do
My mama hot and fine
She got ah butt like mine
And when she cross the street
All the cars go beep beep beep
All the cars go beep beep beep
Break it down
[Sighs] After hearing that, I was like "You're mama hot and fine?! Why does your mother have a butt like yours [cuts off the last word in this sentence] Anyway, that's a whole other conversation for a while other day. And it will come back up, because really, thinking of about that, and the fact that when she crosses the street, all the cars go beep beep beep...And I was thinking about how inappropriate that was, and then it started just to make me think about how inappropriate many of the hand games were and the sing songy Black girl rhymes were when we were growing up like
I met my boyfriend at the candy store
He brought me ice cream
He brought me cake
He brought me home with a bellyache.
Mama, mama, I feel sick
Call the doctor, quick, quick, quick
Doctor, doctor, before I die
Close your eyes and count to five
[The vlog pauses and this word is given in large capitol letters on a dark screen followed by the vlogger saying this]
HOLD UP!!!
Somehow I failed to discuss the fact that
doctor, doctor before I die
Close your eyes and count to five
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
You see that house on top of that hill
That's where me and my baby gonna live
So cut the onions
Cut the bread
Come on baby, let's go to bed
[The vlog begins again, showing the vlogger]
What was this bellyache situation really about? Was it really about the, about the ice cream and cake or like, were there some underhanded...Like, were you and your boyfriend [The vlogger acts like she's telling a secret.] "doing the booty"? Seriously right, this girl needs to call the doctor about this bellyache. How much cake and ice cream did she eat [The vlogger makes a "quote" gesture with both hands right after she says this and then pauses and does that gesture again. I interpret those gestures to mean that she thinks that what the girl said about having a bellyache because she ate too much ice cream and cake is likely not true.]
Another one that was extremely inappropriate was
Miss Susie had a steamboat.
The steamboat had a bell.
The steamboat went to heaven
Miss Susie went to
Hello, operator, please give me number nine
And if disconnect me, I'll kick you right
Behind the 'frigerator, there laid a piece of glass
And if you sit up on it, it'll break right up your
Ask me no questions
Tell me no more lies
The boys are in the bathroom
Zipping up their flies
Now, this here is a story
And I hope you never tell
And if you tell the story
I hope you go to hell
All parties involved in this clearly needed their behinds beat.
Rockin Robin
tweet, tweedalee
Rockin Robin
tweet, tweedalee
Rockin Robin
tweet, tweedalee
Rockin Robin
tweet, tweedalee
Mama in the kitchen
Stirrin that rice
Daddy in the livin room
Shootin that dice
Brother in jail
Raisin up hell
Sister on the corner
Singin fruit cocktail
Sister is a prostitute. Brother's in jail, about to get sent to Solitary. Dad is a gangster. Mom has a blind eye to all of it. Seriously, what were these things/songs about.
There's another verse to that. I don't know where this came from, so please tell me in the comment section below if you ever heard this verse, but my sister got a whoopin for this verse, when we were little.
Grandma, Grandma, you ain't sick
All you want is Grandpa's ___
[The vlogger doesn't finish this rhyme but leans back and looks astonished. She then says]
What?! Where did you get that from?
Share it in the comment section some of your most favorite inappropriate childhood hand games.
I just think it's really incredible that Black girls around the world- because even when my room mate and I went to Africa last year we were teaching them some of our hand games and they were teaching us some of theirs which I thought was really incredible. They're so much more pure then us -It wasn't no "Grandma Grandma"... It wasn't none of that.
Leave a comment below. Tell me about the inappropriate Black girl hand games that you grew up with.
If you're not a Black girl and you're watching this, but you grew up with an inappropriate hand game, tell me "I'm not a Black girl. I'm Chinese and we used to say this." What ever, what ever. Tell me in the comment section. I would love to have these conversation with you.
I do just think it's really incredible from a Black girl perspective that we have shared these games. There are variations. My Sandusky, Ohio version is very different from my girlfriend that grew up in Chicago's version. It's still the same, it's still the same one.
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I remember even on Crooklyn when they were doing that
So jump back White boy
You don't shine.
I'll get the colored boy
to beat your behind.
Why is this happening?! I mean, we said that growing up, but why- we didn't even grow up in the days of getting the colored boy to beat the - the colored boy...why are we doing this. And why is the White boy checkin for me and why am I tellin him he doesn't shine and why am I getting the colored boy to beat his behind?
Last night and the night before
I met my baby at the candy store
See, they went to last night AND the night before.
Something was wrong.
Like. Comment. Subscribe. Share these videos
[This vlog ends with the vlogger making the peace sign.]
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The referent "Black Girls" in this video and discussion thread probably mean "African American".
*"projects" refer to government run, low income housing projects [housing units/developments] for low income people
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Update: March 26, 2020
Unless I'm mistaken, only two of the examples that EbonyJanice Peace shared in that video were from Black girls who she was mentoring. The other examples were from her childhood memories.
For the record, it appears that EbonyJanice is in her twenties, thirties or perhaps even her early forties*, which I think would make the examples from her childhood be from the late 1980s or 1990s (since some of these hand games and "sing songs" are documented as being performed by girls up to around their early teens.
*Unfortunately, this vlogger didn't indicate any demographics besides the fact that she was from Sandusky, Ohio. And given the saying that "good Black don't crack" (Some Black people's physical appearance doesn't show aging as much as non-Black people), I can't really guess her age in that video.
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This concludes Part I of this three part pancocojams series.
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