Who Knew ~ Ten Little Indians A Racist Meme
Unless you explore where you came from you'll never get to where you want to be
The Life and Times Of Brian Waddington
Back in the day, before I was seriously radicalized I thought that the only problem with Canada was that we English Canadians gave way too much away to the French Canadians. Then I spent almost five years living on reserve.
I was taught many lessons. Taught by Elders, Chiefs, story tellers, regular people and perhaps most importantly by the outside world of White is Right Canada. I was taught so well that when it came time for me to leave the village and rejoin the outside world, I couldn't. I had for all intents and purposes become an Indian in thought word and deed.
That all happened give or take thirty years ago and I still don't fit into the mainstream power system in Canada. Or, come to think about it, the mainstream power system anywhere. Which is why I'm living almost off the grid in the Philippines.
Which brings me in a roundabout way back to Ten Little Indians. A nursery rhyme written in the middle 1800's. That has been used to teach hundreds of millions of children to count. If memory serves we put on a stage performance of that nursery rhyme when I attended David Lloyd George Elementary School in Vancouver Canada. It never crossed my mind that we were promoting a racist meme but we were.
I was born in 1951 so this 1945 version reflects the times and thoughts of me and mine.
"1945 version
The following version of the song was included in the first film version of And Then There Were None (1945), which largely took Green's lyrics and replaced the already sensitive word "nigger" with "Indian" (in some versions "soldiers"):
Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.
Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.
Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.
Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one of them and then there were five.
Five little Indian boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were four.
Four little Indian boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.
Three little Indian boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.
Two little Indian boys sitting in the sun;
One got all frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Indian boy left all alone;
He went and hanged himself and then there were none"
It gets worse when you do a little research and discover that the version used in 1945 replaced the standard version that was used up to and including the 1920's. That version used the term 'nigger'. A racist term that is seriously bad now and getting that way back then.
A bit earlier in this blog I said that hundreds of millions of children had been taught how to count using this rhyme. You may have choked on that number. But do the math. Agatha Christie's most popular book was originally called Ten Little Indians. My wife was born, raised and educated in the Philippines and she remembers the rhyme from her childhood. it has been used for centuries in Canada, America and Europe. How many millions does that make?
Now all of this has brought us to the question that keeps nagging me. How does a country eliminate racism when it is just so far down in the bedrock?
Brian
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