Children's rhyme leads to firing over alleged racial harassment

Daily News ^ | 6/29/08 | JOHN MARZULLI

[artifax]

‘long came a spider and sat down beside her and said what you got in that bowl bit$h’

[dfwgator]

Little Boy Blue....He needed the money!

[Williams]

I learned the rhyme as saying "catch a tiger by the toe" so I was amazed to hear there was a racist version. This is a common child's game in non racist form, and making all references to it a "crime" is ridiculous.

I also find it interesting that black people can lobby for all manner of laws and financial programs based on the horrible racist history and its legacy, but apparently they then are so fragile they can't even hear anything that might remind them of the issue.

[Roccus]

....and another congregant from the Church Of The Perpetually Offended is heard from.

[Question_Assumptions]

I never heard the offensive version, either, until the Southwest lawsuit.

[Alice in Wonderland]

I’m 60-years-old and learned the same version that 65-year-old Donald Cross did . . . back in the days before political correctness.

[donna]

My sister was 7-years older than me. We never went beyond the first line - ‘Eenie, meenie, minie, moe’.

However, I can still remember my shock when I realized that if we were using it to decide who got the best desert, my sister knew the outcome before we started! I was outraged, LOL.

[Ouderkirk]

Good Ole Mother Goose, I.......

That was some funny stuff.

[Frank_2001]

“The N-word was inserted into the rhyme by Rudyard Kipling in his ‘A Counting-Out Song’.”

Well then, we’ll just have to ban and burn all his books. Does he have any living descendants that we can sue for reparations?/s;)

[Jeff Chandler]

This guy got fired and he didn’t even use the N-word?

Brazil Nuts!

[calex59]

Guess I should be glad I read these stories. As a kid I think I learned it as “catch a tiger by the toe”.

Not me I learned it the old fashion way, catch a n****r by the toe. Not saying it is right but saying that is the way it was then back in the 1950s. I don't know why I used asterisks on the word except I am not in the mood to be flamed today and don't want to deal with intolerant a**hats.

[TheZMan]

You should hear the “improper” version of Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.

[Joe 6-pack]

"Cross said he was blindsided by the Town of Babylon's decision to can him for racially motivated harassment."

Cities called Bablyon have never had much luck with diversity. Hope they don't try to build any new towers.

[LukeL]

I guess eating Brazil Nuts in the work place is also racist.

[massgopguy]

Mickey Mouse built a house. How much did he have to pay the building inspector to look the other way?

[LukeL]

Guess I should have read the entire thread.

[lilylangtree]

Thank you for the heads up.

[Eepsy]

He also used to put swastikas on his books. Erase him from history! /s

http://www.kipling.org.uk/facts_swastik.htm

[LukeL]

Little Miss Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her dog a bone...

[Publius6961]

I disagree. The history is too fresh. The rhyme still evokes the N-word, and no amount of beer will wash that down.
From another blog this illustrated that some people make it a mission in life to make sure that it remains "too fresh". I refuse to allow them to do so.

The N-word was inserted into the rhyme by Rudyard Kipling in his ‘A Counting-Out Song’.
By my reckoning, that would make it at least 72 years ago, and possibly over a hundred years ago. The absurdity of reaching back that far to be offended should be self-evident, and I would question anyone's need to do so.

I refuse to bow to any source which would define my language for me. Defining a crime by personal inference should be grounds for exposure to legal suits for stupidity, and abuse of the legal system.