Northbound on 41
coming home last night there was a dunk tank on the side of the road, with a for sale sign on it.
No, I’ve never even had the urge to own a dunk tank, but the very first time I saw one of these I was- maybe five?
I had gone with an aunt and uncle to the old Riverview amusement park in Chicago, possibly the first of it’s type, I dunno. Anyway we wandered around among the rides and there tucked into a little corner was what seemed to be the most popular attraction of all, the “N***er dip”. Certainly, it had the biggest line. I could read, barely, and asked my aunt what a “N***er” was, and she grabbed my hand and pulled me away quickly. As we rushed past I saw a shirtless black guy sitting on a seat above a big tank of water with a glass front. The water was nasty looking and dirty, and guys in suits were lining up to throw baseballs at the target which would drop the black guy in the water. For his part he was yelling and making wisecracks about the throwers wife and mother that I didn’t understand. “Aunt M., ” I asked “What does that mean, ‘I woulda been your dad but the monkey beat me up the stairs'”? We left shortly after that.
Anyway, everytime I see one of those I can’t but think of that amusement park and the “N***er dip”
I wonder if anyone would object in today’s Chicago (or Detroit, or any other majority-black city) if there were a “cracker dip” in a local fair/amusement park?
I wonder why? That kind of memory is burned into a young mans brain.
Pretty good line about the monkey though.
Damnyankees are such racists. I, and my Dad’s family, are from Georgia, and my Mom’s family are from Mississippi. I never heard anybody in my very-extended family say “nigger.” I first heard it in elementary school in Miami, FL, from the DY kids. In my family we used “Nigra”, or if speaking where DYs were present, “Negro.”
If you live around a particular sort of people, and meet them every day, it is very rude and provocative to think about, and talk about and to them, using pejorative words. I will never understand the DYs, but am glad we fought against them, and gave a good account of ourselves. Oh God I hate a Puritan!