Well said. I know of an African-American man, a very well-respected university fine art professor, who uses stereotypically rascist images in his own paintings… It’s all about how YOU view, feel about, understand said images.
All that said, KayPink, I think the lawn jockey idea is a good one. Have fun!
[QUOTE=JER;2999505]
And to think I didn’t know about lawnjockey.com, which claims to be the world’s largest manufacturer of lawn jockey’s (sic)."[/QUOTE]
Goodlord - I did click on the link JER provided. The first product “cavalier spirit” is what you traditionally see at the race tracks [and at private Saratoga homes], however the other offerings are what goes off the chart. Seriously “Jocko” is what everyone rightfully is repulsed by. Then the small figurines- if “Coco The Guide” isn’t a must have for a Klansmen I don’t know what is.
However I’m still not convinced if you own a stable and one of the cavalier’s painted with your stable’s silks it should in any way suggest racism. Would those people who are convinced any lawn jockey = biggot, also then say Saratoga is trying to suggest that at their clubhouse entrance?
I still have on my camera phone ‘Lost In the Fog’'s name on the lawn jockey’s plaque with Harry’s silks.
Or how about the uber famous 21 Club in Manhattan:
Perhaps the most famous feature of 21 is the line of painted castiron jockey statues which adorns the balcony above the entrance. In the 1930s, some of the affluent customers of the bar began to show their appreciation by presenting 21 with jockeys painted to represent the racing colors of the stables they owned. There are a total of 33 jockeys on the exterior of the building, and 2 more inside the doors.
Perhaps it has something to do with this definition of ‘lawn jockey’ from the Urban Dictionary:
Lawn Jockey
A term used in talking about a black person. Most of those little ceramic staues placed in yards have their faces painted black and they look like jockey’s (guys that ride horses for a living). Hence the term lawn jockey’s.
Look at all those lawn jockey’s heading into KFC.
Never heard that one and I don’t know what I’d do if I did. Quite a slur.
I did a search for ‘lawn jockey darts’ – I thought maybe someone had invented a hybrid of these two marvelous items. But surprisingly, it hasn’t been invented yet.
(sigh) Makes me feel a bit bad now about my winter project.
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p262/jengersnaps/Stuff/Jockey.jpg
Yup, he’s totally white. But it’s just the primer. I’ve yet to paint the stable colors on him. I did plan on a caucasian skintone though. There is a lawn jockey that was originally of this mold in front of a stable on the backside of the track we’re at that had a pony tail added on and given more, um, feminine traits in the front ide if that makes sense. Kind of pays homage to the large number of lady riders we do have, but I always giggle when I see her. I don’t know any female jockeys that well endowed.
I’ll just say that prior to this I NEVER knew that there was a negative connotation to a “lawn jockey” in the sense of the statue.
I’m 24, and a track person, and whenever I see them I just think they are the coolest little decorations, with the hitching post ring, and the silks painted on. I’ve always wanted one with my silks painted. Just for decoration.
Did’nt know I’d be offending someone if I did that.
Never heard talk about the lawn jockey, even though a past trainer (when I was a kid and teen) had black one in her front yard which attatched to the barn. She said it wasn’t racist, and I accepted her explaination at face value.
As an adult, however, I disagree. Lawn jockeys do have racial connotations, no matter what the owner/displayer thinks or doesn’t think when putting it out on their property. I think that people can be blind to this, really believe that they don’t mean anything by displaying it, but the effect is still the same; it’s racist, at least a little bit. I don’t think it highlights the great black jockeys.
At the very least, I think it’s disrepectful, in the same way of a hispanic lawn jockey. The lawn jockey doesn’t exactly highlight the great hispanic jockeys that pretty much dominate the field today. It does something else, something I’m not comfortable with.
I wouldn’t put one out, nor would I feel good about an organization or other entity that put one out. Just my opinion, but one that I feel pretty strongly about these things at this point in my life.
Jockeys are proud of their jobs and display amazing dedication, courage, talent and restraint. They are definitely at the top end of the scale when it comes to athleticism ( on almost no calories).
They are respected and can enjoy considerable celebrity status.
To become a jockey is a long hard row. In appropriate surroundings I fail to see any offence, whatever colour they are painted. Why not ask the jockeys how they perceive them? It is not all about a sad era in history.
The Lawn Jockey is not a racial thing-it is a Memorial to a child.:yes: A black child that died while trying to help during the war…Read on if you want to know the truth:
What is the history behind “Jocko”?
Jocko or the Lawn Jockey is seen in the South and in the Appalachian’s of the United States.
Many have been destroyed because of the thinking that they are a racial slur to African-Americans. But is this true?
The River Road African American Museum in Louisiana tells us that lawn jockeys represent nothing of the sort, rather they show us a proud moment in U.S. history.
Jocko
The story begins the icy night in December 1776 when General George Washington decided to cross the Delaware River to launch a surprise attack on the British forces at Trenton.
Jocko Graves, a twelve-year-old African-American, sought to fight the Redcoats, but Washington deemed him too young and ordered him to look after the horses, asking Jocko to keep a lantern blazing along the Delaware so the company would know where to return after battle. Many hours later, Washington and his men returned to their horses who were tied up to Graves, he had frozen to death with the lantern still clenched in his fist. Washington was so moved by the young boy’s devotion to the revolutionary cause he commissioned a statue of the “Faithful Groomsman” to stand in Graves’s honor at the general’s estate in Mount Vernon.
By the time of the Civil War, these “Jocko” statues could be found on plantations throughout the South: like the North Star that pointed fleeing slaves to their freedom, the Jocko statues pointed to the safe houses of the Underground Railroad. Along the Mississippi River, a green ribbon tied to a statue’s arm — whether clandestinely or with the owner’s knowledge — indicated safety; a red ribbon meant danger. Thus these original lawn jockey statues today fetch thousands of dollars as true artifacts of the Underground Railroad that conducted so many African-American slaves to freedom.
Similar cast-iron statues began appearing in the decades after Washington’s crossing of the Delaware in jockey silks, whether for aesthetic reasons or confusion born of Graves’s first name. The clothing worn by the lawn jockeys resembled the clothing worn by black riding jockeys, who have a glorious history. In 1875, the first 13 winners of the Kentucky Derby were black, the first being Jockey Oliver Lewis.
Lewis was the first to win three Derbies.
So contrary to some folk’s thinking that these statues are a racial slur they are a memorial to Jocko, a beacon for Freedom and a tribute to some of the greatest Jockey’s racing has ever known!
So, if you paint it white-it’s really a demeaning thing for this boy who died.
MassageLady, that is what I had always heard as to the history behind the Lawn Jockey also.
While that’s an interesting story, it may be beside the point. Unless those who have lawn jockeys want to put up informational markers next to their statues, the story doesn’t get around the issue of how people perceive the statues today, or over the last 40 years.
Ralph Ellison in Invisible Man, published in the 1950s, notes the derogatory use of the term. If you Google the phrase “lawn jockey slang” you will instantly get several pages of results on the phrase, virtually all of which note the current derogatory meaning.
You can’t make that go away by wishing it weren’t so.
Well, if people would look into what the true meaning is, instead of instantly going to ‘racism’ and become educated about them, there wouldn’t be the problem. Why put up informational markers? People wouldn’t read them anyway! It’s THEIR responsibility to become informed.
Points raised by another: possible debunking of the railroad legend - however these are not difinitive by any means
Further, it is hard to credit the stories about the Underground Railroad using lawn jockeys as signals, for the following practical reasons:
Red and green as signal colors meaning “stop” and “go” (or “danger” and “safe”) date back to World War I railroad signals. Signals before that time were not standardized well enough to be useful.
Slaves would almost certainly have been moved at night, when it is hardest to make the distinction between red and green.
Telling the difference between a lantern hung far out on a statue’s arm or in close would be difficult at a distance; it would be impractical if not impossible to read this signal without approaching dangerously close to the lawn jockey.
I would debate the green/red as being tied to the WWI time-period.
This extensive history shows colored flags were used for maratime reasons then real railways, however:
Red flags were used as the signal for stop, Green for caution and white for all clear. Note that blue is the colour of Caution in America. Until the introduction of British signals in the 1870’s, this was quite typical. In the shade, red and blue squares both look like black, and would have been difficult to tell apart.
Interesting stuff to be sure.
Keeneland is covered with lawn jockeys. They’re meant to be decorative and to honor the silks of recent graded stakes winners at the track. No racist connotations are implied or meant to be inferred.
As far as lawn jockeys are concerned, I think racism is in the eye of the beholder. They’re not intrinsically offensive, but they have become another bandwagon for the PC brigade to moralize about.
Honestly, if you have one painted like this in your yard, I’d have trouble buying that you weren’t racist. Most of the “black” lawn jockeys I’ve seen don’t look African American–they look like caricatures.
This is starting to remind me of the scene in Clerks II where Randall decides he’s going to ‘take back’ the phrase ‘porch monkey.’ The point is made repeatedly to a bewildered and argumentative Randall by a large variety of people that HE can’t rehab a racist term b/c he’s not of the group that it denigrates. He fights tooth and nail, finally defending it as a phrase his innocent grandma used to describe him and his cousins when they were hanging around being lazy. Then he adds, thoughtfully, “Although, come to think of it, she used to call broken bottles n**r knives…”
The “JOCKO” story is unsubstantiated. It is a myth. Just because “X believes it to be true” doesn’t mean it IS. Show me FACTS.
http://www.citypaper.com/arts/story.asp?id=5006
I see no primary sources listed, so far, that show any objective evidence of lawn jockeys being used for the Underground Railroad. Show me facts -not just some guy’s supposition, or an article that is chock full of mythology.
NOT buying it. I think these stories are used as justification for continuing to display or support something that is inherently offensive and hurtful to a lot of people. Typical.
[QUOTE=MassageLady;3003854]
Well, if people would look into what the true meaning is, instead of instantly going to ‘racism’ and become educated about them, there wouldn’t be the problem. Why put up informational markers? People wouldn’t read them anyway! It’s THEIR responsibility to become informed.[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, objects and symbols often acquire new meanings due to human abuse.
Take the swastika. This cross formation dates from Neolithic times (7000 BC), it has been used as a sacred or good luck symbol in numerous cultures, including its continuing use in Buddhism. However, thousands of years’ worth of positive connotations were obliterated in our present-day culture by the Nazis’ appropriation of the swastika. Never mind that the Nazis only used it for 25 years which is a tiny fraction of the swastika’s time in human history, the image is tainted for at least the foreseeable future.
You can put a swastika on your lawn and say it’s an ancient symbol of good luck. And at that point, you better hope it works because you’ll need all the luck you can get.
so its ok for black people to own or collect these items ?? sort of like how black people use the n word as a term of endearment or a greeting ???
I think it is pretty likely that most black people would feel uncomfortable about white people collecting ‘mammy’ items. I see their point. I’m Irish-American, and I’d feel uncomfortable about someone who has no Irish roots collecting the anti-Irish propaganda that was common in the 19th century. It’s not that the collector is automatically bad, but it poses a logical question -why exactly are they drawn to these images if not because of a sense of shared personal ethnic identity and history? Is it something darker than a simple enjoyment of the object? And can you really simply enjoy an object once you know the history?
[QUOTE=JER;3004238]
You can put a swastika on your lawn and say it’s an ancient symbol of good luck. And at that point, you better hope it works because you’ll need all the luck you can get.[/QUOTE]
:lol:
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