Yall think I'm stuck in the Past?

Once Shunned as Racist, Storybook Bestseller in Japan

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bookban12jun12,1,4958033.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true

'Little Black Sambo' was pulled from stores in 1988 for its blackface- style drawings. Now, amid little protest, a reprint is a huge hit....

"Sambo" has returned to shelves with few objections in a country where blacks remain extremely rare. One complaint has been published in an English-language newspaper, written by an African American resident of Japan. An online petition against the publisher garnered 263 signatures by Saturday, most of them from non-Japanese, many from abroad....

The article spawned a letter-writing campaign in Japan from the Assn. to Stop Racism Against Blacks, which was later discovered to be essentially a one-family enterprise....

But Mori said most Japanese were surprised to learn that "Little Black Sambo" had racist overtones. "It never occurred to us," he said. "It was just a story."

Intrigued by the controversy, Mori conducted academic experiments involving readers that he said showed the Japanese take nothing racist away from reading "Little Black Sambo."

He offered a group of kindergarteners and another of senior citizens a look at two versions of the story: one with the Dobias' drawings, another with the central character drawn as a black Labrador puppy. The test groups found both illustrated versions equally amusing.

Ergo, no racism, Mori concluded.

"The Japanese people can be racist when it comes to Koreans living here — it's well known," said psychologist Mori.

"But racist against blacks? "We have no experience in dealing with black people," he continued.

"Where would we get it from?"

From practicing racists. Where else?

I know, yall couldn't see the relevance.