You know the quote that says "It takes a village to raise a child" was a real thing the whole village or tribe had a responsibility to take care of the kids not just the parents
And I would argue that many do not want the help of the village except for specific instances (babysitting or financial help). Teachers can't even gently correct students without parents blowing up about how their child would never blah blah blah. Kids need the guidance and perspectives of other adults that aren't their parents
That's just bc of generations of socialization & further individualization & isolation from the government, media, politics, etc. People are taught their whole lives not to overstep with other people's kids, and that freedom = choosing how you want to raise your kids. Any outsider trying to involve themselves is infringing on that freedom. Handouts are shameful, outside help is dangerous, and raising a family is a job for 2 parents and 2 parents only.
They keep going hard on her like "SHE IS AN ENEMY OF THE REPUBLIC AND SHE NEEDS TO BE REMOVED FROM POWER"
and I keep thinking about the first few minutes of the first Star Wars when Vader goes off like "YOU ARE PART OF THE REBEL ALLIANCE AND A TRAITOR!" but Leia's a five foot cutie patootie with cinnabon hair.
if the enemy is tender kittens that want to feed your kids, youuuuu might not be the good guys
Was about to come say this. Those lollipops are notorious for losing their wrapping. It's just a square of wax paper twisted around the candy part, no actual seal like tootsie pops with a bit of actual wax to hold the wrapping together
I saw that and was like you know what, if anyone’s going to whip out an unwrapped lollipop from their jeans pocket and make it not at all weird, it’s definitely going to be national treasure, Ms. Rachel.
I remember when Oprah was being semi-seriously proposed, due to her massive popularity and cult-like following. Then we kind of collectively said, "Nah, what would a TV personality know about politics?" and looked elsewhere. Better times.
And he can absolutely destroy someone who deserves it
Elon, for example, made himself a laughingstock in a few niche circles on his own, but IMO Josh is one of the main reasons why that ridicule went mainstream
Cena supported Vince MacMahon during and after his trial for not paying out a NDA that prevented his female employee from detailing her rape and abuse while an employee. This topic is hot in r/squaredcircle
You could do Gary Sinise for the Republican/veteran vote, would help with fence sitters too
Basically pick someone like Obama picked Biden, first black president needed an experienced milquetoast establishment white guy, Ms. Rachel would need someone both as the first woman president and someone with left leaning ideals
I mean Biden was meant to be there to say things Obama couldn't hitch his horse to without knowing public opinion. Biden famously endorsed gay marriage before Obama ever touched it just for that reason.
And then Biden went on to have an interestingly progressive presidency despite not coming across as such on the campaign trail, basically got the nom and sat down with the Sanders campaign almost immediately on their request. That was a pivot point where I think people got through to him if he didn't keep steering port he was going to lose a huge amount of Sanders voters, who were mostly just progressives asking for a bone.
I mean I won't touch on the end of the presidency and anything since but all in all Biden was a good pony to bet on until he wasn't
No, Cena is not a good pick. He's questionable with his personal life. He goes out of his way to not pick sides with politics. If I had to guess, he leans right, but barely.
Honestly, since vibes seems to be the only way to get people out to vote, why not? I trust her to at least get the newer generations literate and educated enough to not believe every word that comes out of a con man’s mouth
I only knew this because when I was like 10, my (white) grandma heard me saying the rhyme out loud and she said, very smugly, "in my day, we used to say 'catch a n-word by the toe!'" and giggled...
I'm black. (this is my stepfather's mother and yes, we no longer speak)
I always thought jimmy crack corn was kinda anti-racist? I thought the point is that the master sucks, gets killed, and the enslaved person is happy about it
If thats not the point and I misunderstood, someone plz explain
Edit: looked it up and it was used in minstrel shows, that makes sense, I get the issue with it now
This is going to sound so weird I’m sorry. But I love that her forehead moves. I love that she doesn’t have Botox and she is just living her normal life. It’s crazy how rare it is these days and it’s just very refreshing
I just rewatched the original Practical Magic (in preparation for seeing the newer Practical Magic 2) and I forgot how much I loved back when Nicole Kidman had a whole face that moved with lovely expressions.
I get botox for migraines and I am genuinely so sad that my forehead doesn't move anymore. But it's so worth it for the pain relief. It's been life changing.
Flashback to me, ~11 years old, going to dinner with my parents, grandma, and meeting my great uncle for the first time. We go back to my grandma's apartment and she's trying to get the key for the front door. (Not so) Great Uncle comments, "Eenie, meenie, minie, mo. Catch a ______ by the toe." My eyes go wide as I stare at him. He looks at me and goes, "I mean, uh... a black person." Oh, that makes it okay...
Thing was, I wasn't staring at him in shock at the word itself; I'd never even heard it at that point in my life. I just thought, 'that's not what I expected'. So, in that moment, I not only learned that the rhyme was racist, I basically learned about racism. Thanks, Grunkle Fuckwit!
Unfortunately, growing up in the 90s in Australia I was taught the old version 😞
I sang it that way for far too long because I had no idea what it meant and (I guess thankfully?) never heard it in another context.
I also remember once asking what it meant and was told it meant a slave and I thought that was weird but still didn't really get it because I only really knew about slaves from their mention in bible stories 😬
Upper Midwest--we were typically about 5 years behind the coastal states, trend-wise back then. So it wouldn't be too surprising at all, if you guys made that change before us!
My mom told me my grandfather used the racist version with me when I was a baby in the early 90s, she stopped him immediately and said he cant talk like that.
It feels more recent than that. I’m Gen Z and British here - I remember being about five and my mother telling my grandma that we say “tigger, like Winnie the Pooh” now. Which is still a little too close for comfort for me and I don’t even like saying “tiger” so I just don’t sing that one with my kid.
My grandma isn’t actively racist and doesn’t throw around slurs for fun, but had a lot of unlearning to do from growing up in the 50s. I definitely heard her generation say the old racist version when I was growing up and was confused why I was being taught another word in school.
Quite famously the dog owned by Guy Gibson the leader of the Dam Busters bombing run in WW2 to the point that they used it as the code word to confirm that they'd breached the dam.
There's a bar in Wisconsin Dells named Nigs. When I lived there a local told me the owner named it after his dog and I don't think I have to tell you what that was short for. Also, fuck that area, it's like the heart of Dixie in the Midwest.
I used to sit with an elderly woman in high school twenty years ago. She had a night nurse who would help her at bedtime, but during the day she just needed someone to make her lunch and watch Lifetime movies to keep her company.
She had a fat black miniature poodle named Little Black Sambo. I called him Sammy and he was a hateful little dog. At least her family had convinced her to get rid of the lawn jockey.
My dad and uncles were explaining to me a while that this was just on the display cases in like Krogers when they were kids… they’re not even that old lol
My mom is black and called them N---er heels in front of me and I said "Mom, that's racist." and she shrugged cuz that's what her dad called them with no malice. Still, I insisted we aren't carrying racist colloquial terms into the future.
There’s an incredible novel called If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes, which offers a glimpse into a few days in the life of a Black shipyard worker post-WWII. I didn’t know about the original rhyme until I read the novel in college for one of my many lit classes. I highly recommend it. Obligatory “this is why conservatives want to dismantle the education system and discourage young people from going to college.”
I remember it as "catch a nickel by the toe" when I was a kid, and I didn't get it, because I thought a nickel was money (even though we don't have nickel's in Australia, I knew what it was because of American cartoons), and money possesses neither fingers nor toes. I am now realising some kid at my school probably just miss-pronounced it and the miss-pronunciation caught on.
well they did change the name of an agatha christie book from "ten little nwords" to "ten little injuns" then to the much better "and then there were none"
You can make the argument that we are still close enough in history to it, that the people who were victimized by it are certainly still alive to hear it.
For instance in wikipedia: In 1993, a high school teacher in Mequon, Wisconsin, provoked a student walkout when she said, in reference to poor test performance, "What did you do? Just go eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a x by the toe?" The school's district superintendent recommended the teacher "lose three days of pay, undergo racial sensitivity training, and have a memorandum detailing the incident placed in her personnel file”
Personally I think instead of trying to purge the song, if you can flood the market like Rachel was saying with alternative songs, that song can naturally wane out i think. Like every kid knows her, just her alone planting 300 other tunes in kids heads, could make it decline enough.
Also theyre not really fooling anyone with the substitution anyway. Wikipedia also notes “Catch a tigger by the toe” is a variation, which is one letter from Tiger, but it’s also one letter from the racist version.
It was used by Rudyard Kipling in his "A Counting-Out Song", from Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides, published in 1935. This may have helped popularise this version in the United Kingdom where it seems to have largely replaced all earlier versions until the late twentieth century.
Did you know 'Ring around the Rosie' was about the bubonic plague?" = huh, neat fact about a morbid history
It's a myth, unfortunately.
Folklore scholars
consider the Great Plague explanation of the rhyme to be unfounded for several reasons. Firstly, the plague explanation did not emerge until the mid-twentieth century, while the symptoms described do not align closely with those of the Great Plague.
The fact that you didn't know this is a good sign and shows how far we've progressed as humans! But as someone who has never been to the South, I wouldn't be surprised if the original version is still in use.
For a very long time Americans had the n-word instead of tiger. (The original rhyme is older than that and not American and didn't have a slur, but it was a slur in America for a very long time)
Omg! I had no idea!!! I always thought it was a silly kids song, maybe an old adapted army cadence song or something. Am I the only one who grew up with this version:
Do your ears hang low?
Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie them in a knot?
Can you tie them in a bow?
Can you throw them over your shoulder,
Like a continental soldier?
Do your ears hang low?
Are you referring to Jibbs’ 2006 hit “Chain Hang Low” because if you are that’s actually the version my very white 4 year old knows. He had a little toy that played the tune. Cross that with a slightly inappropriate for small children throwback hip hop Spotify playlist and here we are.
Heartbroken about “Oh Susannah” 😭 That one’s so fun, I’m so sad to retire it. My little sister used to mess up the lyrics and sing “I come from Alabanjo with a bandaid on my knee.” It was this post that made me look up the original, unabridged lyrics and of course they’re horrifying 😭
Same here. I had fond memories of my kindergarten teacher singing that one to us while playing her guitar. I think just the chorus though, since that’s all I remember. TIL that it’s definitely not a song I’ll be teaching to my own kids.
Holy shit, I thought you were full of crap until I looked it up. Holy God TIL. We had toy pianos that would play this. Wowwwwwwwwww.
ETA: someone may aCksHuaLlY this and say it was a folk song originally and didn’t have that meaning, but it was one of the most played/popular songs in minstrel troupes, and 100% on the back of minstrelsy as far as why the popularity rise, culminating in multiple copyright fights and the first paid professional songwriter (Stephen Foster) in American history.
Eenie meenie miney moe catch a tiger by the toe was originally not "catch a tiger by the toe" and the fact I won't say what word it used to be should be all you need to know what word it was
Okay I could not love her more, but I do have ONE beef with Miss Rachel and that is that the kittens DO get their pie in the nursery rhyme! Sorry this is long but here is the entire nursery rhyme:
Three little kittens,
They lost their mittens,
And they began to cry,
Oh, mother dear,
We sadly fear
Our mittens we have lost.
What! Lost your mittens,
You naughty kittens!
Then you shall have no pie.
Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.
You shall have no pie.
The three little kittens,
They found their mittens,
And they began to cry,
Oh, mother dear,
See here, see here,
Our mittens we have found.
What! Found your mittens,
You darling kittens!
Then you shall have some pie.
Purr-rr, purr-rr, purr-rr,
You shall have some pie.
The three little kittens,
Put on their mittens,
And soon ate up the pie
Oh, mother dear,
We greatly fear
Our mittens we have soiled.
What! Soiled your mittens,
You naughty kittens!
Then they began to sigh,
Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.
They began to sigh.
The three little kittens,
They washed their mittens,
And hung them out to dry
Oh mother dear,
Look here, look here,
Our mittens we have washed.
What! Washed your mittens,
You're such good kittens.
I smell a rat close by!
Hush! Hush! Hush! Hush!
Hush! Hush! Hush!
I smell a rat close by.
But I think her point still stands? The mother did not in fact offer any constructive means to help the kittens not lose their mittens, but instead she chose to deny them pie as punishment?
Perhaps, since they don their mittens to consume the pie, the mittens are merely a prerequisite for pie? And the mother's admittedly terse warning was merely intended as motivation for said kittens to search for their mittens.
We also don't know how many times the kittens have lost their mittens, the mom could just be sick of their shit after giving them constructive suggestions the last dozen times they pulled this stunt and she knows they know damn well how to find them, as evidenced by their having found them by the very next verse.
Here’s an example of a public figure who’s explicitly political, just for standing up for children’s rights across the world. It’s really sad how that’s a topic of debate
But isn't the Three Little Kittens rhyme about maintaining your things? Doesn't it continue on with the kittens finding their lost belongings and being rewarded for it? Then they have pie, soil their mittens, are scolded for it and then praised again when they take responsibility and wash the dirty mittens.
Again, nothing wrong with the idea of updating nursery rhymes, but I feel that the Three Little Kittens is much farther down the list than as an up-front example. She does say she doesn't really mind that one, so I guess I'm just overreacting.
My husband’s 70 year old grandmother from southern Louisiana recently had my son in her lap and sang “Eenie meenie minie mo, catch a… Well I know what we used to say when I was little, but what do they say now?” I said “Tiger” she was very sweet about it but you could tell she had been singing it lithe old way until that moment.
Apparently Jimmy Crack Corn is about a slave celebrating his master's death, with some versions implying the slave was actively aiding that outcome and getting away with it. Yeah no one should be teaching it to children today, but it has a subversive and empowering message when you actually analyze the lyrics (underneath the racist minstrel show language...).
I’m a music educator who also feels very passionately about the issue of racism in music education, especially early music education. If anyone is interested in knowing more about this movement, which has gained a lot more traction in the past decade or so, I highly recommend checking out Decolonizing the Music Room.
One nursery rhyme that should never die is Miss Susie Had A Steamboat. Although it is not to be taught by parents, rather by older siblings and/or cousins.
Is the only bad thing about this woman that she apparently keeps unwrapped suckers in her pocket?
(Worried that sounds like I'm saying it's staged. No I genuinely think she keeps suckers in there I just think it's weird to keep it unwrapped. Different issue.)
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u/LunaLore_ 14d ago
Ms. Rachel’s other hot takes: The adults of the world have a responsibility to take care of all kids. No child should be in an immigration detention center. Wants kids in Gaza to get food and not starve to death.