Brer

[SRoweCanoe@aol.com]

> BTW, it's extremely funny that those Rabbit story woiuld be banned
>  because one doesn't want to offend the black people. It was the black
>  slaves in the South who told those stories. Rabbit was then supposed to
>  be a smart black human and the bear and fox were the stupid white
>  slave-dealers. 

>2) Bre'r Rabbit, Bre'r Bear and Bre'r Fox originally comes from
>the feature film "Song of the South", which in it's turn is based
>on a collection of folktales, etc. called "Uncle Remus Tales".

Well "Song of the South" is based on Joel Chandler Harris's books about Uncle 
Remus and his stories of Brer Rabbit.  "Brer", by the way is dialect for 
"Brother".
  The stories by Harris were new (as far as I know), but Trickster Rabbit 
stories were popular in both africian and native american culture.  ((Harris 
lived in central Georgia, home of the Cherokees - who had some great 
trickster rabbit tales. Harris was also white)).  I  can no longer recall 
Harris's time of writing, but in  the Disney movie version, Remus is a 
sharecropper and field worker and not a slave.
  Dialect humor is a thing that is no longer acceptable in the USA.  Brother 
Rabbit and Brother Bear have mixtures of Georgian (both black and white) 
mixed with Hollywood.  Other dialect humor no longer acceptable in the USA 
include  Irish, Jewish, Chinese, Japanese,  etc etc.  In fact the only 
dialect humor still semi-acceptable is "redneck' humor  ("You know you're a 
redneck, when...); just make sure you don't call it "cracker" humor...
  Hopefully in 100 years, dialect humor will make a comeback, unmarked by 
rascist or ethnic hatred...

Steven Rowe