The Roots of Brer Rabbit
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- Prof. Damon L. Fordham tells of the origin of the Brer Rabbit stories of Black folklore. Based on a chapter in Prof. Fordham's book "True Stories of Black South Carolina." Filmed in Mt. Pleasant SC, July 31, 2011.
we watched this at my school today, my teacher loved your energy and how you told the story in a fun and understanding way!
Really? Thanks for letting me know. What school was this and where?
Thanks so much for this video! Born in 1946 in Mississippi,my earliest memories are of our whole family gathering around the radio at night for a Brer Rabbit bedtime story. The stories were beautifully done, in dialect. I’d love to know who the narrator was! Warm memories of Uncle Remus!
Thank you for your kind comment. My new book of folklore entitled "Mr Poots & Me" will be in stores in a couple of weeks. Check my FB site for more information.
I was brought to this video, because of an old family movie, A Simple Wish.
I learned so much from this video! These stories and characters are such an interesting window into black history. So sad to see them being erased more and more every day by political correctness run amok.
Thanks. I filmed this some ten years ago, and am glad that people are still getting something constructive from it. Your support is appreciated.
Thank you for enlightening and educating. I always had an admiration for the character of Brer Rabbit. Someone constantly overcoming bigger and stronger adversaries, just by being really smart.
Hopefully, this may introduce that concept to another generation. Thanks for responding.
My pleasure.
Sincerely I hope both the concept and the character thrive throughout all generations, cultures, and philosophies.
Brer Rabbit, a brilliant survivor.
Lovely video! The Brer Rabbit stories are phenomenal and important tales. I only hope that they one day get the love and respect they deserve.
Wonderful knowing that our forefathers created these wonderful stories. When I was a little boy. My aunt took me an D my brothers and sisters to see Walt Disney's " Song Of The South. " it was wonderful.
Thank you for this! In my Mythology class, we will be covering Tricksters in African mythology, and this will be perfect to show my students. :)
I would be honored. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much my English professor had us read this yesterday I was amazed by his lecture I was interested in learning more.
Thank you for putting this information out there. I like the stories and I would like my children to read them.
Sir you are a gift to the state of SC and this country
Good to see your page is still up! Even after all these years!
I am so happy to discover you and the information you share. Thank you!
You are very welcome. Nice to know that many are getting these messages.
Thank you again for information. Had no idea story could be traced to an individual slave or that Brer was the slaves way of saying brother.
I love Brer Rabbit. The Tar baby is one of my favorites. When I try to share it, these last ten years, I have been shushed because of political correctness. I’ve told people it is part of a great tradition of African storytelling. But it seems people are mainly aware of Song of the South and how it is seen today. Thank you for your storytelling and harmonica!
Love it!
This is profound, thank you.
Great story teller, I really enjoyed the video, great video
Thank you for this video. We are getting ready to read Tristan Strong and I wanted to cover the roots of African trickster tales before we started. This was perfect for Brer Rabbit.
You're very welcome. I'm glad this has been of help to you and is thus serving it's purpose.
This was so fascinating and informational great video!
Thank you for your kind words. I hope you also find my other videos and books interesting and informative.
Great video!
Bugs Bunny was created as a combination of Brer Rabbit and Groucho Marx.
And here's what's mindblowing - Groucho Marx's frequent co-star Margaret Dumont was the goddaughter of Joel Chandler Harris, who compiled the Uncle Remus stories.
Everything really is connected.
Excellent :O)
It's been my thought that Disney is actually showing more disrespect nowadays by totally ignoring the Br'er characters altogether instead of acknowledging the true nature and history of their origins. Say what you will about Song of the South, but those characters are purely African in origin. If Disney really cared about "appealing to people of color", they would embrace this. Even if they were just totally terrified of offending people because of Song of the South, they could just recontexurize the characters to fit in a more modern tone. But no, if we're getting down to semantics, they're 100% ignoring pure African-inspired characters and storytelling by not using the characters in either a new film project/show or by releasing a more educated version of the original film, and they'd sooner kick Br'er Rabbit out of the theme parks and replace him with a color-swapped character from a story that was originally written by a white woman. I only say color-swapped because the cover of the original story shows a white woman, btw.
I love Tiana wholeheartedly agree with the notion of her getting her own attraction, but Disney is doing both of these characters dirty by ignoring all traces of the Br'er family in every form of media and by not giving Tiana her own attraction from the ground up, leaving her with someone's leftovers.
We're living in a time where may people want to do something about racism, which is good. But since there is no real leadership or strategy along those lines, people are going all over the place with what MLK himself called "Answers that don't answer, solutions that don't solve, and explanations that don't explain." This is where we are right now and the voices of sense and reason have to make their way clear through the din of confusion of our times. Getting rid of "Song of the South" will do nothing to advance the condition of those who really suffer in America any more than these battles over semantics that too many of our academians waste time over these days.
@@Themaddprof Thank you! There are much larger battles to be fighting nowadays, and the way society as a whole acts rather ignorant on many of these topics is frankly scary to me. I really appreciate you sharing this history and story with the world, as I grew up with Br'er Rabbit and would still sooner associate these characters with their own lively little world qnd the lessons they teach than anything negative and/or controversial were it not for the pervading, ill-informed mindset of the masses that you see nowadays.
It's too late. Believing they're being progressive, Disney has decided to simply erase the Splash Moutain ride. The only Disney ride based on African American culture has just been erased.
This is why I hate the "woke" problem going on today. Maybe right wingers and I have different definitions of the word, but I see it as short-sighted and counter-productive. I wish they'd have kept the Splash Mountain ride at Disney, and on top of that, they should re-make Song of the South but remove the racist aspects of it and remake it so it also is educational about African folklore. Pretending it doesn't exist is ironically, erasing African culture. Just remove the racist elements that were added by Disney. Personally, I've watched Song of the South a few times and find the Bre'er Rabbit subplot the best subplot made by Disney. I think that perhaps the movie should be shown in schools to educate them about African folklore (beyond exclusively the typical British storytelling at least), along with how we pass down storytelling.
Well explained sir.
Wokeism is basically an ideology without an ideology, because if you have no leadership, no clear strategy, or no concise or coherent goals, you don't have a movement, you have confusion. So in the long run I think it is as short lived as the more misguided aspects of the youth movements of the late 60s. History repeating itself. As for Song of the South, I think that anyone who wants to see it should, and those who don't should do what I do with films with a lot of "blood and guts," - avoid it. There are many age appropriate books or videos for children regarding African and Black American folklore. There is a Brer Rabbit cartoon on DVD without Uncle Remus and Julius Lester, shortly before his death, wrote some revised versions of the Brer Rabbit tales. So these things are there for whomever wants them.
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Hi, I loved the small history lesson not what I was expecting at 3am when I searched if brer rabbit chidlrens book was illegal, but definitely appreciated. One point I'm still lost on what is the stance on the walt disney yellow covered 'brer rabbit and the tar baby" book. My englsih candian gramma(cannot figure why or how she had/has a copy given her family and town demograohics) had a copy and I used to love reading it at her house but when I was 7 ot 8 she said she shouldn't have it so I've never mentioned it since then but I got curious this morning (as one does at 3am) and I'm wondering if that book is ok to have and have liked? Or is there a specific versions that better? Whats the 'politically correct' stance as I don't want to offend anyone if I do mention it being a favorite as a young child.(hope that all make sense)
The plain truth is that the only way to not offend anyone is to never say anything. There are those who love it and those who do not. The Disney book is more child friendly in comparison to the original books, which were filled with dialect that would be incomprehensible today for someone who is not from the Southern United States. Julius Lester also has a good child friendly series of the Brer Rabbit stories. So if you like them, by all means enjoy.
@@Themaddprof Ok, thank you, thats good to know! I haven't read it in some years, so I might take a look at the Julius Lester versions and see whats about now that I'm older. Your video had some great context so it should be an interesting read knowing the background now.
Br’er Rabbit 🐇 deserves better than Song of the South.
the stories are cute, but the whole thing of Uncle Remus and Walt Disney was Racist smh
Have you seen the film or read the books?
Yes it does seem racist
@@jasminepearls1047 Then you are a bad judge of character and learned nothing. If you really did watch the film or read the books, then you wouldn't tell lies and already learn the true nature of the stories. And nothing you just said relates too what you lied. about.
Only in your delusions and misjudging that it is racist. If you watched the film, look again.