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Excellent list of facts and debunked rumor.

Of further interest, the latest wild rumor being pushed at DU is about a waitress named “Lucille” at an unnamed restaurant overhearing Palin say about Obama beating Clinton in the Democratic primary: Sambo beat the bitch! and then supposedly laughing ruacously with whoever was supposed to be eating there. “Lucille” claims that Sambo is a common word for African Americans in Alaska.

What next?

"“Lucille” claims that Sambo is a common word for African Americans in Alaska."

All I know about "Sambo" was what I read on the menus of Sambo's restaurants when I was a kid.

(Really good pancakes, by the way.)

The story, at least as I recall it through the mists of time, involved a little dark-skinned Indian boy who ran a tiger around a tree until the tiger turned to butter or something.

There was nothing derogatory about it--the little Indian kid emerged a hero, after all--and it wasn't about Africa or Africans or people of African descent. The cartoon that accompanied the little story showed a little kid in a turban and Indian-style loose cotton pants. Besides, there are no tigers in Africa, AFAIK. They're an Indian-subcontinent sort of cat, right?

How'd this morph into a perceived slur against African-Americans, anyway? Is there another Sambo story out there that I'm unaware of? If so, how come Sarah Palin heard about that and I never did? ...The politics of race has become quite impenetrable, IMHO. Probably because true racism has been pretty effectively stamped out... except among the likes of Jeremiah Wright and Michelle Obama, apparently.