Murzynek Bambo

"Murzynek Bambo" (Bambo the black child) is a children's poem by Jewish-Polish author Julian Tuwim (September 1894 – December 1953), written in 1934.^[1] It is about a little black boy called Bambo, who lives in Africa.

The poem is sixteen lines long, arranged in eight rhyming couplets. It tells the story of Bambo, a young black African child, who diligently studies in an African school. When he returns home, he fools around and is told off by his mother. He reacts by frowning. When offered milk by his mother, he runs off and climbs a tree. His mother tells him to have a bath, but he is afraid that he will whiten. His mother loves him though. The poem ends by saying that it is a pity that "black, happy Bambo" doesn't go to school with us.

Meaning of Murzynek[]

The poem refers to Bambo as Murzynek, the diminutive form of Murzyn. Murzynek can be translated into English in a variety of ways, such as "black child". The word "Murzyn", which in the opinion of many Poles, including academics, is not offensive, but now in the 21st century it is seen by some black people as discriminatory and derogatory.^[2] The word was derived from borrowing the German word Mohr, which derived from Latin maurus, similar to the English word 'moor'.

Analysis and controversy[]

In recent decades, Murzynek Bambo has been accused of promoting racial stereotypes and of presenting a culturally and socio-economically demeaning view of Africans.^[2] In the opinion of Margaret Ohia,^[3] who researched racism in the Polish language at the University of California, the protagonist of the poem is presented as inferior to the presumably white reader. The phrase Murzynek Bambo is often used in children's name-calling when the target is a black child.^[4]

The poem is familiar to the most of Polish children and is said to have been written by Tuwim to teach Polish youth tolerance towards Black children, suggesting they are not different from their Polish counterparts.^[5] Historians note that that Tuwim, who faced strong antisemitic sentiments during the interwar period, espoused liberal views and was strongly opposed to Polish nationalist politics and its discrimination against ethnic minorities.^[6]

Some Polish critics contend that the contemporary claims of the poem's seeming racism are exaggerated and anachronistic.^[7] Referencing Alan Gribben's controversial attempt to expurgate Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, conservative journalist Adam Kowalczyk dismisses the notion that Murzynek Bambo promotes racism in Poland and claims that he "did not become a racist" after reading Tuwim's poem.^[8] A reader of Gazeta Wyborcza, a major liberal newspaper in Poland, Ewa Trzeszczkowska, describes in a letter how she identifies with Bambo: "For me, this work was and is a cheerful story about a naughty boy from a distant, exotic country, that, although so distant – both the country and the boy – is also similar to me. He has a joy of life which is expressed, amongst other ways, in the climbing of the trees (I climbed them too), and has a slight note of defiance, independence, liberty. Which was and is close to me!" She writes that she does not suspect "the author of these words of bad intentions", though she admits feeling discomfort reading that Bambo fears baths because he might become white.^[9]

See also[]

• Little Black Sambo
• Washing the Ethiopian white

References[]

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