This may be another of those Chicago things. If you don't know the lyrics to the Funtown song, you're probably at the wrong web site.
Heh. The place is still listed as a tourist attraction. Well, at least they ain't got Old Chicago or, gods forbid, Riverview.
I have vague memories of walking around Riverview, odd given a) it was closed before I was born, and b)
An often unacknowledged factor in Riverview's popularity during much of its history was the informal exclusion of African-Americans from the park. Although there existed no official policy against the admission of blacks to the park, all Chicagoans, white and black, recognized that Riverview, like many other public amusement sites, lay on the white side of the invisible racial boundaries that divided the city. Few blacks risked crossing such boundaries. Those who did put themselves in danger and were often viciously attacked by white thugs for their refusal to submit to white authority. Rather than accomodate African-Americans, Riverview's owners and patrons found it more useful to make blacks the subject of white amusement at the park. For many years, the African Dip was a well-known midway attraction, particulary among young white males eager to demonstrate their racial solidarity with other whites. Players of the game paid for the chance to dunk an "African" in a pool of water. Those who were hired to play the role of the "African" were encouraged to be as verbally abusive as possible in order to incite the racial animosities of white patrons and thus drum up additional business for the game. White Chicagoans responded positively to the informal exclusion of African-Americans from the park and race-themed games like the Dip because of their own ethnic diversity. By defining themselves as "white," ethnically diverse Chicagoans developed a sense of racial solidarity that obscured the particulars of their own ethnic backgrounds. The Dip remained in operation until the late 1950s, when the NAACP pressured the park's owners to remove the odious game.
Don't know what MLK was thinking, coming up in Chitown. . .
George Kelly links to/quotes from a Trib article about marketing to Latinas. Could go into how when the major corporations finally notice us little brown people and start marketing hair care and cosmetics products, they tend to wipe out the wee people-of-color-owned businesses which had previously been filling the niche, since the big corps have no problem getting financing and distribution while some of us, um, do, but that would involve research.
Instead, I'll ask if any of the North American readers don't see signs and billboards in languages other than English on a regular basis. I'm thinking that growing up in an actual city, and not caring about how bad (snicker) some parts of Minneapolis are meant to be, has given me a skewed take on the issue. That, and watching Telemundo and Univision.
Listening to the Radio Rey, the AM Spanish-language mostly-music station. I'm sure Clear Channel will buy them out and start broadcasting bland, nationwide programming shortly, probably originating from their stations across the border in Tijuana. The hippies also have some Spanish-language shows mixed up in their Community & Bilingual Programs, but. . . well, check the list. They're trying to cover a lot of territory. Hippies. God bless 'em.
Want to know more? See the Minneapolis/St Paul AM Radio Directory and demand the motherfuckers all change to starting their call letters with W or K, because it's really annoying having the river right there messing stuff up.
There's also a site devoted to Riverview Park. They avoid the unpleasant racial stuff because, as everyone knows, Chicago is in the North, and never had such problems.
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