History Forum / General / General Topics / August 2004

James Whitcomb Riley's poem "Little
Orphant Annie" is hereby declared
politically incorrect for the following
reasons:

1)  Sanctions bad pronunciation and
   spelling.  Sends a subtle message
   that it is okay to have a heavy
   Hoosier accent and to spell
   "orphan" with a "t" at the end.

2)  Stigmatizes parentless children
   by continually referring to Annie
   as an "orphant."

3)  Fosters the notion that child
   labor is acceptable.  "Little
   Orphant Annie," who plainly is not
   even close to the age of majority,
   supports herself by housekeeping
   chores and looking after younger  
   children in a farming household.

4)  Fails to stress the importance of
   education:  Why is Annie terrifying
   her young charges with ghost stories  
   while she should be attending school?

5)  Encourages superstition by
   expressing a belief in goblins.

6)  Supports a coercive attitude
   toward religion.  Little Orphant
   Annie warns the younger children
   of a "little boy who wouldn't
   say his prayers" and was
   subsequently snatched from
   his home by goblins.

7)  May cause nightmares in children
   and sensitive adults who will read
   the poem and go to bed thinking that
   the goblins will get THEM "if [they]
   don't watch out."

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Afterword by Bill Palmer:

Up there I am being  a bit satirical,
but now that you have no doubt howled
with laughter for a few minutes, here
is that part that will get you angry.  
You see, many of you have likely never
even read or heard the wonderful American
poem called "Little Orphant Annie."  You
probably even think  that Annie was
invented by a newspaper cartoonist.  
You have seen the movie or the play,
but you have never learned Orphant
Annie's true, poetic origins:   A work
by James Whitcomb Riley that remained
immensely popular when cartoonist
Harold Gray of Little Orphan Annie fame
was a child.   Why have so many children
today never read or heard this poem?  
Well, for precisely the politically
correct reasons stated above.  It is a
sad state of affairs when a great
poem can just disappear, not for its being
bad poetry, but for not being politically
correct.   I would encourage all parents,
teachers, and librarians to read "Little
Orphant Annie" to the children -- they
will love the poem.