8/17/2023 0 Comments Newborn black baby boy![]() ![]() Alligator lore draws from "a shared dread of these reptilian creatures that come out of the water to eat dogs and children." According to popular legend, enslaved people who disappeared in swamps may have been killed by alligators children were understood as particularly vulnerable to attacks by alligators, and that identification may have evolved into the bait image. Gators largely live in the swamplands of the Southern United States, which were one place people escaping enslavement hid to evade capture. The reasons for dubbing black babies "alligator bait" are unknown, but the identification may be a consequence of earlier associations of African crocodiles-a relative of American alligators-with Africa and its people. In the American popular imagination, black children were commonly used as bait for hunting alligators, which are one of the central apex predators of the folklore of the United States, along with cougars, bears and wolves. In American slang, alligator bait is a racial slur for African-Americans. There is an urban legend claiming that black children or infants were in fact used as bait to lure alligators, although there is no meaningful evidence that children of any race were ever used for this purpose. The motif was present in a wide array of media, including newspaper reports, songs, sheet music, and visual art. Early 20th century postcard depicting black children as "alligator bait"ĭepicting African-American children as alligator bait was a common trope in American popular culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. ![]()
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