My rule of thumb was that if an image offended a black student because of its visual associations then I would not use it within a discussion. Sometimes it would have been useful to demonstrate what black people have to put up with, but I steered clear. The argument with illustrators was around the Robinson's Gollywog as a brand character and the children's illustrated story Little Black Sambo. I just wasn't doing it.

Standard objections

1. haven't you got a sense of humour?

2. Everybody loves Little Black Sambo.

Perhaps the cheerfully obsequious Pullman porter, a last vestige of the Slave days in white travellers' lives, could act as a first point of reference. Douglass Crockwell's image of black graduates for Avondale is unusual for the period (1948).

I couldn't think where else to put the photograph of Barry Goldwater, presidential hopeful and a republican on the right, dressed in war paint as a Smoki Indian. This adds a new and worrying edge to his more bellicose threats of using nuclear weaponry against the Russkies. It is about as persuasive as Peter Sellars' Goodness Gracious Me.

Christmas in South Africa 1926

The Cooking Pot - Alloys make the Difference, O.Soglow 1957

Rockfist and the Witch Doctor c1935