... This brings us to the final scene where Dumbo, who has woken up in the branches of a tree, meets a flock of crows, social marginals lying about on the outskirts of the Florida railway. They’re the only creatures to be kind to Dumbo, and the only ones at liberty. As I mentioned above, this has attracted notoriety for its racist content. According to my reading though, this scene was not conceived that way, but in the spirit of anti-racism; and steers as near to a celebration of black power, avant la lettre, as its writers could sail. Because this is where young Dumbo, with his mixed-race heritage, meets some other black characters; and these are the ones who show him who he really is and what are his true powers. ...
No-one could deny these crows represent black stereotypes. They’ve even got a leader called Jim Crow : a detail that has always been interpreted as a racial slur and never as a ten-foot signpost to an underlying theme.
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