Baa Baa Black Sheep is racist. Just look at the lyrics:
Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!
One for the master, one for the dame,
And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.
The hidden implication is that the White sheep, noticibly absent from the story, would be less willing to create wool and (judging from its recaliant attitude in not being immediatly present in the rhyme) more disruptive and less willing to serve.
Now that is important because the origin of the story was actually Flemish, who were renowned for their black sheep during the 17th century, although the name of the breed escapes me at this time. The White sheep, however, was at the time the prevelant breed associated with Welsh herds, the Cheviot. Flemish herd owners, in leauge with sponsers in the Government at Westminster, wished to sell their stock to England which was heavily reliant on herds in Wales and Scotland for wool production.
Now England, as we all know, was heavily orientated towards pig and bovine farming and the efforts of the Flemish herd owners undermined the important role of wool production from Wales, less so Scotland as their herds were mostly meat herds. Thus the infamous nursery rhhyme was in many ways the first salvo in a race war that would ultimately end in the infamous (and tragically mostly forgotton) Ponty Pandy massacre of 1816.
The massacre caused an uproar which in turn led to a reduction in the English-Flemish links in the upper class which has been cited as one of the influences of the 1830 Belgian uprising which, of course, resulted in the nation of Belgium.
