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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To chuck this "toy" in the bin??

105 replies

ginmakesitallok · 13/04/2011 11:44

DMIL brought DDs presents from her hols as usual. DD1 got a doll and a key ring, DD2 got a Golly (!!) DMIL thought it was lovely and that as DD2 "doesn't have a gollywog she'll like this". DP let DD2 take it with her to SILs house for tea - lots of questions asked of MIL "Where on earth did you get it?", "Why did you get it?", "Isn't it rascist?". DMIL insists its "not rascist, its just a gollywog, she likes it.."

I feel uncomfortable having it in the house - should I just bin it???

OP posts:

LaWeasel · 14/04/2011 10:23

It is quite common for abusive parents to treat children differently, and for their children to have different feelings about what happened.

I have no reason to believe the one who said it was fine over the one who said it wasn't. In fact personally I have more reason to believe the one said it wasn't as being a compulsive liar on such a scale is much less common than surpressing memories of abuse. Almost every thread about dealing with childhood abuse on MN features relatives and friends who don't believe even though they witnessed it!

seeker · 14/04/2011 10:25

My parents refused to allow Enid Blyton books in the house when I was a child in the 60s. Thinking people then realized that they were racist, sexist, classist and (an even worse crime in my father's eyes) badly written.

For people who still regard them through rose tinted spectacles, I suggest you think about the depiction of servants, "common" children and foreigners in all of the books. Oh, and girls!

Yes she was writing at a different time. But that's an explanation, not an excuse, and no reason to inflict them on today's children.

Tanith · 14/04/2011 10:27

"Ten Little Niggers was also the name of a 1939 Agatha Christie novel, whose cover showed a Golliwog lynched, hanging from a noose."

It's been renamed several times. The first film was "10 little Indians". Then that was deemed offensive (poor Agatha!) and the current rhyme refers to 10 Little Soldier Boys and the island is Soldier Island.

Until recently, though, you could still get the original text under the title "...And then there were none".

The rhyme referred to is, according to the book, a traditional nursery rhyme. Yes - really! Some nursery rhymes really are vile! Anyone else know that other traditional "All the Pretty Little Horses"? The second verse makes your skin crawl! And people used to sing their children to sleep with it!

crystalglasses · 14/04/2011 10:28

I don't know. when I look at a gollywog I don't see a crude racial stereotype or think of white supremacy, slavery or exploitation. As far as I know the 'wog' in gollywog came many years after the doll, and thinking about it it probably did stem from the word gollywog. Even the gollywogs in Enid Byton and the Ten Little Nigger Boys song had no racial connotations for me as a child.

The only time I remember being made aware of racism as a child was when I was singing 'eeny memy miny mo, catch a nigger by the toe', and my father told me in no uncertain tones that it was offensive to black people. I was completely taken aback by this.

Now I would never condone anything that people found racially offensive but I don't really understand how a gollywog is a crude racial stereotype.

Tanith · 14/04/2011 10:30

I've read Imogen's biography, though, and many of the incidents in the film that she claims is an accurate portrayal aren't mentioned in the book.

ShinyMoonInAPurpleSky · 14/04/2011 10:34

I think that they are good stories despite the sexism etc. I wouldn't deprive my children of that. As one of the common children myself, I never thought anything of it at the time. You have to try to remember how a child will see it instead of how you see it.

I'm sure there are many "classics" in adult literature that aren't exactly PC but they are still considered good books, worthy of being read.

Tanith as a child my nan had to sing a song in assembly in the 1930s called "I'm a little nigger boy" complete with make up. She's never told me the rest of the song so I can't comment on the content, but it probably wasn't the nicest song in the world to make a child sing...

seeker · 14/04/2011 10:45

"Now I would never condone anything that people found racially offensive but I don't really understand how a gollywog is a crude racial stereotype."

Have you ever actually seen a gollywog, crystalglasses? They're the black dolls with fuzzy hair, thick lips, staring eyes and striped trousers........

ShinyMoonInAPurpleSky · 14/04/2011 10:55

Well perhaps crystalglasses is around the same age as me. That stereotype didn't exist when I was growing up. I needed my mum to explain all about the black and white minstrel show etc before i ever understood why because I had never seen a black person looking or dressing like that in my life.

seeker · 14/04/2011 11:00

Hmm - so fuzzy hair and thick lips aren't part of any sort of racial stereotype anyone under the age of 30 would recognize? Really? I agree that you may not recognize the stripy trousers.

seeker · 14/04/2011 11:04

And anyway, even if you didn;t realize that it was a racial stereotype, surely the proper resonse to having it explaine dot you is "Oh, I didn't realize. Bloody hell, how awful - I'll get rid of it at once' rather than "Well, I didn't realize , so I'll carry on letting my child play with it - if I don't know it's offensive then it isn't"

crystalglasses · 14/04/2011 11:11

Actually seeker, when I see a golloywog don't think 'oh that looks like a black person' , because it doesn't. What you see is in the eye of the beholder and I really don't see it.
shinymoon inapurplesky - yes maybe it's an age thing. I didn't understand about the black and white minstrels either.

crystalglasses · 14/04/2011 11:13

seeker -' And anyway, even if you didn;t realize that it was a racial stereotype, surely the proper resonse to having it explaine dot you is "Oh, I didn't realize. Bloody hell, how awful - I'll get rid of it at once' rather than "Well, I didn't realize , so I'll carry on letting my child play with it - if I don't know it's offensive then it isn't"

If that remark was directed at me, I have never had a gollywog and nor have my dc

seeker · 14/04/2011 11:13

So once it's been explained to you you still think it's OK?

crystalglasses · 14/04/2011 11:15

I understand now that it is offensive to black people and so it is not ok. I've already said that.

MrSpoc · 14/04/2011 11:31

Seeker sorry but ALL black people have afro hair and big lips. this is not a stereo type but the truth. Never come across a black person with stareing eyes?

My first girlfriend was black and had a golly. (15 years old) i never new it was racist and neither did she. Suppose you could attach a racist tag to almost anything if you tried.

I have also noticed a Golly come back in a few local stores near me.

seeker · 14/04/2011 11:35

"Seeker sorry but ALL black people have afro hair and big lips"

You are, I presume, trying to be funny?

stealthsquirrelsawaytheeggs · 14/04/2011 11:38

DD was given one. We 'lost' it into the back of a cupboard on the basis that if she were to get fond of it, she would take it out with her, and it might offend someone. That possibility was enough for me.

crystalglasses · 14/04/2011 11:49

Mrspoc i don't agree that all black people have black hair and big lips which is probably why i never linked them to golliwogs. I was, however, brought up in a different country where there were plently of brown people but no affro carrobbeans, or africans, who are more likely to have these features. Rarely, if ever, seeing anyone with those features may well have affected my attitude towards gollywogs, whereas I learnt the word 'nigger' was wrong because it was associated with brown people (in my eyes, anyway, plus there always used to be a colour called nigger brown).

illgetyoubutler · 14/04/2011 12:01

"You have to try to remember how a child will see it instead of how you see it"
That's a flawed logic.
As parents and guardians of our children, we have a responsibiliy to instill good ethics, an understanding of equality for all regardless of race, sex, etc, good manners and so on.....
By your logic, you would deem it acceptable for you child to wear a t-shirt with a swastika embellished on the front of it.
Your child will see it simply as a design on its shirt.
But you know different, and would (hopefully) explain why its not appropriate to wear.
And that's because you/we know better.

seeker · 14/04/2011 12:01

Crystalglasses - I think MrSpoc is showing a level of ignorance so extreme that the psot has to be a wind up!

Interstingly, I thought "nigger brown"as a colour predates the Black and White minstrels - odd that you've come across one and not the other.

illgetyoubutler · 14/04/2011 12:11

The features on a golliwog are grossly exaggerated.
Yes black people can have curly, wooly, afro hair. Like myself.
And like myself, sport larger fuller lips, and wider noses.
Wide, large eyes, fuller chunkier thighs and bottoms, blah blah blah...
But these features found predominant within the black community have always been grossly exaggrated within literature, cartoons, theater plays, big screen, on golliwogs toys and so on, for hundreds of years, to a point where it becomes derogatory and comical.
An insult to black features, and black people.

MrSpoc · 14/04/2011 12:32

seeker - Wrong I am not ignorant as I have said all black people have afro hair. this does not include Asians and I am not sure who you would call brown people?

All of my black friends would also agree with me.

MrSpoc · 14/04/2011 12:34

illgetyoubutler - I agree entirly with what you have just said. I was only picking up on what seeker was saying. I still have not come across "Stareing eyes"

seeker · 14/04/2011 12:44

All black people do not have afro hair and thick lips. They do not all have staring eyes either. But that's why a gollywog is a racial stereotype!

MrSpoc · 14/04/2011 12:50

What is stareing eyes seeker?

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