To not be sure who is wrong in the Golly dispute?

[Mitmoo]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2034203/Grandmother-faces-court-placing-Golliwog-window-dispute-neighbour-black-wife.html

OK it's a DM to flame me but never the less..........

A grandmother has a longrunning dispute over boundary issues, which I know from personal experience can be extremely distressing, even though in my case it was just a part of my small back garden not serious land as in this case.

The grandmother IMO was probably being racist in putting the golly in her window, but it is in her house and no one is being forced to look at it. She says it is a grandchild's toy and was put there only while tidying up. Other neighbour was so offended they photographed it!

But AIBU in thinking the other couple were being ridiculous to go to the police about it and now the original woman (probably in the wrong, don't buy the grandchilds toy story) could be facing two years in jail?

Perhaps there is an argument for granny being a nut in this day and age to buy a golly for a child, while admittedly loved the badges from the jamjars in the 70's.

Ultimately it is a doll, in her house, on her windowsill, she's wrong, she's probably racist but how can this be a good use of our courts, our legal system, this is a neighbour dispute.

How can they prove what was in her mind when she placed the golly in the window sill? AIBU in thinking these families are as bad as each other and are blowing this up out of all proportion, while accepting boundary disputes do get under your skin big time.

It seems to me involving the police was vindictive and a court case over this is unnecessary?

It's the sort of behaviour if I saw it I would say "silly cow" or similar and move on.

Two wrongs and all that. Not defending racist behaviour for a second just seems to me this has been blown out of proportion in making this a court case with possible jail time for having a golly on your windowsill.

Particularly as I am not sure they can prove her intent when putting it there.
We are supposed to be in dire financial straights as a country, how much is this case costing?

OR AIBU?

Tethers i'm loving your intelligent imput.

Tethers you are doing a grand job in explaining why a golliwog IS offensive.
I cringe when i see golliwogs tbh.
Some posters on this thread have displayed sheer ignorance.
That vile woman was being racist and i don't believe it was subtle.

Oh LDN come on now you really believe that the golly is to blame for everything that goes on and has gone on in Africa. Are you really that ignorant?

And for your information if it makes you feel any better dh isn't laughing anymore in fact he is fuming at your ignorance!

Well, since he's wound up already, let him know I agree with LDN mummy. She didn't say the golliwog was to blame, she said it was a symbol of the system.

And can you also ask him when he's going to Brixton? I'm quite busy around the the end of the month, so he might want to factor that in. Cheers.

No inanimate object is racist in itslef, it is what the object is attached to in the human consciousness.

This article is a very good one and I think this excerpt really highlights why the Gollywog is a symbol of racism:

"During World War II the word wog was used by the British Army in North Africa, mainly as a slur against dark-skinned Arabs. In the 1960s the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, one of the most noted regiments in the British Army, wore a Robertson's golly brooch for each Arab they had killed. After the war, wog became a more general slur against brown-skinned people. As a racial epithet, it is comparable to nigger or spic, though its usage extends beyond any single ethnic group. Dark-skinned people in England, Germany, and Australia are derisively called wogs. In the year 2000, a British police officer was fired for referring to an Asian colleague as a wog."

The article also highlights that there was massive backlash against the use of the Golliwog by Robinson's but it was their refusal to let the symbol go that kept it around for so long.

"Oh LDN come on now you really believe that the golly is to blame for everything that goes on and has gone on in Africa. Are you really that ignorant?"

Um no actually, you obviously didn't understand what I said. I didn't say it was responsible at all, I said it was (and still is) a symbol of the system that was (and still is) responsible.

Oh and I'm not fuming at his ignorance, just saddened by it as a fellow African.

My God the world has gone mad, the golly is the symbol of the system that has ruined Africa. Quick ring the UN and explain it to them I'm sure they will be able to solve it all now!

What a load of absolute tosh!

I repeat my original post both the neighbours in this case should hang their heads in shame because they have both behaved appalingly.

Dh has just listed lots and lots of ways most people in Britain support the attrocities happening in Africa without a second thought for the people of Africa (which in my opinion makes someone the worst type of human there is) but I won't bore you with them because I suspect the golly will be to blame for them as well or you won't care enough to answer. Lets just say that your diamonds, your gold, your mobiles, laptops amd lcd tvs not to mention the cheap clothing I'm sure most of you love causes more pain and suffering to black people than any gollie doll ever has.

This ignorant racist is now logging off!

A trip to The Slave museum at Liverpools Dock is really worthwhile. Eyeopening, informative.

hyde I never said that the Gollywog was the only symbol. In fact as you listed, there are many more pressing issues at hand that Gollywogs, but they still matter because little things make up the bigger issue.

It is all part and parcel of the same thing no matter how insignificant you might want it to seem. And the things you mentioned are very bad, but the Gollywog doll's you seem to love are something very easy to change in your life and something you could alter immediately.

Whole systems of infrastructure that rely on the poverty and the keeping down of other nations are not so easily solved. But I think it is worse when something is so in your control to cease contributing to the negative position of a whole other race, and you refuse to acknowledge it or do anything about it, but rather laugh about it.

It may not seem such a great big deal to you, but maybe if you were living in Mississippi during the lynching years, you and your DH would not think of this as something so laughable.

Sorry but you are wrong, simple.

Gollies are stereotyped caricature of black faced minstrels, who are caricature of a black person.

Enid's books "Once the three bold Golliwogs, Golly, Woggie, and Nigger, decided to go for a walk to Bumble-Bee Common. Golly wasn't quite ready so Woggie and Nigger said they would start off without him, and Golly would catch them up as soon as he could. So off went Woggie and Nigger, arm-in-arm, singing merrily their favourite song - which, as you may guess, was Ten Little Nigger Boys"

They have always been associated with racism. Im guessing granny-in-the-window was aware of this.

Mitmoo

"The original author who didn't patent the word golly had them as sympathetic figures"

In 1895, her book, entitled The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls, was published in London. Upton drew the illustrations, and her mother, Bertha Upton, wrote the accompanying verse. The book's main characters were two Dutch dolls, Peg and Sarah Jane, and the Golliwogg. The story begins with Peg and Sara Jane, on the loose in a toy shop, encountering a horrid sight the blackest gnome

Do you interpret that last bit as sympathetic ?

If so, I really dont know how you can see that as a positive.

The orginal author based the golly on black faced minstrels, nothing sympathetic about black faced minstrels.

"I think the old lady did do it to be a cow. However I can't see how they can proove she did it to be deliberately racist."

But if she did it deliberately, is that action anything other than racist?

Amber You've missed an important part of Upton's book. "The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. The 1895 book included a character named the "Golliwogg," who was first described as "a horrid sight, the blackest gnome", but who quickly turned out to be a friendly character, and is later attributed with a "kind face."

A lesson for children not to judge others based on their appearance? It was the white children who were portrayed as ignorant for thinking he was was a horrid sight in the first place but quickly realised they were wrong.

Hence the Upton's Golly was a sympathetic figure in context of all of the book which is an important difference.

I'll repeat again, there is no way Id buy a child a golli today as too many see it as symbolic of racism when to hundreds and thousands of children in years gone by they simply just loved the character in total innocence.

"Lets just say that your diamonds, your gold, your mobiles, laptops amd lcd tvs not to mention the cheap clothing I'm sure most of you love causes more pain and suffering to black people than any gollie doll ever has.

yes this is true, but still the golly is an appalling symbol of racism IMO

christ its really depressing me that people just can see that the golly is a symbol of pure nastiness

"its just a doll"

its so so so not! It like saying that the swatsika s "just a shape"

I have to say as a child in the 70s and 80s who gollected the Golly badges from Robertsons I never associated Gollies with black people. The caricature must have been too much as it just never crossed my mind that they might be meant to represent a black person.

I wouldn't have one now. Partly as DD hates dolls but also because I would worry about offending someone.

Mitmoo, Upton based her Golliwog on the blacked face minstrels "In the minstrel show white entertainers put on blackface and "imitated" or "caricatured" slaves in the South and ex-slaves in the North".

A Golliwog was not an innocent toy, it was a caricature of a caricature of black slaves. Unless you consider slavery as innocent.

The woman who put the golly in the window is familiar to me. She is the woman who has recognised that people who have profoundly racist views are deemed thick and nasty. She sees her self as respectable and middle class and she lives in a Delightful Detatched Home and does not want to be considered thick and nasty. So she finds a sneery underhand method of being racist but with deniability. Putting the golly in the window is just so sly and a bitter and cowardly way to attack someone.
I would have more respect for her if she was open about her views. At least she would have some integrity about her.

I think it is perfectly possible to have loved and owned gollies in an unthinking and uninformed way - to have one as a toy without ever really having given it a thought because it was just there in amongst the flotsam and jetsam of your life. I think that it is possible to have an emotional relationship with a childhood toy that would conceivably battle with the recognition of what it really represents to many people.

But I think to pretend that you have reached 2011 without recognising that swathes of the population will be offended is disingenuous at the very best. And in putting it in the window indicates that she actually knows exactly how racist the connotations of the golly would be. Yet she still owns one.

As a bit of light relief, has anyone linked to Excruciating watching.

I haven't ploughed through the whole thread, but given the fact that the women placed just the one toy facing perfectly outwards, it is most likely that she knew exactly what she was doing. I agree wholehearted with Pagwatch's post above.

oh thats funny !!!!¬