To Think Buying Your Unborn Baby A Golliwog

[NurseyWursey]

and posting the photo on facebook, is in bad taste?

It just seems a bit to me.

What book is it from?

Ralph Please read some history. I'm a historian. They are racist and that's all there is to it.

They are a disgusting caricature of a black person. The name says a lot too. They are nothing like a black doll.

steff The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg and several Enid Blyton ones

Back2Basics

I am personally not one to get offended by the word Nigger. I know many of people whom wouldn't be offended by the term Cracker or Honkey

it's just a toy ...and slavery was just a working holiday

while I agree it does seem shocking now it didn't when I was a child back in the 70,s they even had them on jam jars I didn't connect them to any racial likeness I don't think I ever had one but I remember them.

yes I remember them being in enid blyton books.

poster CountessOfRule not really we went to the beach in Essex last year and there was agolliwog shop selling all things gollywog it was awful

From the Guardian article:

Perhaps it would be useful to discuss the tradition of dehumanising racist caricature to which these dolls belong. The English-American author Florence Upton invented the golliwog in a series of picture books produced at the onset of the Jim Crow laws, which mandated racial segregation in the American South. She described the character as "a horrid sight, the blackest gnome". He was clothed in the same apparel as the black-faced minstrels then prevalent in Europe and North America. He had thick lips, unruly black hair, and his hands and feet were paws.

The character was intrinsically linked to the Jim Crow laws which were also an abomination.

If someone brought me a Gollywog and you can still buy them in some shops by me I wouldn't be offended. My first thought wouldn't be to become outraged at this doll. I'd think of it as a doll.

I only would play with the black cabbage patch dolls as a kid I wasn't racist I just liked the ones that looked like me.

They're were two little golliwog one named nigger and one named wog... Enid Blyton and the good old days before pic went mad

Sounds a bit bizarre Got to feel sorry for the poor kid

I don't want to derail the thread, but it does concern me that the majority of dolls are white and female. What sort of message is that sending out?

Well, good for you Ralph go prove your credentials elsewhere then because those of us who have been beaten up by the National Front and fought against racism have better things to do.

OhDeanna but who quickly turned out to be a friendly character, and is later attributed with a kind face.

Apart from anything else, golliwogs are bloody freaky looking

rabbitpies why does the name say a lot? The name arrived first and insults were derived from it, not the other way round.

For what it's worth, the golliwog has a fond place in my family's heart, as it's a toy my mum had growing up and there are various important memories attached to them. Bearing in mind my mum's father was black. I had no idea that there were such racist connotations to their origin and would have considered buying one for my daughter. I did know about the Enid Blyton books and how the golliwogs were the 'naughty' characters, I don't think it occurred to me at the time that it was racist, childlike innocence and all that.

Dawn If you get offended by a few words and dolls then that's you.

As a black person I don't, I've got better things to worry about than a doll and a some words

The name might have been used as an insult later,but in 2014 if you're still producing or buying something called a 'golliwog' then you really ought to took a good look at yourself. And no matter how fondly people recall theirs,it's still a racist caricature of a black person,not a harmless toy. It perpetuates a stereotype.

They are a disgusting caricature of a black person

So, does a Barbie Doll insult white women?

Well said RalphLaurent .

Ralph I'm not sure that it's quite the slam dunk of argument you think it is if you say 'I am black' in every post because:
A.you might be lying
B. You're probably not the only person of colour on this thread
C. Everyone in our white western society (which I'm assuming you're in) has grown up in a racially prejudiced society so it's perfectly possible for people to harbour prejudices against their own race, sadly, just as it's possible for women to have deeply misogynist views.

Rabbit I'm sure all white women don't stop in horror in the sight of a barbie doll seing as they're the 'ideal woman'

Or all blondes because they're all suppose to be stupid.

I'm totally fucking insulted by Barbie. Not the same though. What a shit argument!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1136016/How-golliwog-went-innocent-childrens-hero-symbol-bitter-controversy.html

^Stuck for a main character, her aunt, with whom she was staying in Hampstead, North London, found an old battered black-face rag doll in the attic.
As soon as Florence saw him, she knew she had found her protagonist.^