To ask any black posters how they feel about Gollywogs

[Bambambini]

There's a very popular FB post doing the rounds asking people to vote if they the think Gollywogs should make a come back.

I commented negatively on it as I was under the impression that black people often find them offensive and I was suspicious as to the intent of this meme doing the rounds and if it was just trying to stir up trouble. Then I looked online to back up this view and on another board black folk (or poeple who claimed to be black)seemed to be saying they couldn't care less.

So if you are black how do you feel about them, I don't want to be misrepresenting you. And to all those folk on FB voting yes and commenting how all this PC stuff is out of hand - maybe they need to see what black people actually think.

Magickpants but what makes a golly racist?

Is it that it's a black doll dressed as a minstrel?
Would the same doll with a pink dress on be as racist?
Would a black doll with short hair and a pink dress on be racist?

Where is the boundary between a black doll and a golly?

Where is the boundary between a black doll and a golly?

Somewhere around the staring white eyes, the bared white teeth, and the minstrel outfit slaves were put in to make them look ridiculous while being forced to perform for the whites.
HTH.

Garrick I've never seen a Knitted golly with white teeth. Everyone has white eyes... How do you know they are staring? It's a knitted doll... So it would seem To be the outfit that does it.

Of course, Peggy.

Here's a picture of a golly. It looks just like any black doll, in the same way that the other picture looks like any white doll.

For the very hard of thinking, both dolls are intended to caricature a real person being used by their 'owner'. As shown by the exaggerated features, amongst other things.

I'm not offended on anyone else's behalf- I'm perfectly capable of being offended all on my own.

And here are some cabbage patch kids, which are also stylised, in different colours. Note that neither looks like a golly.

They are utterly vile. When I was on holiday in Devon I came across them in a shop and for that reason I decided not to buy anything in there. My daughter, who was 9 at the time was also horrified by them without me even saying anything.

Very interesting thread. I haven't seen the poll as I have blocked posts from Britain First and similar groups on Facebook - they are quite definitely agitators and one elderly friend was re-posting everything. But the question here is an interesting one.

Like others have said, I had one as a child and didn't associate it with real humans in any way, just as I didn't associate the Black & White Minstrels with real black people. Ignorant? Perhaps, but I was a child (with a couple of black friends) and racism was unknown to me.

Growing up, I learned about the history of the insulting treatment of black entertainers and realised that for the Black & White Minstrels at least there was no way back. As for the golly, once the association was made known to me I probably felt the same way, but sadder. Childhood toys are as innocent as the minds their owners and to have them polluted with racism is a horrible shame. I feel for the ladies who have their beloved toys hidden away for fear of causing offence.

I remember being exceedingly pleased when someone (late 80s?) attempted to promote racial harmony by producing white gollies. It seemed like a way back for the toy without causing offence but on reflection I guess I was being over-idealistic. I don't think it would matter if they were blue, pink yellow or whatever, the association will always be there. Even though we know the toys don't resemble real people, even though white kids with 'big' hair also got called 'Golly' back in the day, even though there are white gollies out there, it will forever be an insult. And that is a shame for everyone, whatever their skin tone.

And really I think most normal people find them offensive, whatever race.

Peggy - really?

Here are some more examples of what dolls representing black children could look like.

(from this website )

I can't understand how it isn't immediately obvious to you what the difference is?

It's basically that the Golly looks like a deeply unpleasant caricature, whereas these dolls are a positive representation.

Do you see?

Re the swastika it's still a very common symbol in India as it has completely different connotations there. You can buy them as ornaments and I even saw a 'Swastika Laundrette' once! It was pretty shocking to see as a Westerner.

However it predates the Nazi appropriation of it by centuries so not the same thing at all, in that culture.

This topic seems to pop up with sad regularity on MN. Of course these vile dolls are utterly offensive and always have been. There was never a time when they were anything other than a racist caricature. At no time were they "O.K." In earlier decades some people were rather breathtakingly blasé about their own racist sensibilities, utterly thoughtless in every sense of the word. I can only assume that anyone who owns or displays such a doll nowadays must be similarly thoughtless or woefully ignorant.

www.katefinn.com.au/product/59381-lester-28cm-golly/

I can't post a picture but here is the link to the boy doll that i bought my son. I bought him because i thought he looked nice and he was a boy - that was hard to get at the time. Now the same site has a white skinned and ginger haired version - the same features just different colours - which i guess i would have bought had the option been available.

He loved that doll, until we went to the UK, where it was so frowned upon that it had to go. Shame, it taught him about caring and that having a dolly was fine.

If people genuinely find it offensive then i wouldn't want to offend, but if they are saying it is offensive for the sake of being seen to be correct, that's wrong and undermines the real harms being done.

I'm finding it hard to believe that this is basically what I'm reading:

I HAVE A DOLL WOT IS A GROSSLY OFFENSIVE RACIST CARICATURE. I LOVE IT DESPITE KNOWING WHAT IT REPRESENTS. IT'S SOMETHING THAT I WISH TO KEEP IN MY HOME BECAUSE IT WAS THERE WHEN I WAS A CHILD BEFORE PC FORCED ME TO PRETEND THAT I CARE WHETHER IT IS RACIST OR NOT. TO ME IT IS AN INNOCENT REMINDER OF A SIMPLER TIME WHEN YOU COULD USE WORDS LIKE WOG WITHOUT DO GOODERS CLEARING THEIR THROATS AND TUTTING A BIT.

CURIOUSLY, IT'S THE ONLY TOY MY OLD NAN GAVE ME THAT SURVIVED THE FIRE, SEVERAL HOUSE MOVES, THE TEENAGE TOY PURGE AND OTHER EVENTS. IT'S OK IF I LEAVE IT HERE IN THE WINDOW, ISN'T IT? IT'S ONLY HERITAGE RACISM, LIKE AN OLD FUR. WHO MINDS THAT? I DIDN'T ENSLAVE ANYONE, THAT WAS ALL OVER BEFORE I WAS BORN. THIS IS JUST AN EMBLEM OF A KINDER TIME WHEN HIDEOUSLY ABUSED HUMAN BEINGS WERE ROUTINELY DEMEANED IN SEVERAL WAYS WHICH STILL AFFECT THEIR LIFE CHANCES TODAY.

I MEAN, I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT REPRESENTED A HUMAN BEING SO THAT SHOWS YOU. WHEN I LEARNED THAT IT DID, IT DIDN'T AFFECT HOW I FELT ABOUT OWNING THE DOLL AT ALL, SO OBVIOUSLY IT HAS NO RACIST MEANING FOR ME. AND AFTER ALL, ISN'T THAT WHAT DEFINES RACISM IN THE END? IF I DON'T THINK IT'S RACIST AND TAUNT PEOPLE IN THE STREET WITH IT, IT'S CLEARLY FINE.

DON'T ASK ME IF I CHOSE TO BUY ONE FOR MY CHILD. OF COURSE I DID. BUT I KNOW WELL THAT THAT WAS NOT A POPULAR ACTION AND WHY SO I WILL PRETEND TO LEAVE IT HANGING. WHAT'S IT TO YOU IF I BUY RACIST TOYS? ARE YOU THE LEFTIE POLICE? ANYWAY, IT WAS NOT DRESSED AS A MINSTRAL, IT WAS DRESSED IN PINK SO THERE.

Is there some kind of weird place where you all congregate and let each other know that the gollywog (sorry, thoroughly not racist re-branded golly) topic has arisen?

I wish people would state whether they are black or white or other before they comment otherwise it has no context in relation to the question the OP asked!

Also.. What is with this board's fascination with Gollies? I had never even heard of these stupid things before this. But every time a thread comes up on MN about them, there's tons of people insisting that a black caricature is not racist or "just a toy" in the same way segregation was "just making someone drink from a different fountain a few inches away", so what's the big deal?

Surely you guys with the Gollies must know that even if you didn't think the toys were racist, your parents knew and were racist shits, right? There's no way the adults didn't know what those toys meant. They knew and thought it was actually ok. Is that really something you can think fondly of knowing your parents actually looked down on another person solely because of skin color (and if they bought a golly, you bet your ass they did) to the extent of buying a toy for their child to ingrain more racism?

That's not something I'd remember fondly or keep around.

Remember something better about gran. Like her secret cookies recipe. Not her looking apathetically on as she heard about yet another black man getting lynched. That's not something I'd want to remember about my family by.

But then... that's just me. I'm not racist and neither was my family. We celebrated difference and because of that, we have no Nazi plates, Confederate flags, or Gollywog dolls.

Athrawes, that Kate Upton site does not have 'a white-skinned and ginger-haired version' ^under the name golly'!? And to say it 'taught your son about caring', as if any other (non-racist) doll could not have done that, is a pathetic justification.

As a (white) Australian, I am appalled that that website is Australian, too.

I had a gollywog when I was little (back in the 70's) and it was my favourite toy. I'm not that my parents (both white) were aware that was any racist malevolence attached it (neither were racist).

I'm not sure I would feel comfortable explaining or defending the toy if my ds had one today. So based on this, I don't think it should make a comeback.

OP, just out of interest why are you entertaining opinion polls by Britain first?

White person here .
Yes, gollies have racist conotations, why can't people just accept that and not buy them? I had one as a child (a hand knitted one) , we had very few toys and we did play with it, in the 1960's. We didn't know any better.
People do know better now.
Atyrawes My son wanted a doll, so I bought him a baby born doll that looked like a human being, not a caricature of one.

I'm white, late 30s, and I think they are very distasteful. I also owned, and loved, one as a kid - given to me by my neighbour. It was a particularly beautiful example of why they are offensive , a topsy-turvy doll with a black "mammy" doll with a golly's face at one end, and a beautifully dressed white southern belle at the other. No saying "oh, I didn't see it as a person", no denying that it was actively denigrating black people. Just thoroughly offensive. I was like 6, so I didn't understand. My mum, however, forbade me to take it out of the house lest people see, and tried to explain why it was offensive. I understood as I got older and it had vanished by the time I was about 10.

Just to add, when I had a golly as a child, we thought of it as a version of a teddy bear. We didn't realise it was originally meant to represent actual people in a cruel belittling way. We weren't allowed to read Enid Blyton in our house, so had no understanding of the story behind it.
Ignorance isn't really an excuse nowadays.

It's racist.

www.theguardian.com/media/2009/feb/06/bbc-race-golliwog Why they're offensive]]

Can't understand why this discussion is happening again. Fed up wit it. It's racist. That's all there is to it.