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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask any black posters how they feel about Gollywogs

252 replies

Bambambini · 18/10/2015 20:42

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.

OP posts:
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BrianCoxReborn · 19/10/2015 20:12

And that's not me patronising the poor black/gay/disabled people who stand beneath my pedestal (as I've seen suggested to others many times)

It's me wanting to know that my children and their peers may just be able to turn the bigoted idiots on their heads and abolish all the 'isms'. That we can coexist as human beings and not labelled as white/black/gay/wheelchair bound.

Or they can lead the way for my grandchildren and their contemporaries to do so.

I realise I'm living in cloud cuckoo land though. And that saddens me greatly.

LurcioAgain · 19/10/2015 20:23

Another 50 year old here ( white for the record) who can attest to the fact that as a child I knew that "wog" was a deeply offensive and racist term. And I'm not offended on someone else's behalf - if people behave like racist gobshites then I am quite happy to feel offended by their behaviour on my own behalf.

Amibambini · 19/10/2015 20:41

Senpai I think I love you.

FrankSpencer · 19/10/2015 21:11

Not too dissimilar from the Gollywog, is it?

To ask any black posters how they feel about Gollywogs
To ask any black posters how they feel about Gollywogs
To ask any black posters how they feel about Gollywogs
FrankSpencer · 19/10/2015 21:12

Plenty more of this out there if people bother or care to look.

To ask any black posters how they feel about Gollywogs
To ask any black posters how they feel about Gollywogs
To ask any black posters how they feel about Gollywogs
FrankSpencer · 19/10/2015 21:14

Here we go.

BrianCoxReborn · 19/10/2015 21:14

Eurgh .

Vile.

FrankSpencer · 19/10/2015 21:15

Believe me, I have at least ten more photos I intended to upload but MN won't allow it. Unfortunately.

FrankSpencer · 19/10/2015 21:15

Believe me, I have at least ten more photos I intended to upload but MN won't allow it. Unfortunately.

BrianCoxReborn · 19/10/2015 21:16

We're limited to how many posts we can do per 24 hours.

FrankSpencer · 19/10/2015 21:24

Yes I've realised that just now.
A search of the words Sambo, Coon, Pickaninny, Sleep and Eat, Wog - you name it, you can view this material for yourself. No matter what particular word you search, all pictures you view share a resemblance to the gollywog. In dress, in face, in colour, in fluffy looking hair. I'm feel fed up sometimes.

BertrandRussell · 19/10/2015 21:25

Can I recommend a documentary on iPlayer at the moment- Reginald D Hunter's Songs of the South. It's amazing. And anyone who still likes gollywogs after watching it is beyond redemption.

Dietcherrycola · 19/10/2015 21:29

Not sure, but I think it's offensive partly because of legacy - it was the Robinson's golly, from the jam, which was from the sugar, from slavery. It's a symbol of the dehumanising practice that it came from, therefore best left in the past? You don't have to be black to feel deeply sad about slavery.

Amibambini · 19/10/2015 21:34

I started reading this thread thinking with a building sense of 'gah, what's with all the really fucking ignorant people on mumsnet?!', but now I've shifted into 'phew, here are the smart, kind and funny ones, and fortunately there seems to be more of them'..

ReginaBlitz · 19/10/2015 21:36

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

TheIncomparableDejahThoris · 19/10/2015 21:37

In the nineties, Robertson's jam still did the tokens. Or had recently revived them. My grandmother brought some tokens round to help me start collecting.

Do you know what my mother did? She Put Her Foot Down and said no way!

Dawndonnaagain · 19/10/2015 21:40

Regina, you're talking shit. Call my daughter a spaz and you'd been in trouble, she can call herself one though. Please take your racist attitude: The only time I've ever used the word wog used was towards Indian people. and shove it where the sun don't shine. Oh, and don't even think about starting on the Western Oriental Gentleman nonsense. You're obviously on a wind up mission.

merrymouse · 19/10/2015 21:40

Biscuit Regina

abbieanders · 19/10/2015 21:43

I'll never really understand the effort the likes of Regina go to to make themselves look obtuse, poorly informed and unable to reason.

merrymouse · 19/10/2015 21:44

Reginablitz

merrymouse · 19/10/2015 21:47

oops, weird double post, but without the non complimentary biscuit.

Garrick · 19/10/2015 23:03

I did mean to tell you how I enjoyed your capitalised rant last night, abbieanders, if you're still here! Star

ReginaBlitz · 19/10/2015 23:16

Oh Ffs! Why do people take things so seriously? My dad is black as the ace of spades he would laugh if I called him a golliwog stop being so politically correct, patronising and offended on our behalf we don't give a shit!! And I'm on no wind up. And as for the Biscuit Oh right ok aren't you imaginative!!. I don't care my black family, black friends don't care so why can't people get over it! I said the same on the other "oh I daren't do this they are black " thread as well.

ReginaBlitz · 19/10/2015 23:19

Actually I'm dieting so you can shove the Biscuitup your arse! Or I'll see if he wants it..

To ask any black posters how they feel about Gollywogs
ReginaBlitz · 19/10/2015 23:26

Oh and my other post meant the only time I had heard the word wog used was towards an Indian person in the 80s when I was a child, not that I had used it towards An Indian person. I am not a bloody racist.