to ask what the issue is with golliwogs

[TheoriginalLEM]

not a goady thread. i know they are racist and idiots from Britain first are posting pictures on Facebook. I just wondered what the history is?

i remember them from the 70s and i remember feeling uncomfortable with them then.

I always thought the reason they were considered offensive was because of the name....which clearly is offensive....but if the doll itself is perceived as an insult by black people then it probably is.

In some ways I think it's a shame because it's just a child's rag doll - all rag dolls are caricatures of people whether white or black....they're not meant to look like the real thing.

The dolls were not/are just perceived as an insult but were designed to be an insult.

Every few months there's a golliwog post on here. Its so weird.

MN has a search function. Stick the word golliwog in there (like you haven't already) and wallow in the numerous threads to your heart's content. Should keep you going for a few months...

Its embarassing and naff the subject is raised so often by people trying to stir, and pretending innocence. Can you imagine a school where every few months a various children insisted on asking teacher what a golliwog is? No doubt people would think that was an odd school. Same thing applies here...weird.

This reminds me of that scene in The Office, when Brent refers to the time "before racism was bad"...

The dolls were not/are just perceived as an insult but were designed to be an insult

IMO the original character of Gollywog wasn't designed to be an insult....he was the hero of the stories.

my parents are from the '50s 60s, The gollywog doll was smiley happy doll and then a jam manufacturers took over the image, nothing neg just a cuddly toy- shortened to Golly.
my aunts in their 70s have black toy dolls, just dolls
and my great aunt was brought up in India with a house full of servants and she owns lots of Sasha dolls that remind her of her friends ( not servants, but friends that meant am awful lot to her)
i personally think that a lot of the 'names' were affectionate way of us British lowering our stiff lip and welcoming them into our lives. but the odd awful racist scum pop up everywhere and cause discontent and upset everywhere.

Ladybird you are wrong.

Several posters have said something along the lines of "but I remember the nice Jam Gollys from my childhood and they weren't offensive then"

They were offensive, it was just that British society as a whole found racism, both casual and overt, socially acceptable.

They weren't the only racism advertising image of the time, Scottish MNers might be aware of Ba-Bru a similarly offensive representation of a black person which advertised Irn Bru in a comic strip and other marketing from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Society was different, that it was acceptable in our childhoods doesn't justify minimising it now.

After all, look at Operation Ewetree and others. Investigating activities that were accepted 40 years ago which horrify us now.

Golliwoga were part of many people's childhoods. So was sexism, homophobia and driving home drunk from the pub.

We can accept that they were part of our cultural history without romanticising them.

iggi I accept I was wrong but my family didn't believe it to be offensive honestly. they'll be distraught to find the were being offensive. we live and learn.

In my childhood i can tell you i never associated gollliwogs with black people!

I still dont. Golliwogs were just what they were. No negative connatations at all.
They are what they are. If others want to associate negativity to them then feel free in my eyes they are still the lovely people i wanted to collect to add to my doll collection (which had white dolls, scary clown dolls, animal dolls, cabbage patch dolls, etc... I loved all my toys!! I even had a patchwork doll im waiting for someone to assign a label to liking that too... patchworkism....
Im not being flippant btw, it just seems that not everyone sees any connotations when they are little even though people like to attribute them there...

Ludoole of course as a child you didn't associate Golliwogs with any negative connotations. You were a child.

But you aren't a child now. As an adult you expected to apply some critical thinking.

Quiet I dont see why i should apply critical thinking as an adult, ive been an adult for 21 years and i still see golliwogs as a toy! I can assure you i have black, white, mixed race friends and i would never associate any of them with a 'golliwog'!!
Tbf i can see where you are coming from but not everyone sees things as you do...
A golliwog in my eyes is still a toy as is a teddy bear!

I loved my golly. We dont all automatically take an offensive side...

Ludoole

You do appreciate that this is not a minority view? That most people regard Golliwogs as unacceptable these days?

You enjoyed your toys as a child - fine.

You have a sentimental attachment to those specific (and hopefully not on display) toys as an adult - fine.

But as an adult to refuse to recognise that the vast majority of the population consider these toys unfortunate relics of our Colonial past which are now accepted as racist.

The features are deliberately exaggerated. The originally Golliwog toys had paws Instead of hands and feet.

As a test - go ask all your black friends and colleagues how they feel about Golliwogs.

Funny enough 4 of my black friends still have golly toys too!!! A few more had them when they were younger.
As you say gollys had paws!!! I've never seen any person with paws!!
Please dont pass judgement on me. We obviously have different thoughts and friends. Doesnt make your any more correct than me!

My view may not be politically correct to you but i cant be politically correct about jumping jacks either as they have no legs
or am i also disabilist too??

I thought Id have a quick thread search, since Im up now. This is the 108th golliwog thread. Black people didn't have golliwogs as toys back in the day, nor do they now, and I've never come across white people with them as toys either. But according to the "me n mah black friends" section of MN and the "wide eyed innocent "ohhhh Im white never knew they were offensive" crew, golliwogs are/were common. As ever there are more common sense than dumb on here thankfully but, I think for some there needs to be a pursual of therapy for golliwog obsession. 108 threads! & not even far apart. You couldn't make it up..

"Bertrand, cross referencing to that thread about feminism, your answer here is a classic example of why I shy away from asking when I don't understand something.

Honestly, if I were five years younger I would not be able to make nor tail or your answer, and I know the OP mentioned the 70s but it is possible to live life without hearing absolutely every piece of language that applies to everything. I'm not white and I haven't heard many of the terms that some people find racist, I learn new ones all the time."

Lorelei- you would have to have lived under a stone in the UK not to be aware that there was a ....debate.. about gollywogs. And there are always people who do the wide eyed "oh, but they are just lovely dollies- all my imaginary black friends just adore them" It's not a complicated issue that needs careful debate and explanation and balancing of nuanced opinion.

Bertrand, I'll ask my folks. I'm willing to bet they haven't the foggiest that this debate exists. I think one reason they didn't know the term wog was that they had so many racist slurs levelled at them, after a while you tune it out and just get on with your life.

Rest assured, they don't live under a stone.

Well, my mother told me why gollywogs were offensive sometime in the late 60s when I wanted to send off for one of the badges. So it's not new!

Presumably your folks knew that "wog" was a racial slur, though?

I used to have a golliwog doll in the sixties. I didn't know that it was supposed to represent a human being. I thought it was some sort of animal or fantastical creature, like my teddy or nightdress case animal.

I also remember the black and white minstrels on tv and they were the creepiest things ever.

I was shocked when I was at primary school to hear some of my classmates calling others 'wog' as you could tell it was meant to be insulting. It was just awful to hear anyone being singled out for the colour of their skin.

It took a while before I associated the word with my toy at home

I always enjoy the stage where someone pops up to say THEY HAD GOLLYWOGS WHEN I WAS A CHILD AND I DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THEM BEING GROTESQUE PARODIES OF BLACK PEOPLE AT FIVE SO WHY IS PC TRYING TO FORCE ME TO CARE NOW? I THINK MAKING ME LOOK AT SOMETHING FROM BLACK PEOPLE'S POINT OF VIEW IS RACIST AGAINST THICK, INSENSITIVE PEOPLE WHO ARE DEFINITELY NOT RACIST BUT JUST HAVE AN INEXPLICABLE AFFECTION FOR RACIST CARICATURE.

I saw some home made golly dolls for sale at a Christmas market in 2015. I was a bit

Who cares anymore? They're a thing of the past now aren't they?