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.

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

no. as I said in my pp, I asked them what it meant and they didn't know. It was directed at me and I think it was one of my first experiences of being called a racist name, but it was delivered by a child with a smile - as so many of these things are! - and it was actually our white neighbour who explained the child had been rude to me.

for all they knew, it could have been a non-racist insult or just a strange thing a child said.

I'm explaining this so fully because i am getting tired of the attitude among some posters that Everyone Must Know Every Turn of Phrase About Everything or they must be a fool or a troll. It isn't the case.

I know that I personally can look at a golliwog and endure the existence of golliwogs in history without turning in to a huge fat steaming racist

I think you've bolted the door after the horses have gone tbh...

"I think you've bolted the door after the horses have gone tbh..."

This is civil defamation, possibly criminal. Reported to HQ.

The colour of my skin is irrelevant, and I won't allow my opinions to be viewed through the prism of race.

Because that doesn't sound ignorant or racist...

Well someone's got a very high opinion of their own importance

Cerseirys, that's right, it doesn't.

Good grief Lord you are being extraordinarily tedious and obtuse.

I'm really struggling to believe you mean a word of this.

"Good grief Lord you are being extraordinarily tedious and obtuse.

I'm really struggling to believe you mean a word of this."

Why can't you just accept someone else's opinion without becoming upset?

Do i sound upset?

You seem upset.

I doubt that. I've just come back to the thread and am already bored rigid. That's what 'tedious' means.

(Also a bit impressed witth a saintly PPs who've had the forbearance to stay with the thread and humour you for so long.)

I think she's probably bored.

Cross post fidel!

I didn't see your post before I wrote mine, cutter, but I can see why you thought it might have been aimed at you, but it wasn't. You talk about thinking progressing as we grow older and see and understanding more.

Let meedit this for you

My[white] sister [speaking for all black people everywhere] has a mixed race child and [is therefore the sole authority on topics relating to racism] she would dream of screaming racism if someone had a golliwog doll/magnet/cup [so because a white person is not offended by a grotesque caricature of a black person everywhere all black people who 'scream racism are just being oversensitive.]

This is civil defamation, possibly criminal. Reported to HQ

^^

Compo, that sounds like some seriously bizarre reasoning.

I had a golly in the 70s for a short time. I think a relative bought it for me. I presume it found its way into the bin, aided by my mother.

Omg. Please tell me you're not stopping at reporting to MNHQ. You should totally go to the police, if you think someone called you a racist on an internet forum. They have lots of time for things like this.

My black ex boyfriend had one for his daughter. I was pretty shocked. He reckoned that originally they were just dolls given to black children and white people took them and gave them a racist name and negative characteristics. He thought black peoples should reclaim them.

I've never heard that opinion from anyone else though so it's probably bollocks.

It's hilarious isn't it mouse and punt? When will people realise that the best way to avoid others saying they might be racist is by not saying racist things?

Though I'd best keep shtum, don't want Interpol to turn up on my doorstep!

Sorry cat the bulk of the text is the work of a previous poster who argued that because her sister who had a mixed race daughter wasn't offended by golliwogs no one should be. The square brackets are me filling in the unarticulated assumptions behind arguments of the - I met a black man once who wasn't offended by Bernard Manning therefrom he isn't racist - school.

Oh right.

So by that logic, I should be an authority on all things Welsh because my partner is Welsh.

I'm having trouble getting my rarebit just right Cat, if you wouldn't mind....

I haven't read the whole thread and cba figuring out if anyone is actually being racist or not, I'm just amused to see someone taking all this quite so seriously!