Banning golliwogs?

[Dreamgal]

After watching a C4 programme on "PC gone mad" last night, I spotted a link to a Facebook video - see link below which gives 3 key reasons. Not sure how I feel about actually banning golliwogs (as that's censorship), but they do seem to bring out the worst in some factions of our society.

www.facebook.com/Gollytots/videos/1598189463544441

Are you really 32, StrawberryShortcake? You were wearing a gollywog jumper in 1990??????

I remember eating Arnotts Goliwog biscuits as a kid. While goliwogs are quite inappropriate i think they should still be allowed to be sold to give the PC brigade something to complain about.

"The PC brigade"

AKA "people with good manners"

Its just those sensitive black people again Bertrand.
How dare they find offense at white people depicting them grotesques of a real human beings.
God can't these people see that although white society has spent the best part of 400 hundred years oppressing them, this is just a plaything and its not just another item in a litany of items used to dehumanise them.

I turned 33 last month.
When did the gollywogs get banned? Was my family just oblivious to it? Lol
Yeah I was wearing it 1989/90

They haven't been banned. But I find it extraordinary that anyone would dress a child in a gollywog jumper in 1990!

It was knitted for me by my grandmother. Perhaps my mum didn't want to appear ungrateful.

Definitely gonna call my folks tonight and find out what the hell happened there

How are there people that still don't get this?! It's not a harmless toy, it's racist propaganda that should not be in production anymore. Nobody's calling 3 year old you or your lovely granny a racist, but it's 2017 now and we should be able to look back and realise how offensive they were. Why the fuck would you want one?

Would you be comfortable if your child brought home a black friend who asked you what it was?

Why are we talking about banning gollywogs when I haven't seen one since the 80s? Where are all these shops selling them?

I'd rather figured - or hoped - that there was no need to ban them because no one bought or sold them anymore. Am I wrong?

HeyRoly I took my mixed race son into a shop in Yorkshire on our holiday and they were selling them in there. Not sure if they still do after the stink I kicked up.

No golliwogs are definitely racist. No argument can convince me otherwise.

As a child in the 70s/80s I collected the little tokens off jam to have enough to get a golliwog. I didn't turn out racist. However as an adult I now know that they are racist stereotypes and wouldn't want one or want anyone in my family to have one.

I don't think it is PC gone mad to think that in today's world they should be thought of as inappropriate.

Why do some people find it necessary to mock people who are sensitive to other's feelings by trying to put them down with "PC brigade"? It just makes you look worse.

Dd is only 8 now but around 4/5 years ago Mil went on a trip to the Sandringham Estate and came back with a golly from the gift shop!
I could not believe it. I told Mil I didn't like them as imo they are grotesque and racist. She just couldn't see it

Yea must be PC brigade gone mad. Couldn't possibly be part of the word has been used in a derogatory way for over a century and not just in the UK. There is nothing nice about this word. There are certain words that were once used in a derogatory way and thankfully have been mainly stamped out. This one seems harder to stamp because of the dolls. Somehow some people cannot grasp that a doll can be seen to others as offensive.
The doll is a stereotype of what people thought black people looked liked over a century ago. Unlike other terms and products created, these are seemed as fine... They aren't. Unlike other things that were created these things are still available.

It isn't the colour of the doll that makes it offensive. It's the history. For those of you who are adamant that these dolls are innocent, cute, cuddly reminders of their childhood Lodi some research around the Slave trade, what slaves had to endure, why they were placed in ridiculous clothing, why they had large red smiles painted on their faces. Then come back and tell us why you insist these ghastly caricatures are simply innocent toys

I had a golliwog when I was a child (way back when!) loved it and never saw it as ugly compared with my white dolls. Don't put adult symbolism onto children by banning the make and sale of gollies. Children don't see any difference between black and white skin unless parents illustrate it.

I had loads of badges as a kid - my grandad used to save the tokens from Robinsons marmalade. I wouldn't have them now as I understand the connotations and would be surprised to see them anywhere now. I just thought they were a type of doll as they were always in Enid Blyton books.

Because that's what they are, (pretty shit) toys. Their origins may have been offensive but these days they are just crap toys. If these toys must be banned then most Japanese anime cartoons should be banned, their visual depictions are highly racist. Should KFC be banned because of the racist association with black Americans? (Rather than because it's shit.)

I had one, it never occurred to me that it might be a representation of a black person, it was just a different sort of doll, that I really liked as it was made of fabric and not plastic. I also never thought that "blue ted" made by my aunty from fur fabric was supposed to represent a bear either.

Sunshine
You can get plenty of dolls if you want a 'black baby doll'.

This isnt a 'black doll' its a characiture of what people thought a 'black' person looked like. Its the same as the black and white minstrel shows' 'blacked up faces' surely you can see that real people dont look like this?

When was the last time you saw a 'black' person with white rings around their eyes and bright red lips with sticky up hair?

Kids dont see it as ugly because they havent been told that they are, they are predisposed to like soft cuddly toys, but the fact remains that despite childhood memories in 2017 they are not acceptable.

Should they be banned? Probably not, OP. It's probably pointless. Racist people who want a golliwog will probably acquire one somehow. Racists are gonna racist.
What works better is if all reputable companies refuse to stock them, school and nurseries don't have them, ordinary decent human beings don't buy them for their kids or allow other people to give them as gifts, all of which is more or less what is happening.
We had a hand knitted 'golly' as a child (one of our very few toys), tbh we thought it was a black teddy. I didn't connect it to actual black people until I saw the b and w minstrel show. Then the penny dropped.
This thread is similar to the one about American Indian culture in girl guiding that was on here a couple of weeks ago. There's no excuse for this kind of ignorance nowadays. You can google anything and actually communicate with people from around the world.

I had one that my father brought back from Jamaica when I was little and I had a robinson's golly badge. DM disposed of both in pretty short order!

my grandma also used to make nignog biscuits

Some people just don't get it do they.
It's not OK is it to make a grotesque toy to represent a human being you have enslaved, beaten, raped and tortured for centuries can you not see it is just further dehumanisation?
Doesn't it strike as strange that the toy made to represent black people was not seen as resembling anything near a human being for the white children who played with them, what sort of message do you think that sends about black people?
What if we started to create dolls that were based on Jewish concentration camp inmates would that be ok as few child would realise what it meant and therefore it would just be a toy.

My BFF is black and has one of these dolls since childhood.

She sees them as a black clown doll- same as white clown dolls and clowns.

Shes never found them offensive and rascist.