To assume someone who has a gollywog from childhood is racist?

[InigoTaran]

Me and my partner are currently having a discussion about this and he wants to know whether it's true that black people associate gollywogs with racism...?

AndI remember a couple of years ago being quite shocked to see an array of newly knitted golliwogs for sale in a second hand bookshop here. The owners were elderly & the golliwogs probably came about through an association with Noddy books, but I was still surprised to see how blatantly unaware the owners must have been about current social mores.

Ooops - so to answer your thread title... no as I don't believe I am a racist.

To answer your OP, I would imagine so as it has awful connitations that as a small child I was utterly oblivious to. I saw my toy, I would imagine a black person saw something totally different.

is this Thread meant for only Black Posters OP ? your Question by design would appear so...

It's not been a while since we had another of these gollywog threads.
Can't wait for the insights.

It could be that OP has been in someone's house and seen It, doesn't mean it was being flaunted. perhaps she opened a cupboard and discovered a secret golliwog

One theory of the origin of the name “Golliwogg” says that while British soldiers held Egypt in the second half of the 19th century they had Egyptian laborers that worked for them. Workers wore insignia W.O.G.S. on their armbands which meant “Working on Government Service”. British troops spoke of them as “ghouls” - which is an Arabic word for a desert ghost. Egyptian children played with black dolls which they would sometimes give to British soldiers or they would buy dolls from children. The dolls were later called “Ghuliwogs” and later “Golliwogg”. Also they where never created to be racist they where originally created for children's stories by Florence Kate Upton in 1894.

Gollywogs are racist, this doesn't stop me thinking back to my childhood with fond memories of mine.
I would like a key ring or fridge magnet for these memories as I loved my golly.
It would be so wrong now that we are aware what they stood for.

I have a collection of golliwog ornaments from the Robinson's jam campaign...I must be racist then, even though my children are mixed-race.

I have a collection of NatWest pigs...that makes me a fat shamer then.

I have a collection of 1970's smurfs...that makes me an oxygen deprivation fetishist then...

Images and objects are just racist/ sexist/ disablist if we make them so...surely this is reading into things a bit too much. Racism is a real problem in society, golliwogs are 'at best' a historical representation of oppression (which we are need to be aware of as part of equality education)...but for average people, they are just cute dolls devoid of a political agenda.

whoops

meant to say I'm not racist but owning a golly wouldn't make you racist, but certainly insensitive.

I like them. Had one as a child. Don't think they're racist in themselves but obviously know this is a thing. Saw some for sale in a shop a couple of weeks ago if you want one..

My Aunt (who spent her entire life in the Salvation Army) knitted me Golly Toys and jumpers. I don't know where the toy is now but I haven't thrown him out.

You can assume what the Hell you like about me OP . What I did when I was 9 does not influence what I do now in my 50s

As a mumsnetter for years op

Bloody yawn yawn yawn

This almost same thread comes up year after year.

Move on chick

If your smurfs don't have a yellow dot on the foot, they have lead paint in them.

I had one when I was very young in the early 1960's. It was called "Goggy" (I was too little to even be able to say the word 'golliwog') and, like someone else mentions above, I never associated it with black people at all. It never occurred to me, and I would have been far too young to understand any negative connotations. It was just a much-loved and adored cuddly knitted toy.
A golliwog is not something I bought for my own dc's though - times and attitudes have changed.

I don't consider them to be racist, I look at them as toys, and don't associate them with humans

My brother used to build airfix ww2 models he had more German ones than British, didn't make him a Nazi

Thanks for all your replies! My partner has one in his bedroom and I hate it. He's adamant it's not racist but I feel v uncomfortable with it. He's 52 so of a generation when, as a lot of you have stated, it was more acceptable. ( ish ). Personally, I want him to throw it out, but that's not going to happen. He's not racist but totally unaware of white privilege, which we've been having a heated debate about...

I'm older than him. I didn't have a golly. I'm not sure if this is because even back then my mother made the connection or simply because there were so many other much nicer looking toys to choose.

I'd run a mile from a partner of any age who kept a golly on display and insisted it wasn't racist.

I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping a much loved childhood toy. OTOH, he should know and acknowledge the racism behind the gollywog caricature.

As a pp said, don't flaunt your gollywog!

Times change I was born in the 70,s we used to collect the Robertson jam pins I never had a golly wog but I remember them I can see now they are innaproriate but I never associated it with anything other than a toy.

Oh, I just remembered that after the Brexit vote I saw a meme being shared by a couple of people which was a gollywog entering a room from behind a door with a caption along the lines of "Am I allowed back in now". So clearly very racist and I couldn't figure out whether the sharer was totally racist, totally thick or (as I suspect) both.

Any one with Hitler memorabilia can keep if it was sentimental and it does not mean anything because they were given it. You can't be racist.
How does that work?
Similar mentality here with soft toy.

Every time I see this come up on Mumsnet it seems such a lot of nonsense. Too many people not understanding what racism means and falling over themselves in their eagerness to signal their virtues.

Wait a minute, so because we understand that it's racist now we should pretend they never existed and anyone who has them is wrong? The same as anyone who has old Enid Blighton books or in fact most of the period books? Surely it's accepted that this was a reflection of the time and how different things were and not something to be hidden away or pretended didn't exist but discussed and embraced as history.

I'm white. My other half is black. He bought one he found at a car boot sale (for our mixed race child) we are obviously not racist. I get why people would be offended. but my partner thinks it's silly. I gotta say though I drew the line at taking it out with my little one (he looks very white so can imagibe what people would think)

Wouldn't take it out with my child on my own I mean lol.if my other half was there maybe I would but thankfully my little one hasnt ever wanted to