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Original poster

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

370 replies

InigoTaran · 19/08/2017 00:05

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...?

OP posts:
IgnoreMeEveryOtherReindeerDoes · 19/08/2017 11:25

He's not my partner he's a twat! But nothing like a thread to bring out the ones sitting on high moral chair that don't give a shit who makes their clothes or how their diamonds are sourced

FreyaJade · 19/08/2017 11:27

I don't have any diamonds

gotspoiler · 19/08/2017 11:28

I don't have any diamonds

But your clothes are made in a sweatshop. Just think about that next time you want to cry racism over a toy

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 19/08/2017 11:31

Bertrand and MrsDustyBusty your heads must be throbbing from all those brick walls you are hitting.

I'm intrigued by some of the time lines on here. I was born in 1959 in rural Scotland and other than the Robertson's jam golly I don't recall ever seeing an actual golly, yet apparently they were everywhere.

They are such an ugly toy- even if one were wholly ignorant of the history and the significance there were and are so many much nicer toys available.

rhodanunn · 19/08/2017 11:34

And yes the inequalities that affect classes of people in the world just so happened to pop up into existence without any relation to anything else.

Those blood diamonds do happen to be from any countries that used to be British colonies were they? Not like black minstrelsy and buffonery in Britain occurred during times during wavering support for Empire in positioning black people as farcical and inferior and that needed to be rationalised by white superiority.

The moral chair is really not that high, you are able to have a seat on it as well, and to all the other chairs at all the other tables as well.

GahBuggerit · 19/08/2017 11:34

Of course yabu to think that, I've got one from my grandma that I treasure because it was hers and it has a lot of sentimental value in that respect, it has absolutely no other meaning to me apart from lovely memories of my dear grandma and there is absolutely no way I'd ever get rid of it. It's not as if I have it on a shelf on display though tbf

MrsDustyBusty · 19/08/2017 11:39

Yeah, Lasswade, I'll confess I'm really dismayed by the attitudes. I mean, in this week when the oaf in office feels free to describe actual neo nazis as fine people, you'd think there'd be more reflection on the toxic, bigoted attitudes the have and the history of the symbols that sustain them. But apparently not. The racists just feel emboldened right now and sadly, the views that normal people thought had been eradicated are creeping up again.

Who would have thought that in 2017 people would be glorifying racist emblems? I'm pretty horrified, in truth. Things that, even five years ago, people would have been ashamed to say in public are suddenly popping up everywhere with a new belligerence. I don't know where this will lead.

ReturnOfTheCaramac · 19/08/2017 11:40

gotspoiler Wow. Do you have shares in gollywog sales or something?

Someone's told us how the racist associations with gollywogs have affected members of their family and you accuse them of "crying racism".

Says it all really.

LondonMrsA · 19/08/2017 11:42

My Gollywog was my lovely Ragdoll. That's all.

NataliaOsipova · 19/08/2017 11:43

Hopefully to lighten the mood.....

I had a much loved golly (saved marmalade tokens from the jars) as a child. My mum, in her infinite wisdom still mired in about 1967, bought one for my DD a few years ago. I went ballistic. You can imagine the conversation that ensued - "don't you know you they can cause serious offence these days?", "but you loved yours, it's just a teddy". And so on. Unfortunately, she'd actually given it to my small DD, who was very attached to her new present, so it seemed mean to snatch it away from a little tot and consign it to the bin in front of her as, to her, it was just a new toy. When she lost interest, it was shoved at the bottom of the toy basket and then was completely forgotten about.....

.....until the day, about two years later, when the very nice black Sky TV engineer came out to fix our TV. My DD had been napping and playing up in her room...obviously turning out her old toys. She completely randomly appeared in the sitting room, clutching this bloody golly bought by my mum. I was absolutely bloody mortified. Real "earth swallow me up" moment. Luckily, the very nice Sky man appeared to find the whole episode very funny (I sincerely hope he did!), but the bloody thing was consigned to the bin shortly after.....

Mupflup · 19/08/2017 11:48

I had one as a kid (early 70s), there is a picture of me somewhere where I'm cuddling it. It wasn't until I was an adult I had any idea what they were supposed to represent. No idea what happened to it, but it wouldn't be something I would want to keep now.

There is a house in our street that has one prominently on display in an upstairs window for passers by to see....every time I walk past I wonder what that's about!

rhodanunn · 19/08/2017 11:49

Mudflup, they are showing everyone who passes by how much they love jam.

BertrandRussell · 19/08/2017 11:52

"But your clothes are made in a sweatshop. Just think about that next time you want to cry racism over a toy"
Insofar as it's possible to ensure it, mine aren't. I don't wander the streets of the townships with baskets of sandwiches for the ooor black people though, I do admit that.

FreyaJade · 19/08/2017 11:53

Don't accuse me of crying racism, my sister was abused at school for a number of years. I think that's now a criminal offence?

My cousin's husband has been physically assaulted for being black.

FreyaJade · 19/08/2017 11:54

It suddenly seems ok go all the secret racists to crawl out of the woodwork, why is that?

Lockheart · 19/08/2017 11:55

I think I might have mine in a box in the attic somewhere. I'm not sure to be honest.

My reluctance to go through the boxes and throw it out is not a matter of racism but rather a matter of not having the time or inclination to dig through the whole attic to see if it is in fact there. Plus spiders.

GreenShadow · 19/08/2017 11:55

Completely agree with all the anti-golly posters BUT...

I also had one as a child in the 60s. It was lovingly made by my grandmother and given to all her grandchildren, as were teddies she also made.
I however, had a special attraction to it as it had curly hair like me whereas most of my other dolls had straight hair. Not excusing anything about them, but they had a special place in my heart.

FreyaJade · 19/08/2017 11:57

Strange that my mum is 68 she never had a golly, & has understood the racist connection for years.

Perhaps because she was called black mans bitch once too often.

FreyaJade · 19/08/2017 12:04

Anyway I'm going to have a shower after my lazy lie in, I'll leave this thread before my head explodes

gotspoiler · 19/08/2017 12:05

So we are racist because we didn't throw away any golliwog merchandise? Or are we racist because we disagree with you?

CecilyP · 19/08/2017 12:07

Well not every child had every toy that ever existed, but they really were very common in the 1950s. Generally hand knitted from various sales of work.It really doesn't signify any particular virtue on your mum's part that nobody gave her one as a gift.

gotspoiler · 19/08/2017 12:14

I'm still confused as to why golliwogs are not okay but anything by Disney is absolutely fine

NataliaOsipova · 19/08/2017 12:20

It's a bit like the swastika, I think. That was a pretty commonly used religious symbol that was appropriated by the Nazis. As a result, it has come to represent something else. It may not be what it means to you personally, but it's a bit dense not to take on board the fact that, to others, it has a different - and very offensive - meaning.

LogicalPsycho · 19/08/2017 12:22

I'm still confused as to why golliwogs are not okay but anything by Disney is absolutely fine

Me too. And why Winston Churchill is consistently voted as "Our Greatest Briton", when he wrote a book on the 'scourge of society' being Islam. I guess everyone who has respect for Churchill is an Islamophobe?

Also, Martin Luther King was strongly opposed to gay marriage. Perhaps his statue in the USA will be the next to be pulled down by activists?

TwitterQueen1 · 19/08/2017 12:26

A couple of years ago I bought a gollywog from a black woman at the school fete. She was (wo)manning a stall selling them in aid of a school in Kenya.

She didn't find it offensive and neither did I. My DD however, has hidden it in her room, never to see the light of day.