Colleague sharing golliwog picture

[MissClareRemembers]

I have a colleague who has a habit of sharing Britain First type posts on Facebook. So far, so pretty unpleasant.

But today’s shared pic excelled itself: a picture of a golliwog coming through a door asking ‘’(Great Britain) can I come back in yet?’’

This is bad enough but the colleague in question works with young children and families of all races. She is FB friends with many of them.

At our latest Safeguarding training we were warned about sharing racist or offensive material on social media. This particular pic is mild compared to the type of material mentioned in our training, but still...

Is this a Safeguarding issue? Or am I way off the mark?

Offensive- yes. Safeguarding issue- probably not. Depends whether you want to get involved reporting this to management or not. I would be minded to unfriend her and leave it at that, but the choice is yours.

The original meaning of golliwog wasn't offensive however it's been corrupted into a racist image and being used in this fashion is racist so use the Facebook report button every time she does this 🤷‍♀️

Last night I saw a woman who I have had a lot of respect for sharing a 'truth about golliwigs' post All about the origins of the doll/word. We communicate over Facebook and so can't delete her, but I've hidden her posts.

She's wrong on two counts:

1.Facebook friends with parents/clients
2.Sharing racist imagery

Management need to have a word.

I think it should be reported, as if the person does have racist views and actions, then would they act differently if say a black person has a safeguarding issue?

Report to her seniors and then block. I'd have nothing to do with her other than a very clear lady rnsg as to why she is no longer my fb friend.

I would have thought that for someone who works in an educational setting it would be a disciplinary offence for both sharing this post on fb, and secondly being fb friends with service users.

However if she also has managers in the organisation as fb friends they will also be able to see this, and as such, should be policing . I would probably just unfriend.

You can’t report it to management, that’s a bit OTT. Especially if she may get into trouble at work. Wind your neck in OP, block her and if the managers are bothered then they will bollock her if they feel it’s necessary.

In fairness to the senior manager, they might not have seen it because of the way their FB timeline is arranged.

I have about 200 FB “friends” but only see regular updates from the 50 or so that I interact with the most, and that’s when I can be bothered to look at it.

So relying on the Senior Manager having seen it and deciding to police it might not work.

In my company we'd be expected to report something like this to a senior manager. It would be in contravention of our social media and equality and diversity policies.

The original meaning of the golliwog was always racist. Look up Enid Blyton's original description of the character.

OP your colleague sounds like a racist. Whether or not you have the jurisdiction to report her etc I have no idea as I do not know your company culture and structure. But be in no doubt that sharing such posts (and Britain First posts) is very racist.

My father in law used to do exactly the same: BF posts and golliwog images on Facebook. After my husband asked him several times, over the course of THREE years, to delete them and nothing changed, I ceased all communication with him. We are now VERY low contact.

For context: I am myself black so it really hurt.

For what it’s worth, I think it’s perfectly possible to have one view of people in private and still work with them on a professional level. I used to work with sex offenders. Did I privately feel ok about what they had done? Of course not. Did I do my job, act professsionally and treat them with respect? Yes
Yes, but you didn't professionally feel ok about what they had done either. This would be fundamental to your role, otherwise you would not be doing your job properly. That is completely different to treating someone with respect. It is also fundamental to most caring / education roles that staff exercise certain equality and diversity standards. This would be expected to be upheld (at least where I work) both at work and out of it.