To want rid of the gollys?

[SueBaroo]

Dh just got given a shedload of very old gollywog models by FIL, who is cleaning out his loft. Dh reckons there's quite some money involved if a collector wanted them, but I think they're vile, and I would just like to bin them.

AIBU?

It hasn't been banned because we live in a relatively free society where books are not banned because many peoeple associate book-banning with totalitarianism. We are also lucky enough to enjoy free speech, hence the continual existence of the BNP. Just because something is allowed to exist does not mean it is not highly offensive!

that is true NTT, I accept that.

I still think it's a lovely story

I am not keen on gollywogs, for the record, but just had to say that I have actually been asked to sing Baa Baa Little Sheep at a baby music group recently, 'because we don't want to offend anybody'. The banging of rattles was joined by the sound of jaws hitting the floor. I too had been convinced it was an urban myth so was highly amused. I wonder if these things start off as myths but are then picked up for real by well-meaning people?

here

i do think some people are getting a little too upset about the golly dolls though, at the end of the day, they are just toys, it doesn't matter what they are called, their purpose was not to perpetuate racism. Perhaps if we changed their name peopole would be happier?

I sometimes call my DS a skellum, in the same way you might call a child a rascal, does that mean I am perpetuating racism (it is an Affrikans word and used to be used as a derogatory term for black people in Africa). I think not. People are getting wound up here over nothing more than semantics here.

A story to that effect was published about our council and later retracted when found not to be true. I'm sure there are isolated cases, such as the one you link to, of people going OTT, but these are often blown out of proportion as a justification for the continued use of, what are to some, offensive terms.
I would NEVER accuse anyone of being a Daily Mail reader!

Overmydeadbody - language is a very powerful tool!

Yes language is a powerful tool, but so is mass hysteria

I abhor racism. The thing is I hate real racism, where people are hurt, abused and hounded for race, creed or colour. Not, as OMDB says, the semantics associated with it now.

I cannot see how any of these examples breed a race of racists. It was a different time - it doesn't negate the morals of the stories or mean it was wrong, just as Helen Bannerman and the inventor of the Golly were not trying to incite racism.

I was honestly never aware of the racist usage of the word Sambo until my twenties and only then because Mum was so upset that she couldn't read it to her class anymore.

hmmm...I guess that could explain things...to me that suggests that people 'don't want to offend' (good) but haven't taken the trouble to think through what might be offensive, and why (not so good, but maybe not their fault- maybe they need better training or support) Wisteria, the link posted earlier has a good discussion of little black sambo, which broadly aggrees that it's a good story, and probably wasn't intended by bannerman to be racist, but nevertheless is racist in it's effects....am off to watch Eastenders now!

yes you are being entirely unreasonable

I noticed the other day when watching Noddy with DS, that the golly was no longer there and that made me quite sad. I loved those characters in the book when growing up, they were as abstract to me as a rolly polly police man. They looked fun...
Political correctness has gone too far these days!

I had never understood why they were so offensive, but have just gone to wikipedia, is it because they were dolls of white people made up to look black?

looks that way

I do think that the most ethical thing the OP and her DH could do with possibly valuable antique toys is to sell them and give the profits to an anti-racist charity. Binning or burning them is a bit teenage and totally futile.

dittany are you saying that the gollys my dad has in his study that he's had all his life are somehow now causing offence to black people and that if he got rid of them it would somehow make things better?

Maybe we should also get rid of all the old family photos and other memorobilia from old generations of my Zimbabwean family that include pictures of the black staff too?

Getting rid of the evidence of racism in the past doesn't actually get rid of the racism you know, or make it all better.

Dittany, I do think a person is entitled to hold onto whatever possessions they want in their own home, if they are sentimentally attached to a childhood toy but not in any other way racist. I had a golliwog when I was a small child, and as I recall I didn't think of it as representing a person, I thought of it as more of another kind of teddy. IN adulthood I had a friend who told me that she had experienced golliwog-related abuse in her own childhood so, understanding the offence that can be caused I wouldn't buy one for DS (and my childhood toy is long gone to jumble or the bin - I have no idea because I was more into Barbies than teddies) - but if someone had a golliwog in childhood that was, perhaps, the last gift given them by a dying grandma or something, it would be a bit much to insist they got rid of it altogether.

When I was at college 2 years ago they had been informed by the government that they had to call the Blackboard or Whiteboard as a Teaching Board due to it being Racist to say Blackboard or Whiteboard.
Seems a bit OTT as neither any of my coloured friends or white friends was at all offended by it.

to my fmily they aren't racist memorabilia, just family memorabilia. I know the gollywog was created during a racist era, but thankfully during a racist era that is now largely non-existant. I just don't think getting rid of them all would help us move towards a less racist future to be honest, it doesn't actually get rid of the racist attitudes of some people, who are hopefully in the minority these days anyway.

Little Black Sambo was written in the 1890's and is about a very smart little Indian boy.

Bannerman wrote it as a simple story to entertain her children while she was living in India. It is a product of its time and is interesting in that context, and I do not think for one moment that she meant any harm with the book whatsoever.

What is unfortunate is what was done with the phrase Sambo 30 or 40 years after the book was published. It is a classic case of something lovely and innocent being taken by shit people and made into something bad.

I've still got a copy of the book and I have fond memories of it from childhood and it's a shame I can't read it to my son but I don't feel comfortable with it. It's sad.

I was given a (reprinted) copy of Little Black Sambo by a friend of my mother's for my children, and as I have said above, my MIL has just given DS a golly for his birthday but both of these things are packed away until I can dispose of them without offending the givers (ironic really).

I do understand what you are saying OMDB but I don't think I would like to have anything in my house that might be offensive to friends or visitors, or that might model to my kids a particular attitude to people from other ethnic backgrounds. There was a woman from Kenya who I met a church on Sunday - how can I invite her and her kids over for coffee next week and have toys and books like that hanging around?

I loathe racial stereotyping (even the Aussie culture thread is getting my back up) and I don't think you need to intend offense to give it.