Talking of Golliwogs.. . .. .

[WinkyWinkola]

I was a bit taken aback when I was looking for a dolly for my DD's birthday and I came across this:

{[https://ssl3.lon.gb.securedata.net/rosablue.com/dolls.htm It's the Mimi doll]]

I made an enquiry about the size of the lovely dolls on this site and also about the Mimi doll. I just felt it was a total caricature of the black slave especially when you can get her dress embroidered with Every Day is Wash Day .

The response to my enquiry was:

Mimi doubled as a student and our live-in nanny when we lived in Cape Town in the 80s.

She was very much part of the family when Penelope started to make her dolls. The whole family was still all living under the same roof then and each of us provided a name for at least one of her prototypes. Which is they all take their names after one of us.

Mimi liked the doll then and it while I understand the sensibility in Britain over the "golliwog" image, that is not what it means to us and we would be loathe to discontinue it.

Am I being over sensitive to find this doll offensive and not buy from the site as a result? Their other dolls are lovely.

o FAQ, are you really this out of touch with what happened. you need to do some reading. black people in apartheid south africa were forced into shit jobs serving white people, or they and their families would staff. Tales of them being hit, raped and even in some extreme cases KILLED by their white bosses are true, and the SA police at the time did fuck all about it as these people were 2nd class, barely human, so did not deserve police protection.

With that in mind can you see why a doll made in the image of a group of people who suffered so much as a direct result of the colour of their skin might be deemed pretty damn offensive>

"i think if something makes you feel uneasy, because it portrays a negative racial stereotype, you shouldn't buy it.
you should on principle not buy it. plenty of other black dolls out there".

Thats exactly it, 'uneasy'. why would a doll make you feel 'uneasy'.

Its just a doll. It does not come with a lenghty description of the history of apartheid so why associate the doll with it?

PSCMUM - I know what happened thank you - you don't need to lecture me. I don't need to do any reading when I've been there. I also know what it's like now for most domestic staff.

It's no more a racist stereotype than showing a Scotsman in a Kilt, a Bavarian in his Lederhosen or a Japanese in their Kimono IMO.

so only white dolls aloud then?

allowed i mean

I'm wondering why one of the mums at school dresses, in the summer, in the a similar style to that doll. She looks great and I really don't think she does it to look like a caricature of a racial stereotype.

thanks for the lovely personal insult.

And your direct experience of South/ern Africa is........

PSCMUM - it wasn't just the blacks that suffered under Apartheid ....

Apartheid was about in van Riebeeck's time...

Hmm now golliwogs are a CRUDE caraciture of a racist stereotype.

These are dolls roughly based on people the doll-maker knew in her family and friends.

It seems odd to me to say that the doll maker cannot create a doll in the image of her children's nanny, because that person was black and because that person served the family during aparteid. How should Mimi be remembered? Not at all? I would rather have a doll of Mimi than have Mimi obliterated from memory. Surely?

lmao@ FAQ..you really don't know what you are on about do you?...are you truly believe National Dress is the same????

Are you sure? - a racist stereotype? Or racial stereotype? I thought she was fab and scary. I'm not going to post anything else here, cos it's just getting OTT.

Momcentreplus, you are exactly right with your reference to Hattie Mcdaniels, but that was 196?- times have changed (or should be changing), it's about trying to stop this world from living in the past and moving on!

"which is based on a woman who was a white person's servant in apartheid South Africa."

yes because for most White South Africans the only regular contact they got with ANY black person was with their domestic staff - of course they're going to use their bl*dy domestic staff to base a doll on if that's the only blacks they really knew. Doesn't make them a racist - not all domestic staff were treated like sht

ITS COMMON FOR SOUTH AFRICAN WOMAN TO WEAR SUCH CLOTHES - even NOW!

Hello am I talking to the myself or are you just ignoring the bits you don't want to acknowledge????

Message withdrawn

Mumcentreplus. you are exactly right with your reference to Hattie Mcdaniels but that was 196? we have to move on. Racism is a part of history and that is where is should stay. Of course there is still a lot of rasism in the world and as I said earlier dialogue like this keeps it alive.

It is going to take a few generations to weed it out and we should all be doing our part to acknowledge acceptance of history with the determination not to repeat it.

Where did I say that your opinion was worth less than mine - I'm pleased to say that (AFAIK)I haven't stooped to throwing personal insults at people I disagree with.

I agree with morningpaper - I trust that this doll is in existance because of a genuine personal attachment to this lady - Mimi - and not out of a desire to perpetuate 'racist stereotypes'.
(Last one, I promise. morningpaper - don't hang around here chuck, come over to the village hall for a drink and a chinwag )

PSCMum I think you are being very unfair to FAW, who is trying to argue her point quite reasonably

Calling her a half-arsed moron is out of order and not adding much weight to the debate