Racist Comments

[Madie]

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping that I can get some friendly advice on this sensitive subject area.

Over the weekend I had a birthday party fo my dd . I invited a few friends over who have pre-school kids. One of the kids (3yrs) went up to my sister and asked her quite clearly "why don't you go back to where you came from?". (My sis is asian). Both my dh, and sis' dh and another Mum heard this comment. The boy's Mum was not in the immediate area so of course didn't hear the comment.

Needless to say we are all pretty upset over this sort of comment as it is a phrase we haven't heard in a long time. Incidentally we are NOT blaming or condeming the little boy IN ANY WAY whatsoever - after all he is still a small child and totally unaware of the comment he made. However it saddens me to think that the little boy must have heard it from someone else in order to repeat it. I know that he could have picked it up from his pre-school group or whereever, but I also can't help thinking it may have come from his parents. His parents aren't particulary close to us but I don't know whether to just a) ignore the comments, b) ignore the parents or c)tell his mum in some way that won't either offend her or send her flying off the handle or d) something else.

Any comments on the matter are appreciated.

M

[SoupDragon]

I had a golly as a child and I never ever thought of it as a racist thing - it simply never occured to me. It was just a toy.

[Temples]

me too soupdragon.
In fact my golly was king of the toys!
A bit of early positive discrimination (combined with sexism?)

[Willow2]

When I was little we had Sacha dolls - they were really brilliant, you could get all sorts of races and you could also tell the boys from the girls (iykwim) which obviously made them a huge hit with my siblings and I.

[SueDonim]

I still have my golly. He was handknitted by my godmother and I just loved him. I still get a warm feeling when he reappears occasionally when I'm rooting about in the attic.

As an observation, I've been amazed at the interest shown in my dd since we've been living in Indonesia. She has reddish hair and fair skin and people constantly come up and pinch her cheeks because it good luck to touch white skin.

[jodee]

We had a Golly too, it was just another soft toy, along with the bunnies, teddies, etc.

My very first doll was named 'Bimbo' (by my Mum) - no comment!

[GillW]

It was only in August 2001, that Robertson's jam replaced the "Golly" character on their jar labels. I'm sure most of the children who collected the tokens from the labels for badges and figurines saw the golly character as a positive image.

[Tissy]

Willow2- do you still have your Sasha dolls? They're hugely collectable now, and probably worth a packet!
I have a baby girl Sasha with dark brown hair in almost perfect condition, and will probably have to prevent dd playing with it when she's older. My sister had the one with long blonde hair and cut it all off, aaargh!!

[Ems]

Tissy, I too had the long blonde haired one, and gave her hair a little cut, as I dreamed of being a hairdresser!

Again and again I asked Father Christmas for a Girls World and never got one!

I couldnt believe how expensive they have got, I was in London a year or so ago and thought I would buy 'Mary' a dress (currently naked upstairs, and has been for many years) and the price was about £35, then I saw all the other Marys in the cabinet, locked away, £££££!!

[Willow2]

Will have to get in to my mum's loft and see if they are still there - imagine they must be a ds currently plays with an old Fischer Price circus train of mine that she's kept all these years. Hooray - we are rich!

[Tortington]

me too rozzy! it depends when i hear it , if i am in a professional capacity at work, i just say - i find that offensive or unacceptable - which makes them feel quite small. but in personal scenarios i get all flusterd, i even had a women tell me i wasnt white enough once(or finished off as she put it) - but what really struck me was these comments came froma gay woman, who i thought would have experienced bigotry and hatred and i just expected more from her - we got to talking about graham norton ( i was very angry at this stage) and said well - is he finished off then - he is gay after all ( obviously wanting her opinion on how she felt she could say these things as a gay woman) she said quick at lightening - he is ultimatley finished off, becuase he has no more need to reproduce - he is at a higher stage of evolution - she was a lot bigger and nastier than i am ( which says a lot) or i would have punched her - but i was too scared!!

[SoupDragon]

Custardo, she sounds like one scarey woman. Spray her with aniseed oil!

[Tissy]

A 1968 Sasha doll is currently at £150 on Ebay!

[soothepoo]

What a tangled mess of bigotries that woman sounds, Custardo - why would she think that a gay man wouldn't want to reproduce?

[Tortington]

good point erm...wish i had thought of that

[Clarinet60]

custardo, that's a new one on me - not white enough, eh. I thought I'd heard them all. What did she mean?

[spacemonkey]

Speaking of dolls, I had a black Barbie-type doll called Domino in the early/mid seventies, does anyone else remember her??