How taboo are golliwogs these days? Anybody here have/had them?

In My Humble Opinion
41

That isn’t what I meant.

The golliwog has been used to make fun of black people in many instances. Whether it was originally created for that purpose is largely irrelevant. And, as you agree, it has caricatures of black features.

In my analogy, just add that the original creator meant the Jew boy to be a story of how “a horrid sight, the meanest-looking gnome” turns out to be a good and generous boy.
Nevertheless people use the doll, which contains several caricatures of Jews, to make fun of them. So now it’s acceptable, right? No-one should find it offensive?

42

Really unfair call. They were just never caricatured in media to anywhere near the extent that the African slave was. We never had a whole genre devoted to taking the piss out of them on stage and in movies. None of these things that relate to African American slaves really relate well to the Australian Aboriginal, they have more in common with the Native American and Inuit, both indigenous people who were dispossessed of land .

People do bother, the Aboriginals are still in the main a seriously disadvantaged people and there is a lot of programs to help that, but it’s only 50 years since they were recognised in the census and had the right to vote in federal elections formalised. Progress is coming, not as quickly as it could or should but it’s coming.

43

Probably it has occasionally been used to “make fun of” or otherwise denigrate black people, but, in my experience, it usually was not used or understood that way. For most kids who had golliwogs back in the day, they did not represent anything. They were just a traditional sort of cuddly toy. As I said above, it did not even cross my mind, back in the ‘50s, that my golliwog was even meant to represent a black person, much less mock black people, and I am sure that if it had crossed my parents’ minds that golliwogs were meant to mock or denigrate black people, they would not have allowed me to have one.

Of course, I fully understand, now, why a black person would find a golliwog offensive, and being, like everyone else, much more sensitized to the potential offensiveness of racial symbols than anyone was back then, I would certainly never give one to a child now (or own one and put it on display). However, the fact is that golliwogs really do not have much a history of being associated with racial hatred. They certainly have the potential to be used that way, and for people of today it may be hard to imagine that they would not be so used, but, in fact, for the most part they very rarely were.

44

I disagree. I have heard experiences like casdave’s reported by many people, too many for me to think it was rare.
Of course, not every child saw that particular meaning. I wouldn’t think or claim that they would. I watched the film Dumbo as a child and didn’t notice that the crows were meant to be black.

Nonetheless, the Jewboy analogy shows why it’s offensive, and why it’s not simply a matter of “overly selfrighteous doogooder types” (quoting ISilder).

45

A Golliwog also appears in Allan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; that was the first instance of one I’d ever seen, and at least to me, didn’t carry any connotations to blackface etc. But then I lack the historical context.

46

You could get Golliwog chocolate biscuits up until the early 1990’s here. I remember having them as a kid. IIRC there was a few people complain when they were renamed and then later withdrawn from sale.

47

I saw gollywogs for sale in a toy shop a few years back. There was an icepop called a Golly Bar when I was a kid. It had been called a Gollywog prior to that. It had a gollywog on the packaging. It was a slice of vanilla ice cream on a stick.

48

Anything can be abused - *the abuse *is the problem, not the object.

49

I think some of you need to see a few ‘good old English’ sitcoms and cringe a bit.

‘Till Death us do part’ actually did tackle race issues in a genuinely humorous way, but what about this?

For me it is not Chubby Browns word I find most offensive, its the audience reaction.

You’ve got to remember that racism as used in comedy was a very cheap way of getting a laugh at the expense of others.

Any black , Asian or - worst of all mixed race child growing up during the 1960-1980’s was pretty much subjected to a torrent of abuse, from downright overt through to mild social comment and for no other reason than it was just easy to do and had become an acceptable social practice. You got it from almost every direction, especially from the lowbrow media and newspapers.

Its that normality that is so offensive, the child given the gollywog - of course it was used later as a racist term, probably by the same child in later life - that’s just how deep it went, it wasn’t even seen as racist, unless of course you were black.

I would often be given the back handed compliment of being ‘You’re alright you’re not like all those other Pakkis’

Put simply, I find it offensive, and that should pretty much be enough for you - its that simple. If you have to justify it, then by implication, you know it is offensive - if I am in company with friends, I don’t find sweet words to justify offensive behaviours or comments, I just do not do it.

Golliwogs are offensive to me, it has a history of racial abuse behind it - that is my experience and of many others.

50

That is indeed interesting. Thanks for posting it.

51

I had a knitted Golliwog when I was a kid, it was very dark blue rather than black and I loved it. I had absolutely no idea it was a representation of a black man, but then no black people lived in our neighbourhood either so race-relations weren’t of primary concern in my childhood. Any kids that had them weren’t being groomed as racists though, we weren’t practicing lynchings with them, they were simply what some kids had instead of a teddy bear. I don’t believe my parents would have even realised the offence they might have caused - black people weren’t inferior, they just weren’t around, nor were they ever expected to be around!
(Black people lived in Brixton or Handsworth, everyone knew that! Were we planning to go to either of those inner-city areas? No, so what concern would it be of ours? Sounds stupid now, of course, but it’s always easy to laugh at the way we were back in the day…)

As for Robertson’s Golliwogs, I’d have loved to have some of those, but being piss-poor, we couldn’t afford to have pots of branded jam!

I never had Noddy books as a child, so never saw the Golliwogs in them, but I do remember a Golliwog in the Rupert stories, and to my mind he wasn’t a derogatory character. Once again, I didn’t even associate him with black people, he was simply a Golliwog. Even as the 70s progressed and the phrase “Wogs Out” was spray painted onto walls and phone boxes, it still didn’t click with me that a “wog” and a “golliwog” were meant to be one and the same. One word was offensive, the other wasn’t, simple as that.

I still think the Golliwog wasn’t meant to be offensive, it is simply a throwback (erm, so to speak) to the days when black people were all exotic folk from far-off lands. Exactly why those exotic folk weren’t at home instead of toiling on Tobacco plantations is another story…

The Golliwog today might become a bit of a naughty collector’s item, as a rebellious gesture against those who would have our children singing “Baa Baa Green sheep” (Yeah yeah, I know that example is a myth, but I mean the whole PC brigade). It’s a little less overtly racist than some Jim Crow stuff I’ve seen (though who in the UK knows the name Jim Crow? Not many)
Interestingly, my teenage nieces have no idea what a “wog” is, let alone that the phrase is offensive. They bought me a Golliwog a couple of years ago after my sister told them how much I loved mine as a child!

I nearly crashed the car laughing not so long back when I heard some stuffy old fart on Radio 4 recount the following tale. The reason it was so funny was because it was totally out of the blue and not what you’d expect from the Establishment. (No, I don’t believe a word of it either) :

Harold Wilson was in cabinet when the Foreign Secretary told him that Robert Mugabe was threatening to remove the Queen’s face from Rhodesian currency when he became the country’s leader.
Wilson replied, “Tell him if he does that, we’ll remove his face from our jam-jars…”

52

Oddly though i think i’m right in saying that The Major uses the term “Wog” to differentiate West indians from Indians. I think it went thus. On taking a lady to a cricket match.
“odd girl, she said she didnt want to watch the niers… i said no no no these are not niers these men are wogs!”

53

So what are you saying: that the “Jewboy” toy in my analogy would be OK?
If not, what is the difference?

54

Yes, because it had a wicked smile. It is personified overtly as being wicked, understandable and communicated immediately to every child and adult.

55

Hmm, or the things that are actually caricatures of black people. You know, the things that the creator acknowledged as being caricatures of black people.

56

Leo Bloom, sorry I misparsed your last post. I thought you were talking about the Golliwog’s smile.
WRT your point, let’s take the scowl away from the analogy then (arguably the golliwog’s expression is hardly flattering either, but I’m happy to simplify my point).

Revised analogy:
Jewboy is the story of a boy with an ugly face and comically oversized hooked nose, who is hated by everyone who sees him. However he turns out to be a good and generous boy.
For decades however the toy is used by many people to make fun of Jewish people. Also note “Jewboy” was an insult before I even launched my toy range.

So is it OK for shops to continue to stock Jewboys? Are the only people who want them banned “do-gooders”?

57

My parents came over from England in the early 1950’s. When my mother died a few years ago, her husband gave me a box of photos and other stuff she had kept. He (also British, but very left) said “I’m not sure this is politically correct, but it was with the other stuff”.

That’s how Mr. Golliwog ended up in my basement storage bins. My mother (I assume) hand made him from scrap material with black courdroy face, tails and waistcoat, buttons for eyes and yarn hair. The only disappointment was that on perusing old photos, it looks like Mr. Golliwog is actually my brother’s one, not the one I had.

So the question is not “is golliwog racist” but “are you racist?”. If you aren’t, then obviously you are not going to wave a golliwog around in public," haha Jamal, look what I have…". Like most historically obsolete depictions, it had its time and place and can be remembered but no need to make its presence prominent today.

It’s similar to the discussion about Shylock or Fagin. IMHO Shylock is actually a sympathetic character, and Shakespeare, oddly for the time, seems to explain a lot of his menacing behaviour - “you always taunted me and made fun of me, put me down because of my religion, now you come asking for money and you are stupid enough to offer your life as collateral.” Oddly sympathetic for the alleged racism of the time. (Note too a black suitor for Portia who gets no different treatment than the white suitors… “Mislike me not for my complexion…”)

As for Fagin - I think I was well out of high school before I read the full Oliver Twist and realized that Fagin was supposed to be Jewish. That bit was ommitted from the condensed and children’s versions in my recollection even back in the 1960’s.

58

Within the somewhat limited extent where your analogy is equivalent, I think perhaps it would.

59

By which I mean: analogies might not be useful here. Jews are not exactly equivalent to black people, the persecution and history of the two groups is not the same, even the terms ‘jewboy’ and ‘golliwog’ probably aren’t usefully equivalent.

IMO, the two important factors in racism (or suspected racism) are intent and outcome, thus:
An innocent intention that turns out to have horribly adverse effects should be curtailed
A malicious, but impotent intentio needs to be monitored, discouraged, possibly controlled
A malicious intention that causes harm needs to be stamped out, pronto.

As far as i can see, through my possibly rose-tinted spectacles, golliwogs fall into none of the above categories.

60

I’m glad you added to this, as it’s a meaningless response in itself.

Of course it’s not the same, it’s an analogy. It’s only supposed to be analogous.

If you feel the differences invalidate the analogy then fair enough; but you should say specifically why. Otherwise it boils down to: “This is just different, OK?”