Ethnic cleansing of the Golliwog!

Who remembers the Golliwog? I'd almost forgotten about him until I saw a bit about him just now on a show called "Britain's Favourite Toys". There was a piece about politically incorrect toys and the Golliwog was number one...hardly surprising really.

I was aware that they were banned due to being politically incorrect, but I had no idea until now just how strong the campaign to ban them was or why.

Even in seemingly harmless Enid Blyton books, Golliwogs were the baddies, talking with "very nasty" voices, trapping people and scaring them with their black faces etc. Golliwogs were always the "naughty" toys in children's make believe play and they were also a figure of fun in cartoons.

As such, black people were called "Golliwogs" and eventually a fierce campaign started in Camden, London to have the Golliwog banned - and it was. And so started the ethnic cleansing...

Gone was Golliwog dolls from toy shops, gone was he from the side of Robertsons jam jars and gone were they from Enid Blyton books - the pictures of them were actually airbrushed out and replaced with Goblins!

Politically correctness gone mad or perfectly justified action?

http://www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/golliwog.htm

 

They look cute to me, I don't see the problem.

 

Hhmm I dont like that. All I see is a kids toy. It is like somebody said about the new king kong movie, they see some racist bit in it, all I see is a cool movie 8)
Racism exists and is bad yes but sometimes it is spoken about when really there is not any racism to do with what is being discussed.

 

When I look at it, all I see is a toy too, but how these characters have been depicted as "bad" to young children, doesn't present these children with a very good image.

Part of me thinks that children are not all that complicated and would view the toy and just a toy, not looking any deeper than that. But another part of me thinks that children could be subconsciously learning that dark is bad etc.

I remember seeing a Golliwog on a car boot sale as a child, but my mother wouldn't buy it for me. I wasn't all that young to need dolls, but I though it was cute so wanted it anyway. I can't remember my mother's explanation for not buying it, but it did puzzle me me - why could a doll be offensive?!

 

Thats a pic-a-ninney (sp). Can't say I like it.

 

A what?!

 

I dont know how they could be ethnic cleansing, they are a doll not people, but I wonder if whites would think dolls are cute if the representation of whites were of a KKK doll with hoods, a whip , a rebel flag, or maybe a trailer trash doll or a nazi doll

 

Iffy's wifey...ask Ifeanyi how he feels about the golliwog. Hopefully he'll be in the know.

If not..."I go slap de guy myself!" Hah!
Unless he has loads of garri.

 

I think those are already being made somewhere on the Internet. Everytime you try to look up info on the South, most of what you'll find a bunch of confederate/nazi contraband and memorabilia left and right.

 

He's more of a fufu man actually! But you try to slap him, he'll probably ask if "You dey chop bottle?"!

 

I see you are doing "shakara" on behalf of your man...anyway "nothing spoil". I go just leave una alone.

But I need garri o

 

I know Sardonic and I hate that. I love my Southern home, as do many blacks--there is a new black professional movement to go back to the south, as the racism has come full force to the north and people miss the graciousness and warmth of the sout.

it is sad that we still have to put up with pickaninny dolls and be assaulted by people who support that kind of offensive representation of black people and slavery and at the same time see racial intimidation with the likes of confederate and old south things.

 

They did actually show a Nazi doll and few white war lord dolls, but even then they're not demonised like the golliwogs are. I can see both sides really - a doll is just a doll, but equally why is the black doll the bad, same as the black sheep in the family and a black mood etc.

 

Because of the superstitions about the color black.

 

i know you are not american, and perhaps slavery in britian and the british isles didnt affect your black people like it did us, but a doll here is not just a doll.

pickninny dolls here represent a racist past, a legacy of oppression and racial hostility that is still very much present in American culture. maybe not to a white person, but a black slave or minstrel doll is very offensive to black people and very degrading to black and biracial children.

 

You raise quite a vaild point.

 

I'm always shocked when I go to France and shops will openly display advertising posters depicting stereotypical 'pickaninny' children (drawn to look like golliwogs) and golliwog dolls - it is little wonder that the country is a seething hotbed of racial tension.

 

They have the same in Holland too, there's a department store with it's own range of children's things (clothes, books etc) and they have those same type of black children on them.

When I said "a doll is a doll", I didn't mean that as such, but more that a doll is a just a doll to a child who knows nothing of racism etc. After all, children don't design the dolls, they just play with them. It's the adults who should know better that put them into production.

 

You also raise a valid point.

 

children of color in the US are educated very early on racism and the effect that it has on their lives. Native American, Hispanic, Asian and Black children know that they are treated differently at an early age by shop keepers, teachers, policemen, and people in the streets. from an early age also whites are teaching their children that black men are something to be scared of or that the stereotypes of black men as shuffling, lazy, theives, rapists, drug dealers, maids, second class workers, or dancing entertainers is very much still alive in many places in our country.

Here in the US, although IR couples are becoming more prevalent, still single race couples make up 90% and parents are not rushing out to have their daughters marry a black man with happiness and joy for the white family

dolls in this country are used to build self esteem of little children of color, so we try to make positive images of black and brown and red and yellow children as well as the white majority. the pickninny doll is a negative representative of slave children who were considered the happy darkies, who joyfully picked cotton and happy that the master took them out of Africa, to give them a new life as a work animal for the white plantation owner.

no, in America we are aware of racial politics at an early age and know very well what these dolls represent. no, self respecting black person would ever give their child a doll like that and no respectful, educated and sensitve white person would glorify it here.