Whilst shopping at the dulwich fair on goose green today... (Lounged)

[Huguenot]

Gollyhonky

[maxxi]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> Gollyhonky

>

> http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/file.php?5

> ,file=26148

Or a golliwog suffering achromatosis... Stay out of the sun Golly! (will he be played by Paul Bettany in the story of his life?)

[speedbird]

I heart Gollyhonky

[malleymoo]

I hate to get involved in this one but the original poster is correct- they were on a stall. The stall was on left hand side if facing the playground and they were selling other "vintage" style ( is made to look vintage rather than original items). I can not say if they were on sale or just being used as props as I didn't look too closely

[dully]

StraferJack Wrote:

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> not sure you know what paranoid means - but just

> for clarity Jeremy posted the following

>

> "dully Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > No I'm not black

>

> That's not what you said a couple of months ago:

>

> dully Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Me as a black youth went to university as did

> all

> > the other black youths in my year at school.

> "

>

> so is dully a liar or not?

I'm not a liar. I didn't say I was white either. I'm an of mixed heritage which includes malay, spanish, irish, english, dutch and bajan. When I was a teenager if you weren't white you were seen as black but as an adult I take time to consider all my makers including my white family. I This is not a troll post but rather a serious question. I get that people round these parts are quite ignorant in regards to black culture and think that gollywogs and lynch mobs are a joking matter but these are quite seriously offensive things to black people and are not taken lightly. I appreciate that perhaps you don't find a black person depicted as a slave offensive but perhaps gollyhonky should get a whip and some shackles so so the non white folk can have a big laugh about how english folk used to travel the globe and capture people to keep as pets and use for hard labour. Hilarious. I'm not a troll and don't think such things are funny or worth discussing for amusement. Granted it has now been established that there is a collective of daily mail writers living among you so I'm not expecting anything amazing but there is clearly a need for discussion and education on racial matters around here because you lot come up with some serious BS sometimes.

[Bunny19]

Oooo mrs Patterson..............

[Moos]

Bunny19 Wrote:

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> Oooo mrs Patterson..............

out of order imo

[KidKruger]

Dully I think you're trying to pick an argument somehow, anyhow.

If you're of mixed race or any race or white you don't have more knowledge than anybody else just by virtue of that.

It's churlish to imply that you do.

There's no-one here in favour of slavery or anything like it, dig as deep as you might you won't find it IMO.

It's easy to imply people are racist (which is what you're doing, and you are insulting people by doing so) but there is zero evidence.

I don't believe you.

I had a golliwog until I was 10 or so, it was only recently, as an adult, that I even realised there was allegedly any connection with folks of African descent. It never played 'the slave' to my white action men on a meccano gallows, the thought is ridiculous and, as somebody has outlined earlier, out of context.

*Rushes off to quickly patent the term 'Gollyhonky' *

[Alex K]

"Malay, Spanish, Irish, English, Dutch, and Bajan" -- whoa! That's a proper tangle of allegiances and no mistake!

Almost any argument, any issue: Some ancestor will have been on the wrong side.

Here's to Britain 2100 / Brazil 2000 and coffee-coloured people by the score, when none of this will matter any more.

[dully]

People have called me a liar. Things (and people) in life are not always so black and white. I was merely offering explanation.

I'm not after any kind of argument but rather a reasonable discussion. I was curious to know what the consensus is on such subjects. As the topic is racial in nature I understand that people will subvert the focus away from the topic and come up with special and random defense. It is possible to keep it a discussion.

A ten year old is at the mercy of his parents choices and not what I'm discussing Kruger - the point is why are people still trying to sell golliwogs when they are something to be embarrassed about and forgotten. When discussed with various black persons the consensus is unanimous - this is some offensive nastiness that does not need to be happening at all. In this instance in particular does not need to come with a matching mug and plate set. If you want to side step colour then when I saw nazi memorabilia being sold at last years dulwich fair on an antiques stall I thought that was quite dodgy too.

This photo is from the stall. She was selling girly bedroom stuff.

[katie1997]

I have to say that was my first instinct when I read the OP.

Dully - you posted on here to have a discussion about it yet you don't appear to have answered the question that someone else asked

If so, what was the response? And out of interest, if you didn't (and as you say, you found what they were selling offensive), why not?

I don't think ethnic background comes into it either (eg as to whether you can find them offensive or not) but can see that your previous posts have been shown to be somewhat misleading hence why others doubted the validity of your claim in the OP.

Btw, I don't doubt that you did see these items on sale - I have recently returned from somewhere where there were lots of 'vintage-style' shops selling them (not condoning it, just saying that it seems plausible that a fair with similar type crafts and 'vintage-style' items would have them too).

[katie1997]

I think I just cross-posted with yours Dully. And yes, it is possible to keep it as a discussion!

[Goodliz]

I honestly cannot understand how someone would think it is OK to be selling gollywogs in this day and age. I cannot get my head round how someone could put all their stuff that they are selling together and think to put those things on there is OK.

I would have thought every adult would know that gollywogs are now seen a racist symbols. It just seems crazy and thoughtless.

[bawdy-nan]

!!!

This "vintage" thing is getting out hand.

Now, when grown women started getting gooey over "cup-cakes" and reinvented domestic servitude as a badge of honour and getting your tits out for the lads "empowering" as long as it is done in a vintage corset and with a knowing wink, I rolled my eyes and snarked. But this is utterly ridiculous.

There's all kinds of "vintage" bullshit we're better off without from the early part of the twentieth century. Things like, oh, y'know, inaccessible health-care, education and welfare; free-range sex and race discrimination; deference; lack of equal pay; blah blah blah blah blah.

Union-jack bunting with pinked edges, fake Cath Kidston cake tins, and a teary eyed big-society wistfulness doesn't even exist in chidlren's stories anymore. Even the arch-duchess of "vintage", Enid Blyton, was making it up and conducting a symphony of mis-remembered nostalgia.

[lina]

hm.. does it REALLY matter what's dully's ethnic background ( or anyones -please dont miss the point) is? When one will stop pigeonholing nonsense?!

[redjam]

There are lots of ways to instill racism in a child - you could use racist language, make racist comments in front of them, or actively avoid people who don't share your skin colour. Buying a kid a golly (which after all, is presumably meant to be loved by the child), doesn't seem that bad in the scheme of things. I wouldn't buy it myself, mind, but I wouldn't assume there was a racist motive behind anyone who did.

Kids play with lots of things that aren't politically correct. I'm not very keen on toy guns or Barbies either. But I don't think they should be banned.

[rankinroger]

Golliwogs are offensive period. However, if you went to the same school as Carol Thatcher or move in the same circles as her then you would find that golliwogs were an item of empowerment or some darkies nickname!

Let's be honest Golliwog normally gets shortened to wog and wog is not really a term of endearment now is it?

For all those people that think a golliwog is not offensive:

1) buy one;

2) find a black person;

2) give black person doll;

3) close your eyes.

Dully in future I think you should post about complete and utter mundane topics e.g. losing your none existent cat or how your iPhone 67 does not synch with your iPad 72 or how your local coffee bar has run out of organic coffee again or how your neighbour's children have nits and your pet mystic rabbit senses something wrong.

[lina]

I couldn't agree more rankinroger!

[gordie]

I was at the fair and saw no Western Oriental Gentlemen for sale - golly being something of a ghoul - followed by the first of the latter three capital letters - nothing to do with slavery as I recall - having lived in and worked within many different cultures = made up by a children's writer Enid Blyton to add fright to her readers

[bawdy-nan]

gordie, might I suggest a session with professor google?

[Penguin68]

Just to put one point to bed - the gollywog character created, as I have said earlier, in 1895, was thus created after the US emancipation of slaves - it thus did not necessarily characterise a slave, although possibly a former slave, now free. It showed a 'jolly' interpretation of an afro-american dressed in a popular entertainment costume and was probably beneficent in intent - even though actually in our minds hideously condescending and 'stereotyping'. Enid Blyton's later hijacking of the character was more malign (though possibly not intentionally racist - the linkages with actual black people were less obvious to a British than to an American eye) - popular sentiment anyway had those characters in her Toytown stories later substituted by goblins - the only non-toys in that universe, I believe. I suspect Blyton, looking for possible rogues in her stories chose the gollywog toy because it was black (a colour, long before racism, associated with wickedness because the colour of night) - not because it represented a 'real' black person. However, we cannot rule out at the very least unconscious racism in her choice (although Mr Golly was the original garage owner in the books, not an evil character). If you have a universe of toys - how do you chose the rogues from that, particularly if they have to be able to do things like drive cars (which takes snakes off the agenda - another archetype for evil).

I also dimly recall that the wearing of a Robinson's 'Golly' broach took an an entirely subversive (nothing to do with racism) character - in the '60s I think, at least in popular myth.

[LadyDeliah]

I'm totally stunned that anyone would think that selling a doll with connotations of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and brutally, barbaric slavery could think this is ok when the decendants if those acts of genocide are living amongst you.

I am depressed by the whining, justification given by the White middle/privileged class as they again stick their size 10's into the victims of oppression from their comfortable life positions in the name of irony.

You make me sick.

[Penguin68]

Surely if you are looking, in your universe, for a doll to love with connotations of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and brutally, barbaric slavery you would chose a white one - not one which, in your view, represents the victims of all these things?

[LadyDeliah]

Why would the victors choose to own a pet version of themselves?

[Penguin68]

Why would they chose to love a pet version of their victims? - Or do you believe the dolls were bought so they could be hated? And out of interest - how many little white girls don't get bought little white dolls - do little black girls not have little black dolls (not gollywogs, of course, because of current sensibilities).