Jack Golly

pmsl @ 5 a day – brings me back to sherbert mountains – shushhhhhh ‘cos Kenty’s in! Best suck ’em quickly (nawtie minds are working already!) :lol:

@kent f OBE wrote:

Poli…..

Ok maybe I misunderstood what you were trying to say but I am more confused with your further explanation….no problem though…we all have our opinions …. myself included, I often feel passionate about things I feel I know about and have experienced..
and it’s well documented I should have been born a blonde :lol:

I have to stress though…the word gollywog is offensive because of the word wog….Like Panda i was called it to belittle me, to make it known I am different therefore not accepted, the word is stuck on the end of golly which is a black rag doll…there is no getting away from the word being offensive….and while you say most of us here grew up with gollywogs and didn’t think they were offensive I disagree…..I was at school with people my own age who also grew up with gollywog…many used the word in its derogitory form and even now as adults…people of similar ages to me have quite happily use the word ….that’s my opinion and my explanation to validate my opinion

I think there were very good reasons for the golliwog falling out of fashion and the use of the whole word or part of it for racial abuse was one of them. That is not political correctness gone mad – it is proper regard for other people.

Golliwogs have been making a comeback in recent years because people are coming to terms with more subtle differences, and trying to separate the doll from the insult.

The golliwog as a doll only has a negative connotation if you allow it to have. This is just like the St George’s Cross and the Union Flag, which a few years ago had become the symbol of the BNP and the far right. For a while, the most people flying and wearing the English flag in any numbers were doing it to celebrate their racism (I know a few other brave souls did too, before you all post and tell me you had an English flag).

Recently people have reclaimed their flags from the BNP and other such groups, and quite right too. We can now fly flags again without people thinking we are racist by doing it, but that is only because people made a conscious effort.

The rehabilitation of the golliwog is the same. There may be no need to vilify the doll itself, but let’s face it, the words gollywog and wog have been mixed up in some serious racist sh*t over the years. It may be a bit old fashioned as an insult, but it still exists.

Bringing the doll back is a great, but let’s not pretend that Robertson’s jam getting rid of it was political correctness gone mad. They were only trying to sell the most jam they could, and a mascot connected with a racist slur, was frankly a bit of a liability.

As I said in a previous post I had a black girlfriend who had had a golly since childhood, loved it and didn’t think it was racist, so I aint dissing the doll.

Let’s just say the poor wee thing has been mixed up in some unpleasantness beyond it’s control.