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

[Tarot]

The toy is now called a Golly,due to the other name being offensive.

I think Tobester star has a point,there distant ancestors were slaves for the Arabs,to build pyramids etc long long

before any europeans arrived.

The slavers are still in operation in arab states today,and behind closed doors here.

All our ancetors had terrible lives servitude and poverty humiliation and empty wasted lives,jewish people had the

most persecution and atrosities done to them in written history.

Yet they dont crow how hard done by they are.

[Horsebox]

Oh do fu*k off, Tarot.

You're an incredibly predictable boring troll.

[Jhoana]

...

[peterstorm1985]

Tarot Wrote:

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> The toy is now called a Golly,due to the other

> name being offensive.

>

The first sensible thing Tarot has said.

If I go down to Peckham and shout "Golly, gosh it's hot here today" will I survive or not? It's not what words you use, but when.

[LadyDeliah]

The European slave trade took slavery to a totally different level than slavery had ever been before. Millions of healthy young men and women, the living future of African countries, were herded into slave ships and packed in like pieces of meat. A third of this human cargo usually died before the floating dungeons made it to the Americas. Once in the Americas the survivors were further brutalised to stop them from rebelling and this lasted hundreds of years. It also, coincidently powered Europes financial domination of the world at the expense of the African countries whose healthy population of men and women were massively depleted.

The winners in the slave trade then are still the winners today and the losers then continue to be the disadvantaged today. How can you not see that selling something that represents this disgusting part of our past under the noses of the decendants of our forfather's victims, no matter how you try to neutralise it, will cause offence?

These issues are not just part of our combined histories, the effects of the slave trade and also colonisation are still very much in evidence today.

[mynamehere]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

over 29 million slaves today in the world

have a look

rather than discuss an at best tasteless doll and a vendor who probably would like to disappear, rather than discuss which countries have made efforts to atone for their historic crimes and the far more numerous others which have made no effort at all

let's discuss modern slavery today and sex trafficing and crimes against children and other vulnerable people; what countries today abuse their citizens and take their neighbours as slaves and do not value, educate and safeguard their children

let's be modern and include animal abuses and ecological abuse because it is all on the same continuum and it all stems from human arrogance which is geometrically more tolerated in some countries today than in others

[Huggers]

how about the porn, from that found on every newsagents top shelf to the stuff freely available on the internet, which condones and profits from the slavery and trafficking of women, black and white, yet which is accepted in our stride? I don't think we'd even manage to get a consensus that that is wrong, so acceptable has it become!

Dully was right to object to golly- but history should make us vigilant about our present and future, while remembering the past.

I imagine the stall seller was ignorant and is now moritified rather than racist. Now she will probably have a think about it.

But Wouldnt it be great if we as consumers used that same integrity, put back our newspapers and sweets and said ' i dont want to buy this stuff from you till you stop propogating the sexual exploitation of women.'

[Willard]

binary_star Wrote:

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> You're officially over your white guilt???

>

White guilt? What's that? Is it different to other types and colours of guilt?

[binary_star]

Willard Wrote:

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>

> White guilt? What's that? Is it different to other

> types and colours of guilt?

White guilt

[Saffron]

dully Wrote:

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> 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.

So you portray your ethnic background however it suits you at the time?

>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.

Speak for yourself. Plenty of sensitive, erudite people round here. And yes, 'white' people (ie, 'non-black' people; whatever that means...) are also offended by racism.

>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.

It isn't just English or 'white' people who did this.

[Tobester999]

Why is a white doll just a toy, but a black one a pet?

[binary_star]

Tobester999 Wrote:

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> Why is a white doll just a toy, but a black one a

> pet?

A black doll is not a pet. There are plenty of black dolls on the market that don't play up to racial stereotypes. But carry on telling people what they're allowed to be offended by...

[binary_star]

Read a bit about the Gollywog's origins and changing symbolism here, here or if it's more palatable for you, in the Daily Mail.

Now if you still think people have no right to take offence you don't have ignorance to defend you any more.

[ianr]

The Adventure of Two Dutch Dolls and a 'Golliwogg' by Bertha Upton. The actual text is only 1,800 words. The HTML download includes all the pictures - total ~ 3.4MB.

[LadyDeliah]

Thanks binary_star, your links were informative.

[Shaggy]

That was brilliant! How did you do that?

binary_star Wrote:

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> Willard Wrote:

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

> -----

>

> >

> > White guilt? What's that? Is it different to

> other

> > types and colours of guilt?

>

> White guilt

[Willard]

binary_star Wrote:

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> You're officially over your white guilt???

>

Yes thanks Binary-Star, your links are informative.

It seems the link you led me to is largely critical of the concept of "white", or as I prefer to call it, collective guilt. That was actually refreshing because I have never subscribed to the idea.

Judith Katz, the author of White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-Racism Training, is highly critical of what she calls self-indulgent white guilt fixations. Her concerns about white guilt led her to move from black-white group encounters to all-white groups in her anti-racism training. She also avoided using non-white people to reeducate whites, she said, because she found that this led whites to focus on getting acceptance and forgiveness rather than changing their own actions or beliefs.

Commentator Sunny Hundal, writing for The Guardian, states that it is "reductionist" to assign political opinions to a collective guilt such as "white guilt" and that few people on the left actually hold the views being ascribed to them by the conservative writers who expound on the concept of "white guilt" and its implications.[8] Hundal concludes:

Not much annoys me more than the stereotype that to be liberal is to be full of guilt. To be socially liberal, in my view, is to be more mindful of compassion and empathy for others.

You might be surprised to know that I don't hold Germans born post 1930 responsible for the holocaust, or expect them to feel guilt over events that occurred whilst they were children or not even born. Likewise I don't hold Rwandan Hutus or Burundian Tutsis responsible for the genocides that occurred in their respective countries, when they weren't even alive. I certainly don't expect them to embrace the concept of "black" guilt, if there is such a phrase. I certainly hope not.

The slave trade is a stain on the history of Europe. Everyone in this country is taught that in schools and 99.9% of people would recognise it as such, that is what is important. However, don?t be surprised if people don?t feel guilty about it and by the same token, don?t assume that means they are blas? about the siginficance of it.

[LadyDeliah]

Guilt is aa very negative emotion and people who suffer feelings of guilt can over-compensate to try to get rid of the unpleasant feelings associated with guilt.

That is what I feel the reinvetion of the gollywog is partly about.

I am white and I don't feel guilty about the European slave trade as I did not participate in it, but I am aware of the suffering caused by it, both then and now and why certain flippant over-compensatory actions by white Europeans/Americans can cause offence.

[binary_star]

I didn't read the link Willard, I just Googled it for you, which you could have done yourself. I'm familiar with white guilt as a concept, but can't say I subscribe to it myself either - it was in response to Tobester999's post to "get over it". Actually re-reading the post I clearly misread it the first time around. I thought he/she was "over" the slave trade but it appears he/she wase talking about the Roman invasion. I don't think the two are comparable, but that's another argument which has no bearing on the fact that Golliwogs are inherently racist. If they were created as a harmless (or not so) children's illustration, over time, for whatver reason the racial stereotype has been clearly causing offense. In fact the Golliwog in Upton's story was based on a racist caricature itself - the minstrel, so even if there was no malicious intent, the racial stereotyping there was always....err racist. If people are offended by that I'm not going to tell them to "get over" it.

Oh and shaggy if you go to http://lmgtfy.com/ and type in the search term you're after, it will give you a link that will "Google That For You".

[Damian H]

Whoever feels guilty about what, I think that one of the things that many people find offensive is the way it is portrayed that slavery was a one way street with innocent black people (good) and evil whites (bad). Let's just look at a pretty clear example of how all races have engaged in slavery in the past.

Ever hear of the Barbary pirates? Perhaps you might all like to read the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_corsairs#Barbary_slaves

Basically North African pirates spent centuries raiding Europe to capture booty and (mainly white) slaves to take back to Africa. The Wikipaedia article cites a number of around one and a quarter million European slaves hoiked off to Africa by black slave traders in a 250 year period.

STrange that this isn't mentioned much when people talk about the evils of slavery and attempt to portray it as a collective white offence against black culture! The Barbary pirates pre-dated European and American slavery. The latter slave trade certainly operated on a much larger scale but I suspect that was simply due to advances in maritime sophistication and capacity, rather than any greater moral evil.

It should also be borne in mind that the efforts to abolish the slave trade by the likes of Wilberforce almost exclusively came from the moral conscience of white Europeans.

As a white European myself I find it offensive that the suffering of European slaves is airbrushed out of history and a perception of slavery is advanced that it is something wicked white folk did to innocent blacks for which we should continue to wring our hands and flaggelate ourselves about. Although I find it offensive, however, it is not something that I am inclined to spend too much time lamenting as I have a life to lead in the here and now.

Slavery is abominable. ALL RACES have engaged in it. No-one race's hands are clean. Let's remember that.

[Willard]

binary_star Wrote:

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> I didn't read the link Willard, I just Googled it

> for you, which you could have done yourself.

No sh*t Sherlock!

> Golliwogs are inherently racist.

Yes we know that, stop preaching to the choir. This is the East Dulwich Forum, not the East Dagenham Forum.

[binary_star]

Willard Wrote:

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> binary_star Wrote:

> > Golliwogs are inherently racist.

>

> Yes we know that, stop preaching to the choir.

> This is the East Dulwich Forum, not the East

> Dagenham Forum.

If that were true, "we" wouldn't have generated such a long thread would we? Quite a few people on here don't accept that Golliwogs are racist, KidKruger for one - after I posted "everyone knows it's racist", their response was "clearly not". If "we" all know it's racist, all the comments would have been along the lines of "Oh goodness, why are we allowing dolls of racist caricatures to be sold at the East Dulwich Fair? I mean, this isn't the East Dagenham Fair after all!" (I'm still not sure what the Dagenham reference was all about, are they known for their racism or something?)

Yours,

Holmes.

[binary_star]

binary_star Wrote:

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I'm still not sure what the Dagenham reference was all about, are

> they known for their racism or something?)

I'll save you the trouble Willard

[KidKruger]

I don't accept that golliwogs are manufactured for racist reasons, purchased for racist reasons and played with adored by children for racist reasons. You may be able to argue a level of insensitivity to a point for manufacture and sales but that's about it, for me. Same goes for white caricatured dolls/toys sold in countries populated by black societies, I would not regard those either as cocking a snoot to the days when Europeans were stolen from their countries and forced to slavery and death as a result of it.

I think everyone's said what they believe and now it's got (as things typically do) to an I'm right and your wrong loop, no-one's saying oh yeah i didn't think of that thanks for pointing it out so it's Stalematesville, Tennessee.

Interesting points raised though.

[mockney piers]

I'm not sure golliwogs can be racist, they are inanimate after all, but that's just the language pedant in me talking.

As for the woman on the stall, from what I can read she immediately refunded, looked ashamed and contrite, so the worst that can be said of her, as I infer it, is that she was naive and thoughtless.

Classic storm in a teacup, move along people, nothing to see here.

Oh and I have a very good book on the history of slavery if anyone wants to read it (rather giving the lie to the idea that European slavery by Barbary pirates has been 'airbrushed' from history).

Ooh, and whilst I'm in full pedant mode, imperial Rome had something like 5 million slaves at any time for about 500 odd years (or about 90 odd generations), it doesn't take too much imagination to realise that this makes even the height of the transatlantic trade small by comparison (proportionally at any rate).

And if we're really worried about it there's so much to be done today with hundreds of thousands in real slavery and tens of millions in effective slavery in the world. Not shopping at primark and realising that 'too good a dedal' is almost certainly true, ooh and stop buying fucking coke, is all a pretty good start.