I think the very first version of this story was in a book from Germany, published in 1885 under the name “Aus Kamerun. Ein Bilderbuch für kleine und große Kinder” (From Cameroon: A picturebook for little and big children)

I found a scanned version online:
http://www.cwallers.de/kamerun/thumb.html

The imagery hasn’t changed much in the new version from Iceland.
I can’t translate the Icelandic, but I can translate the verses from the original German, if anyone is interested.

I’ve noticed when Germans try to fight back and say “but wait! some of our children’s stories were that racists!”, they often point to one of the stories from a book called Struwwelpeter (the English translation is called “Sloveny Peter”, but it better translates to “unkempt Peter”…but he’s not the story I’m mentioning anyway…baaaack to topic…). The story is called “Die Geschichte vom schwarzen Buben” (The story of the black boy). Three white children come across this black child wandering along with his umbrella and begin to laugh at him and tease him for having such dark skin. St. Nikolaus then steps in and scolds them, saying “what can he do about being so black and not being as white as you?” Then, when the children don’t stop teasing the boy, St. Nikolaus picks them up and dunks them in black ink, thus making them blacker than the “Mohrenkind” (Moor child). Though people like to trumpet this as some “anti-racism” story from 1844 (oh! they were so ahead of their time!) – it is quite clear that black = bad. The boy can’t help it that he as born a “bad color”, so we shouldn’t make fun of him, but it’s still a “bad color”.

“Thanks for the link, an interesting article. I am not sure of the history behind the actual idea the writer had for making the book but I do know when it was reprinted for sale in 2007 it caused a stir in Iceland which has finally in the past years become much more aware of the issues regarding prejudice, racism etc. I think the isolation of the country played a large role in the past and although there are now people from all countries, races and cultures living here, I still remember only 25 years back that people actually would stop in the street and stare if they saw others with different coloured skin.”

Would you find that acceptable? If said company then offered an apology which it later retracted, then started business up again selling the exact same dubious doll, but made a half-assed attempt at creating another doll representing the white opponent, would you think that they had actually learned anything about why people found the caricature Maori doll inappropriate? Could you still call them “innocent” or “naive”?

A sock monkey doll is innocent only when it’s a monkey and only a monkey. When it’s to signify a black man, it is not innocent. Just as a doll of a little girl is just a doll of a little girl only when it’s not dressed up in “historically dubious” kit like your Maori doll.

And how can that be nostalgic? I would love to talk to the people that said it conjures up nostalgia for them. I want to ask them what type of nostalgia are they talking about.[/quote]

Well I have relatives in HK and I visit every two or three years. All I can say is that the fashion trends there (and most of Asia, for that matter) are pretty wild and I noticed a lot of the manufacturers and consumers would advance trends w/o any consciousness of what the labels and brands they were promoting represented. I take it that the fact that some youths don’t read English could be a factor.

Here are two pictures from my last trip to HK. I found a brand name store called “Marijuana.” And the second pic is of an anti-marijuana poster at a nightclub. I wondered if kids walked around freely with that clothing brand on. The gvt is very anti-drug over there.

http://photos-p.friendster.com/photos/14/03/5273041/20604736834832l.jpg

http://photos-p.friendster.com/photos/14/03/5273041/2065401158532l.jpg

“Who gets to decide that?”
The person that said it.

“what are people being nostalgic for…?”
The backwards ways of the past.

“That reminds me a little of the craze in Hong Kong a while back (I don’t know if it still is) of people wearing Nazi uniforms and swastikas and having Nazi-themed cafes.
And how can that be nostalgic?”
They aren’t necessarily nostalgic for Nazism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika To most of the Non-western world a swastika is a symbol of luck and/or religion. If acknowledging the misappropriation of it as a symbol of hate in Germany sixty years ago at all it’s in ridicule. A few years ago a swastika was on a Pokemon card, it had to be removed for the West because of the stigma people have allowed the ancient symbol to retain post WW2.

The key difference for me is that in the case of the sock monkey incident it was a particular type of toy, that is in and of itself racially neutral, being appropriated in what I still believe was an innocent (albeit naive) mistake, and a mistake that the manufacturers seemed to realise (particularly once they started offering a type of McCain monkey as well on another site). My point, which seems to have disappeared in the fracas, was that the toy itself was being drawn into a debate where I didn’t think it would have necessarily belonged under other circumstances, hence me terming it ‘innocent and misread’. In the case of the book and products above, the issue is the commodification of racist imagery that is, to my eye, being ‘sanitised’ by its removal from accurate historical context or, in the case of the mammy dolls and other such items (which I have seen marketed around the world), romanticised and turned into novelty. In the same way, I would never say that (for example) a sock monkey and a gollywog toy are the same thing – the two are fundamentally different – one is associated with race and difference from the outset, the other was appropriated and read in a way that it was never meant to be.

And how can that be nostalgic? I would love to talk to the people that said it conjures up nostalgia for them. I want to ask them what type of nostalgia are they talking about.

I found it really endearing, but I’m a massive fan of the toy and its cultural history. …
While on one hand it’s appalling to see the casual racism / sexism / classism that abounds in the media, in politics and in the manufacture of toys and novelties, it’s likewise kinda sad when something as innocent as this is completely misread and caught in the crossfire.