{"id":13332,"date":"2011-11-05T12:21:21","date_gmt":"2011-11-05T17:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=13332"},"modified":"2012-01-08T15:12:33","modified_gmt":"2012-01-08T20:12:33","slug":"golliwog-bank-selling-new-versions-of-old-racist-dolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/11\/05\/golliwog-bank-selling-new-versions-of-old-racist-dolls\/","title":{"rendered":"Golliwogs: New Versions of Old Racist Dolls (Trigger Warning)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a re-post in response to a new submission by\u00a0vmlojw.<\/em><\/p>\n

—————————<\/p>\n

Toban B. sent us this photo he took in Cardiff, Wales, of Golliwog\u00a0banks:<\/p>\n

\"3793292190_e2d3d187a2\"<\/p>\n

While the sign indicates these particular ones were for display only, Toban says there were others clearly for sale.<\/p>\n

The golliwog (also spelled golliwogg) is an old racist caricature, clearly similar to blackface minstrel-type or mammy figures in the U.S. It emerged in the 1800s but was popularized when James Robertson and Sons <\/a>adopted a golliwog named Golly\u00a0as the logo for their jam around 1910:<\/p>\n

\"untitled\"<\/p>\n

Now, obviously you’ll often find these types of things for sale in antique stores, or on display at museums. They were very common in the U.S., Britain, and I’m sure many other countries, so it’s not surprising you’d come upon them.<\/p>\n

The thing about the golliwogs Toban saw, though, is that they don’t appear to be antiques. The same ones can be found on ebay, and here’s the box they come in, which looks quite new (as do the dolls themselves):<\/p>\n

\"299116571_tp\"<\/p>\n

The ebay listing for that one<\/a> lists it as “brand new,” though theoretically that could refer to an antique that had never been taken out of the box, I suppose. But the listing doesn’t say anything about it being an antique. And Toban says,<\/p>\n

…the items on the table around them — at Cardiff Market — generally weren’t antiques.\u00a0 Since there were newly mass produced tourist\/nationalism industry products around them, people passing by generally wouldn’t view the Golliwogg dolls as antiques.\u00a0 The dolls weren’t somehow distinguished from the newer products.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

vmlojw, who is in Sydney, Australia,\u00a0emailed in to tell us that her 1-year-old daughter received one as a gift and she later “found a local charity stall full of knitted golliwogs.” \u00a0vmlojw figured this couldn’t happen in North America; I’m not so sure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s one thing to find antique racist caricatures for sale. I\u00a0still don’t know why you’d want to buy one, but I can certainly see why they’d be appropriate for museum displays. But I\u00a0find it both bizarre and disturbing when new versions of such things are produced and put on sale as a “cutesy” souvenir. Do people think we’re so “post-racial” now that these are completely disconnected from their origins in a racist culture that viewed non-Whites as less human, less intelligent, and less civilized? Why would someone think this is an adorable reminder of their time in Cardiff? I really don’t get it.<\/p>\n

Also see: vintage Jezebel products<\/a>, mammy souvenirs for sale in Savannah<\/a>, modern reproductions<\/a> of old racist images, and patterns for making mammy-type dolls<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a re-post in response to a new submission by\u00a0vmlojw. ————————— Toban B. sent us this photo he took in Cardiff, Wales, of Golliwog\u00a0banks: While the sign indicates these particular ones were for display only, Toban says there were others clearly for sale. The golliwog (also spelled golliwogg) is an old racist caricature, clearly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[279,253,285,1760],"class_list":["post-13332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-objectification","tag-history","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13332"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43601,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13332\/revisions\/43601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}