sammax

I remember in England donkeys' years ago an Australian referred to the Pakistani cricket team as the Pakis and everyone gasped in horror, but to him all he was doing was shortening the word and didn't mean it in a negative way at all.

daunted

Come visit me Cheetah - i can take you to a shop selling the most beautiful gollies

TopCat3

That is so true Lesley. Personally I find all the ads on TV for tampons and pantyliners deeply offensive. Back in the day (60's-70's) you just didn't mention these things, they were taboo, let alone advertise them with the 'all-knowing' smirky woman and the "puzzled/bemused mere male boyfriend" which I find squirm-worthy and quite unnecessary and undermining of the dignity and privacy of women and demeaning of men. The degree of explicitness to which these ads go is unnecessary. Keep them for women's magazines or women's mid-day talk shows and keep them dignified and leave the males out of it.

Now some would call me old-fashioned or sexist or whatever. Don't care, get on with it. I have to put up with this stuff that offends me yet I have no recourse for complaint because it's passed the advertising standards committee/whatever they're called. Neither do I like the big billboards for Viagra or nasal whatever it is for prolonging sexual function of men. This commodification of sexual function, blatant commercial promotion of women's products for which women are already overcharged is only adding to the cost of these products and yet again it's women who have to pay for all this. I don't agree with repressing sexual discussion or education but I do think the dignity and sanctity should be returned to the subject.

This may seem off-topic when we started with gollywogs but to me it's all linked and part of what Lesley said. Things that are now taboo were once acceptable and things that were once acceptable are now taboo and the PC police deciding which is which have a lot to answer for. And so do those "minority" groups that are continually offended by everything so that the rest of us are now all walking on eggshells for fear of offending homosexuals, lesbians, Aborginal people, African-origin black people, Muslims, Asian people, refugees, pedal-powered greenies and the list goes on. Yet WE aren't allowed to be offended by anything THEY deem as acceptable.

TopCat3

That's right and we still get called "The Poms" or Pommies and the New Zealanders are called "The Kiwis" but of course that's all right we're all white and we're all mates aren't we? So we just have to grin and bear it. Tired of the double standards and inequality of eggshell-walking.

BadgeIsBack

Poms etc doesn't bother me one jot.

My wife had an interesting tale last week. She had a tradesman around who was going to get a plasterer in. He said 'They're Asian, (micro pause) but they're harmless'.

He said it very straight-faced and yet with no malice either. You wonder if he's not racist himself but comes across it in others and so has to add the caveat.

BadgeIsBack

Does this mean that wearing baseball caps, baggy trousers (back to front) and hip-hop shoes are also racist. These are now the current crop of racial stereotypes...and indeed, they are an invention of African-Americans themselves...

Lion in Winter

Sigh.

Those are clothes.

Not people and their physical characteristics.

It's not rocket science, and I really don't understand why there is so much energy being spent to keep using a doll that uses a representation of people that was always intended as denigrating. It isn't as though there weren't other things to make cuddly dolls from. Can you really not see the connection here?





Or what about this? Suppose we had cuddly dolls that looked like this stereotype? Is it still just a doll?

BadgeIsBack

I just see a black face, with gleaming white teeth (I wish mine were like that) to be honest. I would be more incensed if someone tried to compare black people to other primates...as has been done in the past...

I wasn't complaining about dolls. Just about stereotypes.

Clothing: I thought it was the clothes that people objected to. Someone mentioned Uncle Tom's cabin.

It's also clothes that we should be careful with.

Lion in Winter

I don't know what others were complaining about.

I just don't see any virtue in persisting in using this image. You can see how it has been used, historically, and the way of thinking with which that use is coupled. Same as with that stereotype of the Jewish person I posted. Both stereotypes have been coupled with the most appalling prejudice of all sorts. Why on earth would we want to keep using them, as toys or otherwise? If you wouldn't have the "jewish" figure as a doll, why the golly?

iamthecreaturefromuranus

Give it up mate. She'll bore you into submission.

Lion in Winter

Ah, I see the intellectual element has arrived.

I think I will leave you to it. I've been enjoying my weekend up til now, so no point in spoiling the evening.

BadgeIsBack

Prima facie, there is no case to answer. If we hide dolls, we hide African features - that is racist too. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that image you posted.

But as it turns out, in* some contexts*, they are a problem and I do not deny that.

Jewish features - caricatured - and unreliable, infact, would be grotesque perhaps, a big mouth and a black face and white teeth are normal to the race.

In the same way TinTins' blue eyes and blonde hair are instrinsic to his.

I've been mocked as a teen for looking vaguely 'Aryan' and 'white'. It works both ways.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

I'm gutted.


I take it back. I'm not the least bit "gutted". If you're going to slink off, every time I post, then that's a ****ing result of the highest order.

BadgeIsBack

Just a minute...

I looked at the poster and the doll and there are striking similarities....

I conclude the poster is racist (from the narrative). And that the doll is only racist if juxtaposed with the poster....and if only if...

Which is what many have already pointed out..

I managed to live for 30 odd years in the UK without seeing the poster so I don't see the dolls as racist.

I can understand the doll being a problem in parts of the US where there was a distinct 'poster' culture.

lesleys

My golly was just as much of a real person as a Teletubby is to a young child today. It could have had a purple face and been OK by me.




Topcat..............where have you sprung from? How are you?