Carol Thatcher was given the boot by the BBC for allegedly comparing black tennis star Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to a golliwog.
Shopowner Viv Endecott, of Corfe Castle, Dorset was recently accused of racism because she sells gollywogs.
Even the Queen has apologised for selling golliwogs. A spokesperson said, “The management of the shop have said they did not intend to offend anyone by selling this product and have apologised if any offence has been caused. The shop will immediately review its purchasing policy.”
Shopkeeper Moira Pickering of Manchester had her gollywogs seized by the police in 2007 following complaints that she was selling “offensive items”.
It is not difficult to understand why most black people say they find gollywogs offensive. In the 1944 edition of “The Three Golliwogs” Enid Blyton writs, “Once the three bold Golliwogs, Golly, Woggie, and Nigger, decided to go for a walk to Bumble-Bee Common. Golly wasn’t quite ready so Woggie and Nigger said they would start off without him, and Golly would catch them up as soon as he could. So off went Woggie and Nigger, arm-in-arm, singing merrily their favourite song – which, as you may guess, was Ten Little Nigger Boys.”
Gerry German, of the Working Group Against Racism in Children’s Resources, was quoted in The Voice, a Black newspaper, as saying: “I find it appalling that any organisation in this day and age can produce anything which would commemorate the Golliwog. It is an offensive caricature of Black people.”
Stephen Pollard writes, “But there is nothing funny or ironic or any other justification for such crass, offensive, dolls. I imagine how I would feel if I saw a hook-nosed doll called ‘the Yid’. And although I’ve read some defences of Golliwogs on the basis that there’s nothing racist about them, I think that’s total balls. They are entirely so. They may have seemed innocent fun in a bygone and ignorant age, but in today’s world they are simply revolting.”
Adnan Chaudry (Dorset REC Chief Officer) was reported by the Daily Echo as saying, “Golliwogs have become widely recognised as an offensive object by all sections of the modern world.”
So why would anyone want to own a golliwog?
