GOLLY! Children’s hero or racist symbol Childrens’ hero 1 2 GOLLY! Children’s hero or racist symbol Thomas L Blair 3 What this eBook is about “RACIAL EQUALITY MAY BE ON THE HORIZON, BUT OUR SOCIETY NEEDS A FRESH VIEW OF DEMEANING SYMBOLS LIKE THE GOLLIWOG” 4 Publication Details Golly! Children’s hero or racist symbol Thomas L Blair 978-1-908480-51-4 Published by Editions Blair e-Books 2015© No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both copyright owner and the publisher of this book. The greatest care has been taken in compiling this book. However, no responsibility can be accepted by the author and publishers or compilers for the accuracy of the information presented. Opinions expressed do not necessarily coincide with the editorial views of author or copyright holder Edition Blair. Editions Blair has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Every effort has been made to respect all copyrights and apologise for any that may have been unwittingly infringed. 5 Contents Introduction Golliwog Bans Are Headline News Golliwog Uncovered In Plantation History And Writings Golliwog Roots In Colonialism Golliwog Endanger Children’s Attitudes To Blacks Golliwog Products Embed Race Differences Golliwog False Assumptions, Plain Wrong Golliwog The Case For The Defence Golly! Victorian Caricature “No Joke” Golliwog The Call For Political Action Golliwog Controversy can foster innovative policies Conclusion Notes on the Author About Editions Blair The Thomas L Blair Golliwog Collection: Images and Descriptions 01. Golly white mug, 5 figures with cricket bat, ball and wicket, 02. Golly men white mug with 5 figures with right foot on soccer ball, 03. Golly 4-slot toast rack 04. Stylized “Aunt Jemima” style bust in repose, 05. “Aunt Jemima” style exaggerated caricature of cook 06. Sitting golly-style doll 07. Golly coffee pot with standing figure on both sides 08. Golly figure in black seated at grand piano keyboard 09. Golly-style waiter in orange and yellow trimmings uniform, 010. Golly in blue and red trousers playing bass 011. “Aunt Jemima” golly-style cook with bandana 6 Introduction Golly! marks the journey of the innocent children’s hero whites love to a reviled racial stereotype that Blacks despise and officials reject. Thematically based on the author’s research and personal collection, this eBook reveals the controversial golliwog themes in history, literature and commerce. Surveying the defence and opposing views, the author provides a range of opportunities for positive representation of Britain’s Black African and Afro-Caribbean peoples. 7 Golliwog bans are headline news You can look at the Golliwog two ways: innocent children’s hero or racist symbol. For most generations of British families the answer is simple: no. Nevertheless, recent banning orders reveal the dangers harboured in the larger than life kid-lit caricature. In Scotland, 2015, summer fair organisers warned off people wearing golliwog costumes. Gala organisers issue warning following golliwog controversy 1 August 2015 by Jamie Ross Police received a complaint about costumes at the Wick Gala Day An organiser of one of the north-east’s longest running galas has warned people against dressing up as controversial characters after three people were reported to police for wearing golliwog costumes at a summer fair. http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/9268478.Golliwog_toys _banned_from_sale_at_market/ 8 In England, Bournemouth officials banned a golliwog trader for fear of offending locals and foreign students. 23 September 2011 by Anna Edwards Offensive: The trader had planned to teach people about the cultural history behind the dolls Bournemouth officials firmly supported the ban. Reported in the Mail Banned: Enid Blyton fan Viv Endecott told she cannot sell her Online, the council's arts development officer said the local authority golliwogs at the fair because of their racist connotations could not be associated with something that might be seen as racist. The classic toys could cause offence to overseas students and spark 'public order problems.' 'It is widely accepted in modern society that golliwogs are acknowledged Pasted from <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2040989/Enid- as having racist connotations’ said the council officer. Blyton-fan-banned-selling-golliwog-toys-village-market.html> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2040989/Enid-Blyton-fan- banned-selling-golliwog-toys-village-market.html Ultimately, the media trumpeted in 2009, “Race doll row hits the royals: Queen has to say sorry”. Buckingham Palace has issued an extraordinary apology after the Queen's shop at Sandringham was found to be selling golliwogs”. http://metro.co.uk/2009/02/05/queens-shop-sorry-for-selling- golliwogs-431833/ 9 Golliwog: Uncovered In Plantation History and Writings Ironically, two facts stand out in the Golliwog controversy. Supporters like dressing up in costume and traders, festival organisers and shops make money selling golliwogs as curios. Ranged in opposition are officials responding to protests from Black and minority groups. What has not been appreciated, however, is that this seemingly contemporary issue has deeper roots. The golliwog was without doubt the birth-child of significant economic innovation. Slave-based production enriched not only the owners but also slave traders, banks and financiers – and primed the emergent industrial revolution. However, something else is true. Slavery birthed the themes of racial dominance/subordination that lurk behind the golliwog stories today. Respected author Edward Long waged his defence of the harsh 18th century regimes in a three-volume History of Jamaica (1774). Thomas Carlyle’s The “Nigger Question” (1853) attacked abolitionists determined to free Africans in Britain and America. Anthony Trollope was convinced that white superiority and Black inferiority was of divine design, in his 1859 book The West Indies and the Spanish Main. Surely, the facts cast doubt on these white-over-black themes. New World Africans resisted harsh plantation regimes, fiercely resisted colonial armies and created Haiti’s independence in 1804. See David Dabydeen and eds. in The Oxford Companion to Black British History (Oxford University Press, 2007). Furthermore, the rise of talented and successful London Blacks is proof against euro-centric rantings. Wealthy coal merchant Cesar Picton, radical reformer Olaudah Equiano and literary celebrity Ignatius Sancho overcame poverty and prejudice in 18th-century Britain. http://socialwelfare.bl.uk/subject-areas/services-activity/community- development/editionsblair/black13.aspx . 10 Golliwog’s roots in colonialism It is no longer a secret. New evidence shows the golliwog’s portrayal matched popular ignorance. Everyman, journalists, scholars and policy makers all delved in the same pool of prejudice. “Niggers are like monkeys ... [with] their subnormal sloping foreheads and large protruding lips”, wrote G W Stevens in The Land of the Dollar (1897). “Blacks are lazy, vicious, and incapable of any serious improvement”, said the popular writer Rudyard Kipling in his School History of England (1911). Such views are marvellously deceptive examples of “biological racism”: that is, using pseudo-science to mask or justify racial superiority/inferiority. As such, they divert attention from an oppressive “system of unfree labour”. The truth is that enslaved Africans were the labour force that worked the land that enriched the European and American colonial powers. See Dabydeen op. cit. and Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery 1944. 11 Golliwogs endanger children’s attitudes to Blacks “I always remember my mum tucking me into bed and sitting next to me. It was time for a story, one blogger recalled. The books that “gripped me from a young age, were Enid Blyton’s…”. Much loved, yes. “The earliest golliwog doll was sold at Gamages department store in 1902”, according to the Oxford Companion to Black British History (2007). Thereafter, “Golliwogs were to be found everywhere, from postcards to the sixth movement of Claude Debussy’s Children’s Corner, entitled ‘Golliwog’s Cakewalk’”. Nonetheless, the golliwog is impregnated with strands of colonialist mentality and prejudices. For example, the cakewalk derives from the strutting plantation dance and minstrelsy. In time, this connection melds into personal packages of race attitudes and behaviour towards “darkies”, the “others”. Taken up by popular children’s storywriters, the grotesque Black caricatures expressed widely accepted racial attitudes. The Upton sisters of America described “a horrid sight: the blackest gnome” in The Adventure of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwog, 1895. Based on a childhood minstrel doll it featured a “black face, thick lips, wide- eyes, wild dark hair”, according to a Guardian correspondent. The Golliwog was the first mass produced “nigger doll” to feature in English literature, picture books and popular culture. From 1895, the escapades of the large black stuffed doll with wild hair and a wide grin dominated the leisure time pursuits of children and adults for half a century, said world authority Clinton Derricks is his book Buy Golly!: The History of Black Collectables. Enid Blyton, the most notable children’s writer, defined the 20th century golliwog. In her Five Fall into Adventure (1965), we encounter a character “with nasty gleaming eyes, and it looked very dark; perhaps because it was a black man’s face”. That white is desirable and black not worthy of association is a common theme in Blyton’s stories. In The Little Black Doll (1937), the doll is 12 shunned by the other toys and must be erased to gain favour. When it is washed and rosy pink, it becomes “a nice looking doll, as good as any other”. Golliwog books read as though the clock of slave-owning England had stopped, in 1800.