Should This Landlord Remove His Gollies?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5384909/My-golliwogs-say-insists-pub-landlord.html

Or is there more to this story since he also dares to fly the Union Flag outside his pub?

One reader stated "I am sure he is a member of both UKIP and Britain First".

But then this reader identifies himself as a French PhD Scholar, from Paris, France, so who knows?

[Barmaid]

I think that is a fair point Spath. Only the terminally stupid would not acknowledge the golly's association with racism. Many will say "I do not find them at all racist, they are just a toy" and that's perfectly fine. However, it is undeniable that there is such an association whether that association is right or wrong or whether we invidivually make that association is neither here nor there.

Conseqently he may be acting rather stupidly.

[QuizmasterG]

At least if you are reading a newspaper (of whatever bias) you are getting some idea of what is going on in the country and world in general.
So far as I can see, ignorance is rife, especially among the younger generation.

[Kathyan]

You might not believe this but it is absolutely true. I had a golly when I was young (a very long time ago!) and I can remember the Black and White Minstrel show on TV. I never once connected the two things with black people! The black people that I came into contact with at that time didn't wear brightly coloured striped trousers and jackets and bow ties, they wore normal clothes like us. They also didn't wear white lipstick or eyeshadow around their eyes! So it never occurred to me that that's what they were representing and it was much later in life that I realised why the term w*g was used in a derogatory way towards black people and that it was the last three letters of the doll's name! I must have led a very sheltered life!

[woofgang]

Kathyan, no, your experience reflects my own. It may have been a very naive family attitude but when I was a child, I had no awareness of racism in my family or in my outside life anymore than I had any awareness of the horsehead nebula.
My father had been the CSM of a company of Basuto troops during the war. The country is now called Lesotho. The relationship was a close one. My mother used to send out things that she could get in the UK that my Dad's soldiers needed and she would also write to some of their female relatives. Mt father's last job before his own demob was to be part of the tea to see the African troops safely home and demobbed. Keep in mind that in many ways he was a politically innocent man. He had gone straight from the orphanage to the army as a regular soldier. He was offered a very good job in Africa on the basis of his army record, managing (only then it was called overseeing) I honestly cannot remember what or where but my parents were seriously considering upping sticks from the UK. While travelling back to the docks to board the troop ship back to the Uk, he met one of his soldiers now settled in civvy street. They were chatting on the platform and shook hands and a policeman saw it and threatened them with arrest for breach of apartheid laws. he was very shocked and that put the tin hat on the job in Africa.
Anyway, my point is that like kathyan, I made no link between the golly on the Robertson's jar and the Minstrel shows; and the story about how wrong it is to discriminate against people who had trusted and been trusted by my father.
BUT the historical fact is that the link is there between the image of the golly and the enslavement of black people.

[diddlydo]

No I would never read the Daily Mail - it's just that so many comments on this site give links to articles in it (which I wouldn't ever dream of reading), many of which are "non-articles", just sensationalist so-called "journalism".

[andy-hughes]

Vulcan - // ...I notice there was a black man drinking in the pub, so it obviously didn't bother him and he said it wasn't racist. //

That is a spurious argument - the notion that one black man does not find gollies racist, therefore no black person should is simply not sustainable.

[Baldric]

Shame he doesn't know how to display the Union Flag correctly.

[Barmaid]

He might be in distress, Baldric!!!!!

[Spicerack]

The anti-Golly brigade are in a very small minority but, as usual, they make the most noise while deciding what the rest of us should think, say, do. Fascists.

[Baldric]

Could well be ;o)

[andy-hughes]

Spicerack - // The anti-Golly brigade are in a very small minority but, as usual, they make the most noise while deciding what the rest of us should think, say, do. Fascists. //

It is highly fashionable for a section of the on-line community to assume offence on behalf of others to whom they have no connection.

It is equally fashionable for another section of the on-line comunity to pour scorn and venom on the 'virtue signallers' (as the media-generated phrase describes them) in equal measure.

But I do think that we all need to be careful that we don't allow such sideshows to distract us from the original issue being highlighted.

Just because any issue worthy of positive and negative social comment becomes hijacked by everyone taking turns to get more outraged than their opposition, should not mean that we lose sight of the genuine validity of the issue under discussion.

So whether you are a 'what's the harm?' on one side, or a 'racist throwback with no place in 2018' on the other, the actual issue is still important because it reflects on us as a society, and the way in which we want to establish and maintain fairness and equality for everyone.

[anotheoldgit]

andy-hughes

/// That is a spurious argument - the notion that one black man does not find gollies racist, therefore no black person should is simply not sustainable. ///

Couldn't the same be said if one black person found the gollies racist, then every other black person would also?

[Baldric]

No such thing as a black person born in 2020 atm

[anotheoldgit]

It is this increasing "can't do that, can't do this" attitude that is creating divisions where none need be.