The Three Golliwogs

Product Information

The golliwog doll became a popular children's toy throughout most of the 20th century, and was incorporated into many aspects of British commerce and culture.

And then there are stories we tell children on a regular basis: Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood. Many of her books patronise children using repetitive and limited vocabulary – nearly every noun is prefaced by “dear little” and children are usually divided into “lovely”, “naughty” or “wicked”. Unfortunately, in modern times, the responsibility of raising your children to be respectful of others has been taken over by government.As a racial epithet, it is comparable to nigger or spic, though its usage extends beyond any single ethnic group.

By 2011, Bill Etherbridge, a prospective Tory councillor, was thrown out of the party after posing with golliwogs on Facebook. The book was then rewritten and eventually republished by Award in 1994 with the title Three Bold Pixies. The book’s illustrations as well as passages in the novel (original, not revised copies) have been deemed offensive.My children certainly did not make any link from the golliwogs to any real people, black or white, so I think overall probably the censoring was unnecessary and overly sensitive. These harmless toys for white children fully dehumanise black people to such an extent that someone such as Carol Thatcher would, in 2009, refer to a black tennis player as a golliwog. I personally wouldn't mind having one in the house as a toy for my daughter, but my wife might disagree; she doesn't look on them quite as favorably as me, and it might be because, being American, she didn't grow up with them. Around it are phrases such as victimhood, safe space, freedom of speech, internet trolls, sharia law. The name "golliwog" came to be used as a degrading term for anyone who was not white-skinned, and new origins were suggested for the word.

They were based on black dolls that kids in a very racist era used to throw stones at, which of course is not NOT a good thing! It was just another example of that corrupter of modern discourse the ‘easily offended’ according to the below-the-line commenters and Tweeters offended by a three-year-old meeting about a coin.The doll is characterised by jet black skin, eyes rimmed in white, exaggerated red lips and frizzy hair, based on the blackface minstrel tradition.