*Racist golliwog dolls have resurfaced in England following a recent police raid at a popular pub.
According to the Huffington Post, the dolls are patterned after 18th Century minstrels and were first produced in 1895 by American cartoonist Florence Kate Upton in children’s books. The fictional rag doll became identifiable by its dark skin, frizzy hair, large lips, and teeth.
The caricature began to appear on Robertson’s Jam jars in 1910 and became a popular brand before evolving into toys and collectibles.
The word golliwog is used to disparage Black people, and Golliwog dolls are seen as racist. According to HuffPost, the 1980s saw the name for the dolls become “gollys” in an effort to distance itself from its racist past, but the brand was eventually discontinued in 2001.
UK’s media regulator Ofcom has since declared the word “golliwog” to be a highly offensive term, describing it as: “Strongest language, highly unacceptable without strong contextualization. Seen as derogatory to Black people.” This means that merely displaying golliwog dolls could be considered illegal under England’s Crime and Disorder Act 1998. A display could fall under the definition of racially aggravated behavior, if “the offender demonstrates towards the victim hostility based on the victim’s membership or presumed membership of a racial or religious group.”
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On April 4, 2023, police in Essex, England said five officers had confiscated several Golliwog dolls from the White Hart Inn in Grays, where they were being displayed behind the bar. (Watch in the video above.) According to HuffPost, the police activity was part of an ongoing investigation following a Feb. 24 complaint about the alleged hate crime of being racially distressed.
Landlord Benice Ryley, who owns the pub with her husband, denies that they are racist, but said they would soon replace the confiscated dolls – apparently with more golliwog dolls. The police have said they would only be able to remove the replacement offensive dolls if they received another complaint. The police added: “No victim has come forward who has felt racially harassed, alarmed or distressed since any further dolls have gone up in the pub.”
Ryley said she had a collection of about 30 golliwog dolls from family and customers, in the pub for nearly 10 years and that she could not see “any harm” in displaying them.
Among the fallout, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has said the pub in question will now be removed from the Good Beer Guide, stating that it believes “pubs should be welcoming and inclusive places.” Also, the polling company YouGov has revealed that 39% of respondents think it is still acceptable to sell/display the dolls, with 48% claiming it is not racist.
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