Golliwogs, By Appointment to HM the Queen

[flatandy]

Feb 6, 2009 13:44:39 GMT feral said:

It's not about which individual uses the word. It's about how the word is perceived in a particular culture. So everyone in the UK knows not to use paki or golliwog. And knows they will cause offense because people are still familiar with having that term of abuse used against them.

Yes, everyone in the UK knows not to use paki or golliwog becaused otherwise someone like yourself or omni will label them racist ..or stupid .Or both .
How can you ever have any sort of equality between races when you have to watch what you bloody say around them .Can you imagine having a mate who you'd like to consider your equal ( for want of a better way of putting it ) but that you have to watch your tongue with in case you say a word that he might deem offensive cos someone else used it offensively years ago . Personally ,I think its demeaning to your friend to think that way .

I choose not to call my jewboy friends "kikes" or "red sea pedestrians". I choose not to call other friends "c*nts" or "w*nkers" because I know it's offensive.

It's not about having to tread on eggshells. It's just about not being an utter thingy. It's not difficult.

[sweet soul]

The PC lot will damage this country more than any racist could

[feral]

But who is it who's deciding its racist language Certainly not me .I consider it racist to sneer and consider myself better because Im a different colour ...doesnt matter what words I actually use when i sneer .

I consider it far more racist to be with someone and have to watch what i say ...because I'm white like ,but dont expect him / her to have to because he aint white .Its patronising at best and inverse racism which is just as bad as out and out racism

[omnipleasant]

"Can you imagine having a mate who you'd like to consider your equal ( for want of a better way of putting it ) but that you have to watch your tongue with in case you say a word that he might deem offensive cos someone else used it offensively years ago ."

This is just jaw-dropping.

I have non-white friends, amazingly. Also amazingly, I don't use terms like p*ki, n*gger, or g*lliwog. Astoundingly, this is simply because I wouldn't dream of using deeply offensive, racist language to them or anyone else, and not because I think they are "better" than me. Astonishingly, this doesn't harm race relations between us, or make my white friends feel resentful.

Christ on a bench.

[feral]

I choose not to call my jewboy friends "kikes" or "red sea pedestrians". I choose not to call other friends "c*nts" or "w*nkers" because I know it's offensive.

There are some friends of mine ( not particularly close ones cos I dont feel too comfortable with them ) that i wouldnt use certain terms with ..because I know they might get offended .As I say though ...they aint close friends and never will be.Any close friends of mine arent offended by whatever I call them and vice versa .And so it should be .Otherwise we're never going to feel comfortable together

[mids]

So are there no words that are borderline or maybe depend on the context. Are they either always racist or never racist?

[flatandy]

Feb 6, 2009 13:51:14 GMT feral said:

I consider it far more racist to be with someone and have to watch what i say ...because I'm white like ,but dont expect him / her to have to because he aint white .Its patronising at best and inverse racism which is just as bad as out and out racism

If a black person started talking about pakis and kikes, or an Indian started talking about niggers and honkeys, it would be just the same. There's no difference just because you're white.

Just like everyone, it's rather better if you just aren't unpleasant to other people.

[vania]

Feb 6, 2009 13:52:26 GMT @omnipleasant said:

"Can you imagine having a mate who you'd like to consider your equal ( for want of a better way of putting it ) but that you have to watch your tongue with in case you say a word that he might deem offensive cos someone else used it offensively years ago ."

This is just jaw-dropping.

I have non-white friends, amazingly. Also amazingly, I don't use terms like p*ki, n*gger, or g*lliwog. Astoundingly, this is simply because I wouldn't dream of using deeply offensive, racist language to them or anyone else, and not because I think they are "better" than me. Astonishingly, this doesn't harm race relations between us, or make my white friends feel resentful.

Christ on a bench.

Ditto Omni. Being the lefty lib that I am I have loads of friends from different ethnic backgrounds.

I've never had to 'watch my tongue' around them because I'm not given to using racist language so it's not an issue. I'm pretty sure all of my friends can say the same. If they couldn't...we wouldn't be friends.

[feral]

I have non-white friends, amazingly. Also amazingly, I don't use terms like p*ki, n*gger, or g*lliwog. Astoundingly, this is simply because I wouldn't dream of using deeply offensive, racist language to them or anyone else,

well of course you dont use the words omni .Because you can only think of those words as being racist language and therefore if you used them they would be offensive.

[feral]

Just like everyone, it's rather better if you just aren't unpleasant to other people.

well yes .But its you whos deciding that Im being unpleasant even when I dont intend to be and my mate doesnt take it offensively either

[omnipleasant]

"I'm not given to using racist language so it's not an issue. I'm pretty sure all of my friends can say the same. If they couldn't...we wouldn't be friends. "

This is the thing, isn't it. Why on earth would anyone see avoiding racist language as "watching their tongue"?

Unless, to be perfectly frank, they were given to using racist language.

[feral]

Unless, to be perfectly frank, they were given to using racist language.

Oh good grief .Yes, and anyone who says he isn't a gay must be a raging bender

[Victor Meldrew]

I'm still laughing over that woman in the audience on Question Time last night. She was clearly upset with Carol Thatcher, and stopped an inch short of demanding her to be hung, drawn and quartered for using "that word" (her description of golliwog). In order to make herself seem completely PC, she started her rant with the line "I am a woman of colour...."

A what???

Hey love, I'm a white male. To you, that's a sort of pinky coloured skin, which makes me "a man of colour". Feck me, some of the 'stop racism even where it doesn't exist lot' can't even call themselve black for fear of offending themselves.

[sushimo]

I'm not getting into this row, but just one bit of clarification. The toy golliwog was first, it was actually a character in a book written in 1895, and then made into a toy. The book was written by a girl born in New York, who moved to England.

After the publication of her first book, the term "golliwog" was used both as a reference to the children's toy and as a generic, racist term for blacks. In Britain and the Commonwealth, "golliwog" perhaps became "wog," a racial slur applied to dark-skinned people worldwide, including Africans, Southern Italians, Greeks and other Mediterranean people, Native Americans, Middle Easterners, Hispanics, and Indians. [3] In Australia many young people of Greek, Lebanese and other Mediterranean descent have adopted the name "wog" as a humorous identifier. An example of this from popular Australian culture is the 2000 movie The Wog Boy starring the popular actor Nick Giannopoulos.

In the early 1980s, revised editions of Enid Blyton's Noddy books replaced Mr. Golly, the golliwog proprietor of the Toytown garage, with Mr. Sparks.

(Wikipedia)

So, the toy was here first, then some decided to use it racially - didn't that happen to our own Union Jack recently - are we now not allowed to show our own flag though racists overtones? I wonder how much more 'innocence' is going to be deemed racist in the future?

[sushimo]

Feb 6, 2009 14:09:41 GMT Victor Meldrew said:

I'm still laughing over that woman in the audience on Question Time last night. She was clearly upset with Carol Thatcher, and stopped an inch short of demanding her to be hung, drawn and quartered for using "that word" (her description of golliwog). In order to make herself seem completely PC, she started her rant with the line "I am a woman of colour...."

A what???

Hey love, I'm a white male. To you, that's a sort of pinky coloured skin, which makes me "a man of colour". Feck me, some of the 'stop racism even where it doesn't exist lot' can't even call themselve black for fear of offending themselves.

I truly wanted to get into the screen and slap her for that, she actually managed somehow to make herself appear racist from her attitude.

[wetkingcanute]

When I was young in the 1950's I used to read the Noddy books. In one story the Gollywogs capture Noddy and take him into the woods. It was frightening. As we all know Robinson jam had a Golly on the label and I used to collect all the Gollywog badges.
My first painting box had 'Nigger Brown' in it. Agatha Christie had a book entitled 'Ten Little Niggers'. We used to say the rhyme eeni meeni minie mo catch a Nigger by his toe. My mother sung me to sleep with the lullaby "Go to sleep my little Picaninie, Mummy's little Alabama Coon"
Neither my mother or I are racist in the true sense of the word.
But times change.
I would not ever refer to a black person as a Gollywog simply because TODAY it would be completely wrong.
I don't find this a problem.

[vania]

Feb 6, 2009 14:16:17 GMT sushimo said:

I'm not getting into this row, but just one bit of clarification. The toy golliwog was first, it was actually a character in a book written in 1895, and then made into a toy. The book was written by a girl born in New York, who moved to England.

After the publication of her first book, the term "golliwog" was used both as a reference to the children's toy and as a generic, racist term for blacks. In Britain and the Commonwealth, "golliwog" perhaps became "wog," a racial slur applied to dark-skinned people worldwide, including Africans, Southern Italians, Greeks and other Mediterranean people, Native Americans, Middle Easterners, Hispanics, and Indians. [3] In Australia many young people of Greek, Lebanese and other Mediterranean descent have adopted the name "wog" as a humorous identifier. An example of this from popular Australian culture is the 2000 movie The Wog Boy starring the popular actor Nick Giannopoulos.

In the early 1980s, revised editions of Enid Blyton's Noddy books replaced Mr. Golly, the golliwog proprietor of the Toytown garage, with Mr. Sparks.

(Wikipedia)

So, the toy was here first, then some decided to use it racially - didn't that happen to our own Union Jack recently - are we now not allowed to show our own flag though racists overtones? I wonder how much more 'innocence' is going to be deemed racist in the future?

So are we now stuck in a world where language never changes? So Paki is ok because it was just short for 'Pakistan' irrespective of the usage it now adopts?

So I am not allowed to use the term 'bastard' unless I am explicitly referring to the marital status of somebody's parents when that person was born? Eh? Oh, I don't know if the reports are true but if the person who it is alleged Carol said looks like a golliwog is really the tennis player they are referring to (the French one), then I am at a loss as to how her description was remotely accurate?

[vania]

The woman on question time is probably used to Americanisms. There it is pretty normal to refer to non-white women as 'women of colour' and it is catching on here.

[sushimo]

Oh, I don't know if the reports are true but if the person who it is alleged Carol said looks like a golliwog is really the tennis player they are referring to (the French one), then I am at a loss as to how her description was remotely accurate?



Exactly Vania, an awful lot of alleging going on here, and none but those in that room know the truth of it. What exactly was said, and how.

[sushimo]

It simply boils down to the fact that the racists are winning in turning our language upside down with their foul interpretations of what was once normal.

Now that is what annoys me, and what, I wonder, is next?