Political Correctness Gone Mad?

[Tiberius]

Of course what you buy for your children, and how you explain to them, is your business.
So how about golliwogs? Would you buy one ( if you could find an outlet )? If you would, on what basis would you buy? A harmless, cuddly toy? Or something to educate your children about the nature of racism?

Sure, I'd buy one if my child wanted it, or if I thought they might like the doll. I don't even think I'd need to explain the history behind them. I'm going to bring my children up to respect people of all skin colours, and a doll of black skin isn't going to affect them in any way. They will accept it as a normal thing, which is exactly how it should be accepted. They will understand it is a doll, not a real person, just like "Bratz" dolls have overly large heads, and Barbies have disproportionate body measurements.

There is a relatively new movement that supports equality more than anti-racism. The anti-racist movement has a long history of being intolerant. Case in point, Janet Street Porter called her black neighbour a "bitch" a few years back and the press went into a rage about it, calling her a "racist". I was on YouTube at the time and challenged people to tell me what exactly was racist about calling a black woman a "bitch". The same applies recently with the stupid cartoon that compared Obama to a crazy monkey. Regardless of the historical significance of such things, the fact that we don't compare black people to monkeys today should stand for something. The cartoon compared a man to a crazy monkey, nothing more. The fact that people jumped on it and claimed it was racist shows only that people do not support equality, and still think there should be some difference between people of different skin colours.

Christopher Hitchens shares my view. He criticized the cartoon for not being "funny", but nothing more. I'm not going to teach my children to be "anti-racist", I'm going to teach them equality. Anti-racism invariably leads to more racism, whilst equality leads to equality. My children will know that everyone is equal, and they will know that "golliwog" dolls refer to black people as much as "Bratz" refer to white people (i.e. none at all).

[Edwardo Piet]

I love that South Park episode on the subject, when Chef was objecting about the racism of a flag of white people hanging a black person I think it was - and the children didn't understand and near the end Chef found it kind of heart warming because they didn't see it as racist because they didn't even make any separation between black and white people in the first place - they just saw it as one man hanging another; they didn't know about the history so they weren't being racist at all.

[bozo]

Of course what you buy for your children, and how you explain to them, is your business.
So how about golliwogs? Would you buy one ( if you could find an outlet )? If you would, on what basis would you buy? A harmless, cuddly toy? Or something to educate your children about the nature of racism?

Sure, I'd buy one if my child wanted it, or if I thought they might like the doll. I don't even think I'd need to explain the history behind them. I'm going to bring my children up to respect people of all skin colours, and a doll of black skin isn't going to affect them in any way. They will accept it as a normal thing, which is exactly how it should be accepted. They will understand it is a doll, not a real person, just like "Bratz" dolls have overly large heads, and Barbies have disproportionate body measurements.

There is a relatively new movement that supports equality more than anti-racism. The anti-racist movement has a long history of being intolerant. Case in point, Janet Street Porter called her black neighbour a "bitch" a few years back and the press went into a rage about it, calling her a "racist". I was on YouTube at the time and challenged people to tell me what exactly was racist about calling a black woman a "bitch". The same applies recently with the stupid cartoon that compared Obama to a crazy monkey. Regardless of the historical significance of such things, the fact that we don't compare black people to monkeys today should stand for something. The cartoon compared a man to a crazy monkey, nothing more. The fact that people jumped on it and claimed it was racist shows only that people do not support equality, and still think there should be some difference between people of different skin colours.

Christopher Hitchens shares my view. He criticized the cartoon for not being "funny", but nothing more. I'm not going to teach my children to be "anti-racist", I'm going to teach them equality. Anti-racism invariably leads to more racism, whilst equality leads to equality. My children will know that everyone is equal, and they will know that "golliwog" dolls refer to black people as much as "Bratz" refer to white people (i.e. none at all).

Do you not appreciate how offensive golliwogs are to most black people?

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

WHEREAS, " white " is always " good ".

Not amongst the other coloured peoples in the world,who are the majority.

In some Asian cultures for example white is the colour of mourning,and some Indian gods are portrayed as black,although not evil. EG I have a small statue of Ganesh,god of wisdom on my desk. He's in black with a little gold trim.

Oh, I had a golliwog as a young child. He was called "Golli". Being a bright child, I was aware he was a stuffed toy,not a real person, just as teddy wasn't a real bear,even though I pretended he was. At age 3 I wasn't all that interested in symbolism and metaphor,or wouldn't have been had I known what they were.

I don't have kids.If I did, I like to think my attitude would be the same as Adrian's

[Tiberius]

Do you not appreciate how offensive golliwogs are to most black people?

I do indeed, and I would ask them to explain how they can rationalize such offense when it is common knowledge in today's society that golliwogs are not an accurate representation of black people, just as Bratz are not an accurate representation of white people. If people were buying golliwogs and giving them to their children saying "this is a black person", or "look at this doll of a black person", I would object. However this is not what people are doing, and this is certainly not what I am going to do with my kids.

Words and depictions will last forever, but interpretations can change in an instant.

[fr0d0]

Would you show all the unsanitized versions of Tom & Jerry? Laurel & Hardy?

I find it laughable sometimes with the seemingly extreme pushing on moral boundaries in modern culture we censor this stuff so savagely.

What about all those dodgy 70's sit coms? Even worse dodgy 70's comedians?

[Kyuuketsuki]

Do you not appreciate how offensive golliwogs are to most black people?

Do you not appreciate how offensive atheism is to many (probably most) theists?

Are you going to stop being an atheist?

Kyu

---

Would you show all the unsanitized versions of Tom & Jerry? Laurel & Hardy?

I find it laughable sometimes with the seemingly extreme pushing on moral boundaries in modern culture we censor this stuff so savagely.

What about all those dodgy 70's sit coms? Even worse dodgy 70's comedians?

I'd watch any and all of them if I felt like it ... heard of the "off-switch" or changing channels?

People found the Brand/Ross affair too much and complained leading to massive outrage in the press, personally (whilst conceding that they probably did go a bit far ... am I ever going to know the real truth?) I found the media's hypocrisy, the "anger" of sanctimonious asswipes and the over-reaction of the BBC pathetic.

Love Thy Neighbour (one of those sitcoms I assume you refer to) was far more offensive mainly because it was complete and utter shyte whereas "'Til Death Do Us Part" (admittedly 60's but running into the 70's, featuring an exceptionally bigoted Alf Garnet played by Warren Mitchell) was probably far more offensive yet exceptionally clever.

It's worth noting that these "70's sitcoms" you seem to be slamming also included "Fawlty Towers", "The Good Life" (personally I preferred the US series of the same name), "Last of the Summer Wine", "Rising Damp", "Porridge", "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em" (I hated this even whilst recognising that Crawford's portrayal of Frank Spencer was very clever), "Open All Hours" & "To The Manor Born" ... indeed many consider this decade to be "the golden era" of British sitcom. Oh, and the 70's also featured the awesome "Reginald Perrin" sitcoms (much better than the awful remake the BBC showed this week) so I think I'm quite inclined to agree that it was a very good time for British Comedy.

Kyu

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

@Kyu

Have you seen the "banned" cartoons of the 1930's and 40's? Some are Donald Duck ,made as anti Nazi and anti-Japanese propaganda.Some are simply racist about black Americans.

I remember as kid a of about 10 seeing old Batman serials made during the war,with Japanese spies (played by Europeans of course)

Times change,people don't. Racism ,bigotry and prejudice cannot not be removed by legislation. I think the last US presidential elections illustrated that graphically.

[Kyuuketsuki]

No I haven't seen them and I agree that legislation is not the way forward (though some may need protection), education is.

Kyu

[fr0d0]

I'm on your side Kyu. Funny you brought up most of what I was thinking of there. I totally agree. The quality stuff there I'd watch anytime given the chance.

I was more trying to see where Adrian etc would draw the line.