Some thoughts about that controversial golly display!

Since I read the report of the White Hart Inn pub in Grays in Essex being raided by police https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-65248924 because someone reported their collection of golliwog dolls, all sorts of things about gollies, as we should call them if we’re being politically correct, have been popping up. The dolls on display were seized and taken away.

The pub itself has been struck from the Good Beer Guide and will not be considered for any future entries.

The landlord’s Facebook is being probed for racist comments. 

There has been a bit of an outcry, from both sides of the story. Some say the landlady can decorate her pub as she likes. Others decry her choice of decor as fundamentally racist.

The landlady has taken a stand and has put more dolls on display. Until someone else complains the police will take no action. 

I can’t help feeling that the police should have better things to do with their time. This does not mean that I am really in favour of such dolls or of racist terminology. 

I am also struck by the language used in such cases. Someone reported being “distressed” by the display, which surely was not in itself abusive to individuals. Maybe it led to others making racist remarks. Who knows? But the display had been there for 10 years without problems. 

I wonder if there are still pubs with pictures of fox-hunting. Do animal rights activists get “distressed” by them? Will such pictures have to be removed? Of course it’s not as personal as a golly doll but still ….

The dolls are a throwback to a time when the Black and White Minstrels appeared on our television sets, when it was acceptable for white actors even in the Royal Shakespeare Company to wear black make-up for certain roles, and when we collected paper gollies from jars of jam so that we could send away for golly badges. I think I still have one amongst other memorabilia like my Brownies badge in the shape of a pixie. 

And there are still some Morris dancers who perform in blackface to this day. 

It all harks back, if not to to a more innocent time, to a less aware time. 

Anyway, I’ve found odds and ends about the origin of the dolls. The creation of the doll seems to be attributed to Florence Kate Upton, who was an illustrator and wrote a children’s book called The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg, published in 1895. She is supposedly the first to depict Golliwogg in formal minstrel attire. But according to,the Wikipedia information, she was looking for  main character for her story when her aunt found a rag doll in the attic and suggested that to Florence Kate. Hmm!

Then there is another theory that the origin of the name “Golliwogg” is this: while British soldiers held Egypt in the second half of the 19th century, Egyptian laborers worked for them. Workers wore the insignia W.O.G.S. on their armbands, meaning “Working on Government Service.” British troops called them “ghouls” - an Arabic word for a desert ghost. Egyptian children played with black rag dolls, which they sometimes gave to British soldiers. Or else British soldiers bought such dolls and sent them home for their own children. That dolls were later called “Ghuliwogs” and later “Golliwogg.” How much truth is in this theory - is not known.

Maybe that was the origin of Florence Kate Upton’s inspiration. She and her family seem to have moved between Britain and America and she was born at the right time to have seen such toys. 

Some theories throw “polliwog”, apparently a word for tadpole, into the mix, but I don’t really see the sense of that. 

From a website explaing the origin of words I found this correspondence: 

• Interestingly, the word "wog" may have derived from "golliwog," according to dictionary.reference.com/browse/wog?s=t. Chiefly British Slang, wog is a disparaging and offensive term for a nonwhite, especially a dark-skinned native of the Middle East or Southeast Asia. Randy Newman used the word to ironic effect in his song "Sail Away," a song about the slave trade from the point of view of a slavetrader: ". . . climb aboard, little wog, sail away with me. Sail away, sail away, we will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay."

• In Australia, I've heard that 'wog' was originally an acronym standing for 'Western Oriental Gentleman,' and was an offensive and disparaging term for Chinese immigrants. It gradually broadened in meaning until it could be applied to almost any foreigner. That might be a folksonomy, though. Still, in my experience 'wog' is only ever used to describe to people from other countries (and their descendants); There's a whole separate vocabulary of offensive and disparaging terms for native Australian non-whites. 

• I would strongly suspect that the word is a corruption of "polliwog" (a tadpole or other small aquatic creature), a word with roots in the mid 15th century and current spelling (though likely with several variants) going back to the 1830s, according to Online Etymology Dictionary. 

Whatever the origins, we should all know better now. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!