Golliwogs now an endangered species
The Hey Hey It's Saturday! blackface furore made paranoid shop owners move their golliwogs to the back shelves. Understandably, some think the reaction is unjustified.
Store owner Diarne Revelle is quoted in the story above:
"Kids aren't racist and they don't relate to their dolls as being black or white, to them they are their little friends and that's it.
"We are imposing adult sensibilities on childish desire and fancy. Kids aren't racists - golliwogs to them are bright, friendly toys, dolls, scallywags."
That's a good observation. But she also makes the mistake of kowtowing to PC dogma in defending the sale of the dolls:
"In multi-cultural Melbourne, our little customers should be allowed to walk in and select a doll of any colour or any race of their choice."
Not surprisingly lefties snort with derision at this defence. But is invoking PC in defence of something any more ridiculous than doing so to condemn it? Hardly.
In related news, golliwogs have been removed from the latest Noddy book. Tony Summerfield of the Enid Blyton Society says that in the celebrated writer's time they carried no racist connotations:
"Gollies were just nursery toys and it wasn’t until much later that they became seen as racist symbols.”
So, if children don't see them as racist (and they weren't originally envisaged as such) why should we tell them they are?
What's really fascinating about this controversy is the zeal with which lefties cling to and actively promote the stereotypes they say they're trying to stamp out.
But then they would be zealous. Not only are they almost invariably more racist than those they condemn - and therefore, er, protesteth-ing too much - without these "racist" stereotypes they would have nothing to be outraged about. Without being outraged, they can't intimidate people. Without intimidating people, they can't control them. And control is what it's all about for lefties. It's like oxygen to them, poor little petals.
I mean, imagine actually being one of these shrieking ninnies, spending half your waking hours squittering about bloody rag dolls! What a sad, wretched little life you must have.
