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Golliwog Type Dolls on Sale

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Submitted by Cassy
Golliwog doll
Golliwog doll

It was Easter Holiday so I took the opportunity to take my children around Barbados, not only cultural events and historical places but also to listen to some political views of the Caribbean people.

It was at the Barbados museum bookshop while buying some books that one of my children asked me if it was still legal to sell golliwog type dolls. My reply was that it was in Barbados because clearly those type of dolls are right there for sale next to the books on Slavery and the effects of the slave trade.

A week later and my children are still upset that those dolls are for sale with  ” Barbados” printed on the front.

The sales lady too said that it upsets her to sell them but the white tourist love to buy them so in that case the dolls bring in money.

Anywhere else and there would have been an outcry!

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203 responses to “Golliwog Type Dolls on Sale”

  1. Golliwog Type Dolls on Sale | Black In Barbados

    […] David Submitted by Cassy It was Easter Holiday so I took the opportunity to take my children around […]

  2. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    Do they look like you….if yes sue them for royalties……if not …..what is the prob????

  3. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    I would want to know if the salesperson was black, i presume she was, and if white both are kowtowing to tourists who still believe Barbados and Bajans cannot live without their tourist dollars……….putting all your eggs in one basket breeds this type of stupidity, again, governments who lack brain power..

  4. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    @ Vincent

    My grand daughter tells me this one.

    Circa 2007 gift exchange program at St Winifred’s school at Xmas 20 white girls and 6 black kids in exchange.

    All white kids meet and one girls house and get wrapping paper with monkeys and wrap all the black children’s gifts in the monkeys paper and proceed with the exchange.

    It is not as simplistic a matter of resemblance Mr haynes or if the golliwogs look like you, and it cannot be washed away with that comment about royalties and sue them either, it is the issue of insensitivity if i were to come into your establishment and whenever i saw you call you a hunkie would you be as patronizing?

    Or if i got some white Ken/Barbie dolls with penises that are proportionate to 2 inch weiners purported to be in the pants of many of the white boys them, would you apply your resemblance litmus test then?

    Gollywogs insult us because we know where they originated and what they represent…. capiche?

  5. ac Avatar
    ac

    see what i mean another self serving manipulative selfserving episode,,,all about control …….something that whites find hard to give up…even after all these years of preaching and teaching about insensitivity,,what mitigated gall the whites would need a doll whose roots are a party of slavery is criminal..the need for control is all the whites want,,,and not surprising that they can manipulated blacks over and over again using money with their pretentious and self serving racist undertones

  6. Hamilton Hill Avatar
    Hamilton Hill

    @pieceuhderockyearight…somehow I am getting the sense that not as many people as we would love to believe really understand the origin or the intended significance of the golliwog, therefore its presence is not seen as offensive as it really should be. Are you surprised and if so why? Go engage in conversation any of the unfortunate semi slaves that were forced to toil for a certain woman of Indian origin back in the late seventies early eighties and hear about the names they were called. ..and right here in the land of their birth. This is we culture! Ask Gabby.

  7. PLANTATION DEEDS FROM 1926 TO 2014 , MASSIVE FRAUD ,LAND TAX BILLS AND NO DEEDS OF BARBADOS, BLPand DLP=Massive Fruad Avatar
    PLANTATION DEEDS FROM 1926 TO 2014 , MASSIVE FRAUD ,LAND TAX BILLS AND NO DEEDS OF BARBADOS, BLPand DLP=Massive Fruad

    Racist Golliwogs
    dek

    Golliwog dolls — named after a blackface minstrel-like character in Florence Kate Upton and Bertha Upton’s 1895 book The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg — were enormously popular in England and elsewhere in the first half of the 20th century but fell out of fashion, for obvious reasons, starting in the civil rights era of the 1960s. The offensive figurines came roaring back into the public eye in February, however, when a shop on the Queen of England’s estate was found to be selling them. They were quickly taken off the shelves, but more “gollies” surfaced in another English shop in May. “We sold out of them last time,” explained the store manager. “A lot of people had them in their childhood and now want them for their grandchildren.” Some things are better left in the past.

    http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1927306_1927313_1927351,00.html

    Boy you learn some thing new everyday,

  8. ac Avatar
    ac

    as far as i can remember being called a golliwog was an insult..the features and characteristic were intentionally created and design to malign people of colour,, for some it brings back terrible childhood memories ,,no one that i knew that were black was happy to be called a golliwog far from it,,, it hurt demeaned and figuratively and intentionally chip away at black peoples character,,,can’t for the life of me see how ANYONE OF COLOUR see any redeeming characteristic of self respect in the name or character of something caled a GOLLIWOG,,,

  9. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    KOUROS THE HUNK says……..

    Piece

    two inch weiners….LOL

    Have you swallowed that one too (err) since you mention it? Is that what characterizes the white man in YOUR mind? You mention it so I guess it must. Now what does that say about YOU? And is that all we’ve got here – BIG ones and cricket?

    Joke I heard once……

    black man crossing a zebra crossing – now you see him now you don’t

    offensive yes? then change it….

    white man crossing a zebra crossing – now you see him now you don’t

    better? good

    White man says….my two inch hits places big ones pass by.
    Black man says ….I’m a great lover, I’ve got a 10 inch.

    I just read that the word ‘golly’ has a deep religious significance – it refers to the word ‘God”. OK so the golly-doll refers to the great black god of the universe…in short an incarnate and BLACK – ah shock, horror – JESUS FIGURE. Can’t be bad.

    Personally, I think we should ask Beckles to incorporate Golly insults in the programme for reparations. It could be the excalibur he needs.

  10. "What a Nigga Know?", "Black Bastards!" Avatar
    “What a Nigga Know?”, “Black Bastards!”

    “I just read that the word ‘golly’ has a deep religious significance”

    Me no massa sir.. word “wog” is ethnic racial slur used by white bitches (white boys can be bitches too)

  11. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Nigga Know

    You are running in blinkers. The word explored was ‘golly’. Now IF ‘golly’ equals God, the word ‘wog’, at its broadest, equals ‘dark skinned foreigner’ NOT, one-to-one, a black person. Ergo God is not British and Caucasian. but…and there’s always a ‘but’….he might be Italian and live in Rome. That’s a mercy. But what is a “white bitch”? If you mean a white girl, I can only suppose the word ‘wog’ is a term of endearment and anticipation because we all know they dream only of black batons don’t we? After all, what else is there to dream of? (some white boys dream too).

  12. Bitches Too Avatar
    Bitches Too

    Wog is a cunting racist term used by whites in England and Australia

    point made was Men can be Bitches too (especially smart arses)

    Biiiitch!!

  13. Golliwog Type Dolls on Sale | Barbados Underground | fast horses

    […] Link: Golliwog Type Dolls on Sale | Barbados Underground […]

  14. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    @ Ross

    The only penises that i have seen are those of my sons’ and grandsons and those of the taxi men in Broad Street as they relieve themselves with such abandon next to that jewelry store near shoe locker when I go there to play draughts pun ***

    I must admit that i have never seen a white man’s doggie in my life and that my comments were based on a stereotypical construct and that is all that should say about de ole man since i do not have any Wickham or We Jonesing genes.

    I find it sort of strange though that you, with your normal logical self, should rise to comment on this 2 inch hunkie doggie thing, paladin for the purported short doggie issue as opposed to the insensitivity of the golliwog.

    I will quote here “The Golliwog (originally spelled Golliwogg) is the least known of the major anti-black caricatures in the United States. Golliwogs are grotesque creatures,1 with very dark, often jet black skin, large white-rimmed eyes, red or white clown lips, and wild, frizzy hair”

    “Florence Upton’s ugly little creation was embraced by the English public. The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls was immensely popular in England, and Golliwogg became a national star.”

    I guess this ole man doesn’t necessarily expect you to identify with or understand “Black Stereotypes and Caricatures” so something that highly exaggerates our characteristics like the 2 inch doggie does yours, would be a thing that is lost on some of us.

    Blacks and their love of water mellons still is one of the favourite imageries of the American nigger.

    It is a black thing Ross and I dont think that you would ever get it.

  15. Exclaimer Avatar
    Exclaimer

    Why the surprise? If you had arranged to send round some thick-set, broad shoulders, dark-skinned African Mules. The owner of the shop would have removed those obscene dolls in double quick time. People this is our problem; we’re simply too nice and polite.

  16. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    “I have never seen a white mans doggie in my life”……WHAT …….you writing from jail?????

  17. Lemuel Avatar
    Lemuel

    Could some one tell if all of this talk here makes a difference. When Kernel Buggy and his kind put up their feet in Barbados and talk about the gentle black who kept the Andrew hills clean and nice to look at; he could have erected a large golliwog doll replica instead. And most of you who run up to holders put up with a lot of this non sense but come here getting vex cause tourist buying golliwog dolls. Clean up your back yard first; put these backcra honkies bout here in their place first and then cast as many stones as you feel like. But it will never happen. If I had golliwog dolls I would be selling them to because they are meaningless to me.

  18. David Avatar
    David

    As a people how do we want to be perceived? We are about to celebrate National Heroes Day. What do we want to be for crissakes.

  19. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Piece

    “It is a black thing Ross…and you wouldn’t get it”

    Don’t make yourself so important. But there is a logic – look for it standing on your feet.

    “rise to the doggie thing”

    But Piece YOU brought it up not me. You were projecting. And why would I rise to the two inch thing – me who has been “cunting” (infra) successfully from China to Peru.

    On water melons…

    Big ones on women of any race.

    I have never thought of the golliwog as a “grotesque creature”. Though I’ve never thought of it this way until now, seems I sleep with one every night – the most beautiful golly imaginable. Eat your heart out.. So again – I would want to know more of the writer. Sounds like you in drag Piece.

    Bitches too

    I have never heard the expression ‘Wog’ as applied to the female member anywhere. But I will ask my (black) kids.. I must say that the expression “cunting” might be explored further. Is it going hunting for black ones? And are they white lesbian girls? (mmm you do get around)

    Lemuel

    “Does it make a difference?

    No it doesn’t and none of it does much but maybe – just maybe – we might take the sting out of some of it.

  20. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    I have been thinking of the expression ‘black doll” – which is what a golly is I suppose.

    I was thinking of the Paul Robeson spiritual which has the words “My little black doll, curled up in your nest of love…and go to your rest, asleep at my breast, my little black doll.” I used to sing it to my baby daughter. Gosh golly…was I being racially slurred?

    And what of “curly headed” – as in the Robeson ‘Oh my baby, my curly headed baby, your Daddy’s in the cotton field….” which I sang to my infant boys.

    But cf ‘Mighty like a Rose’

    None of them cared much about race. They slept anyway. Which causes me to say – might it, just might it, be the case that the ‘anti-Golly Club’ is a Club for geriatrics?

    Now here is my list of little black dolls…..

    Our Lady of Halle
    Our Lady of Altotting
    Our Lady of Loreto
    Our Lady of Czestochowa
    Our Lady of Guadalupe
    Our Lady of Toledo
    La Divina Pastora…and of course so many more

    We are back to the meaning of Golly….as in Theotokos.

  21. Islandgal246 Avatar
    Islandgal246

    Good morning to all! Some of wanna like to take offence of any and everything. Who do you think runs the museum? White people? I make dolls from time to time and I have some brown, black and some light brown dolls. I dress them in beautiful dresses with aprons straw hats and baskets. These dolls are used to put your supermarket bags in for later use. I have made them for my mother in law in the USA to raise funds for her teachers sorority group that arranges scholarships for women who want to become educators. Those dolls were a hit with many. The one with the black skin were the last to sell. They were very attractive but some white people hesitated buying because they were uncomfortable in a way probably they reminded them of gollywogs. Yet we in Barbados have no problem buying blonde blue eyed dolls for our black children. I remembered having black dolls in Trinidad when I lived there and had a little white English friend who badly wanted one too. When my daughter was small I found it very difficult to buy a black doll in b
    Bridgetown. The store owners said that they didn’t sell. The people of this island preferred white dolls for their children. Remy hair anyone?

  22. Islandgal246 Avatar
    Islandgal246

    Some bout hey like to believe that all black men are well hung well I got news for you, they only show the well hung ones in porn. Go take a reality check. They say it is not the size of the ocean but the motion of the ocean.

    A sweet hello to lemmie! And my piece.

  23. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Island

    Well hung ones in porn….does that mean that small white ones as an identifying feature are all in Piece’s mind or attached to white cuckolds?

  24. David Avatar
    David

    @islandgal

    Thw hesitation to buy the Black doll is instructive no?

  25. Islandgal246 Avatar
    Islandgal246

    David hesitation can be instructive in many ways, It can bee seen as racist, politically correct or just not their cup of tea.

  26. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    I once bought my daughter a black doll. It looked “human” just like ken and barbie look human.

    There is no way that a golliwog doll should be sold in Barbados given the racist use of the term golliwog.
    There are some things you do not have to do and the museum will survive without the sale of offensive dolls.

    Google “black dolls” and tell me what you find.

    I did not see any golliwogs.

  27. Islandgal246 Avatar
    Islandgal246

    David look at the bigger picture……why black bajans prefer to buy their children white dolls.

  28. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Piece……I believe in making ALL THINGS equal, so to ease Vincent’s dismay that blacks should take umbrage at black golliwog dolls sold to whites only, cause who is dumb enough to want a black golliwog doll in their homes, what kind of sick pleasure would anyone have the time to get out of that, how about manufacturing some WHITE GOLLIWOG DOLLS and sell them to BLACKS ONLY so they can have a good laugh, now that would bring some semblance of balance to the bullshit, what does everyone think?

  29. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Hamitton…….why are you afraid to call the name of lowlife, one eye Mirchandani aka Kirpalani?

  30. Lemuel Avatar
    Lemuel

    Island:

    Glad to hear you; I thought you were away.

    Ross:

    I wid you on this one!

  31. Lemuel Avatar
    Lemuel

    Island:

    By the way, stop talking out we business about the well hung male. I not like Bushie; I got feelings too.

  32. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Islandgal246 wrote ” why black bajans prefer to buy their children white dolls.”

    I hope it is because the stores do no offer normal “human” looking black dolls.

    http://thegrio.com/2013/10/11/black-dolls-show-off-natural-looks-in-new-custom-collection/#s:natural_hair_dolls

  33. ac Avatar
    ac

    don.t get it twisted isgal is not the doll but what it represents sterotypical negativr black imagesthat were endorse by whites presenting blacks as ugly with abnormalities not found in whites

  34. Islandgal246 Avatar
    Islandgal246

    Good morning ac, so what abut raggedy ann and and Andy dolls? they don’t look like real white people. They have red woolly hair big popping out blue eyes and a big grin. What about black men and big fat white women or write women and rough black men?

    Haunts you only ONCE bought your daughter a black doll? My doll had curly hair and was often mistaken for a real baby. My great grandfather once told me to put the baby down before she fell from me. I had a good laugh when he found out it was a doll. Lol

  35. Jack Bowman Avatar
    Jack Bowman

    For once, I have to disagree with the usually eloquent and right-thinking robert ross.

    It’s just not right to sell golliwog dolls anywhere, and it’s spectacularly wrong to sell them in the national museum of a majority-black country. The things do indeed have particular connotations, and they are meant to project a particular image of a whole people. They are, to use a pretentious but useful word, a synecdoche.

    I can imagine that plenty of people would be troubled if they visited the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem and discovered that the authorities were selling little dolls with massively contorted hooked noses and ringlets, clutching little copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

    Some things just aren’t right, and this is one of them.

  36. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Look……let’s simplify it, take a look at Bill Gates with all his quadrillions of dollars, now if he had REAL BRAIN POWER he would not be looking like something from nightmare on elm street, i said that to say this, those who know have correctly come to the correct conclusion that albiino ‘whites’ had no choice but to present blacks in a bad light eg bad skin, bad hair, no intelligence, low intelligence…….etc…….all in a bid to present themselves as SUPERIOR, it’s a scam that worked for centuries and still works today in a dumbed down society like the bajan society, hence the bleaching skin, remy hair crap……some of us who know it’s a scam cause in reality the ablino ‘whites’ have inferior skin, no melanin or low melanin remember, stingy, flat hair that starts falling out by the time they are 30 or even before, oh i forgot, Bill Gates skin, unhealthy, spotted and ugly and we can go on all day……but they ‘whites” have a very keen sense of survival with an intelligence that dictates that they remain in control and which they pass on from generation to generation…..something very seriously missing in the black race. Vincent, i just gave you more to wonder about.

  37. Islandgal246 Avatar
    Islandgal246

    Lemmie sorry to let the dog out the kennel. Ruff ruff!

  38. Islandgal246 Avatar
    Islandgal246

    Ross perhaps the well hung black male is just a figment of piece’s imagination. Piece if you have never seen a white doggie then Google it!

  39. Exclaimer Avatar
    Exclaimer

    It seems like Islandgal246 has taken over this post.
    246 Hal Austin is waiting for some more replies on his latest post. It needs somebody like you to ignite it. Go girl!

  40. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Exclaimer said:

    People this is our problem; we’re simply too nice and polite.

    Exclaimer………..i believe it was you said that, problem is, blacks tend to be polite with every group of people on this earth, but not polite enough with each other for some reason that is still a mystery…i have my thoughts but maybe someone else can expand on that……Vincent, may be better able.

  41. dompey Avatar
    dompey

    Islandgal

    I don’t know Islandgal that well, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that she
    resembles the doll a great deal. She is a fine specimen of human form and ready for the serving. lol

  42. Islandgal246 Avatar
    Islandgal246

    Exclaimed what about the wooden man dolls with the coconut shell barrel when you lift the barrel a BIG wooden dick pops out in Yuh face. Why not complain about that doll. Every tourist shop does sell dem. Nah de big dick myth is good for business huh?

  43. Islandgal246 Avatar
    Islandgal246

    Donkey your dick too big for your pan cart?

  44. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    What about the silly cabbage patch dolls, black and white, over 4.5 billion in sales …..obviously the black ones made were racist duh

  45. Stig Avatar
    Stig

    I am not black and I’m not from Barbados just living here and those dolls and the word golliwog offends me. A pity some people can’t see when they are being insulted. Maybe they didn’t go to school, especially islandgal . Let me call you a black gollywog to your face as see if you think it is a term of endearment. Some insults whether old or new just go way over some people head. Lol

  46. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Someone is just telling me that the golliwog dolls are illegal in England, they like to copy every shit from England, why not copy that ban, I am just showing the hypocrisy inherent in the leaders in Barbados, they have no problems kowtowing and allowing any illegality for the tourist dollar.

    Lawson….from what i can remember of the cabbage patch dolls, they were not designed to show up any group of people they were designed to capatilize………..make billions, those golliwogs were meant to demoralize a whole race, they were not created this century, they must have been going for a couple centuries now, at least 150 years.

  47. ac Avatar
    ac

    again isgal bajans and blacks worldwide had bought in to the “thinking” that things white were pristine and wholesome.that kind of thinking as since change when the black revolution in the sixties reigned in the development of black minds with a campagain of “black is beautiful” which target appreciation of self and culture

  48. Islandgal246 Avatar
    Islandgal246

    Stig it up yours…..you can call me any name you wish it does not bother me because I know who I am and no one can take that away from me. If you think that I am uneducated or a gollywog that says everthing and more about you than me. Gluten tag!

  49. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Moneybrain and Lawson…..what’s with the two of you trying to make me believe that you would be the ones to pay reparations for the African/Caribbean slave trade, now why would you have to be the ones to do so? instead of telling me that the same people who ill-treated your ancestors, the parasitic buckingham palace crowd and their equally parasitic lowlife associates who through the centuries benefited directly and handsomely from the slave trade, and yall should also be in the midst of suing their asses for reparations for what they did to your ancestors, but NO, the two of you are on here trying to mamaguy me, have you not learned anything yet, by now yall should be telling me what i will type next….lol

  50. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    Well Well the reason is I don’t let how the brits treated my ancestors get in the way of living or business ,….. reparations….. you were given an island ….nationalize it ….divide up the spoils….who cares ….just please take some accountability for your own misfortune

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