Fri Sep 22, 2017 2:48 pm
#1560398
Being serious for a moment, there is a lovely old Latin phrase that I first heard on Yes, Minister. "Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis". Roughly means, times change and we change with them. As Mercian Marcus and Aerbabe have noted, golliwogs weren't really associated with racism back in my youth, where the society we lived in back then wasn't really that much of a multiracial society. I also used to like collecting the golliwog badges from jam jar labels.
However, times have moved on, and the society has moved on as well. It is definitely easy now to see how golliwogs can give offence, and, as Mercian Marcus points out, we need to be sensitive to that fact.
I don't think Britain is an especially racist country. Of course, there are racists in Britain, but far and away the vast majority are not, and find it quite unacceptable. As I have mentioned, my wife is of a different race, and I have observed carefully her treatment here. Frankly, I can't point to even one example where she has received any real racial discrimination in the time she has been here. Quite the contrary. She has been welcomed and treated with respect by pretty much everyone.
Evidencing a study that concludes that people of certain very broad demographic categories are less sensitive to the golliwog issue is, in my opinion, unwise, even if there is some statistical evidence to support it. It is unwise because it infers that people in those categories are more likely to be racist, but, as there are so very few truly racist people in this country, it is much more likely to offend more people who are in those demographic groups who find racism unacceptable than it is to hit real targets. Utilising such studies to make a point that golliwogs are offensive is to apply somewhat of a double standard if you wantonly choose to ignore the inherent offensiveness of such a scattergun approach.
That people who didn't live in the age of golliwogs find them an offensive symbol is right and proper. However, not being willing to see them in the context of the day is being somewhat narrow minded and unfair.
However, times have moved on, and the society has moved on as well. It is definitely easy now to see how golliwogs can give offence, and, as Mercian Marcus points out, we need to be sensitive to that fact.
I don't think Britain is an especially racist country. Of course, there are racists in Britain, but far and away the vast majority are not, and find it quite unacceptable. As I have mentioned, my wife is of a different race, and I have observed carefully her treatment here. Frankly, I can't point to even one example where she has received any real racial discrimination in the time she has been here. Quite the contrary. She has been welcomed and treated with respect by pretty much everyone.
Evidencing a study that concludes that people of certain very broad demographic categories are less sensitive to the golliwog issue is, in my opinion, unwise, even if there is some statistical evidence to support it. It is unwise because it infers that people in those categories are more likely to be racist, but, as there are so very few truly racist people in this country, it is much more likely to offend more people who are in those demographic groups who find racism unacceptable than it is to hit real targets. Utilising such studies to make a point that golliwogs are offensive is to apply somewhat of a double standard if you wantonly choose to ignore the inherent offensiveness of such a scattergun approach.
That people who didn't live in the age of golliwogs find them an offensive symbol is right and proper. However, not being willing to see them in the context of the day is being somewhat narrow minded and unfair.