oh indeed, but not *American*--bellatrysMarch 7 2008, 01:02:28 UTC
I had never heard the word "golli" or encountered either the story, the toys, or the controversy, until I visited the UK for a summer - and I'd grown up hearing conservative grownups* grump about not having "Sambo's" restaurants because blacks/African-Americans/what-did-they-want-to-be-called-THIS-week? were so oversensitive, why Little Black Sambo was a story about a HEROIC black kid, what was the problem? etc etc etc. And I was aware of genres (categories?) of racist Americana, antique collectibles and ad art from articles in art history 'zines, and so on, but Raggedy-Ann type "gollies" from the US have been damn thoroughly edited out: I was born some twenty years after this billboard was erected, and with a working memory of toystores and family homes (including relatives' in the South) from 1974 on, never encountered one, nor even recollections of owning them (as contrasted with the "Ginny" dolls of my grandmother's past) - every baby doll/rag doll was white then, as I say, to the point where people who were progressive on race would comment on it, in the 1970s even, and the childhood not-having of toys that "looked like me" is something that has come up a lot in memoirs by Asian-American, African-American, Spanish-American commenters over the years.
Thus, I wonder what the hell was going on in that Pittsburgh billboard's ad agency, that they had one, rather than a more mainstream Raggedy Anne/Andy doll - was it an attempt to suggest that in a Republican World Order, "Those People" would be kept in their place, puppets in the hands of your [white] children? Or an attempt to interject the concept of race while seemingly to avoid the overt sort of SCARY BLACK PEOPLE fearmongering that has been overt in US political TV ads in my lifetime, a subtle way of reminding viewers of the feared Coming Race War while avoiding the slams they would have gotten even in 1949 if they'd made the bogeyman's hands dark-skinned instead of clawed & inhuman?
Or was it the sort of "innocent" coincidence of the illustrator having his daughter pose in her Alice dress with her fave toy, and it just being a golliwog-type doll? I know such things have happened, but I doubt that anything that coincidental and "off message" would have gone up at such expense, then any more than now. (I wonder if the board was left over from 1948 or if it was for 1950, too - presidential or merely local elections?)
Re: oh indeed, but not *American*--shininghalfMarch 7 2008, 09:20:54 UTC
When I was young (in the 80s and 90s) my Mom and I were into decorative painting as a hobby, and there was a style of "primitive" pattern where you'd have the wooden cut-out doll, and you'd drill holes in the edge of the head and glue in rope for the hair. Some of them were white, but I want to say some were black, and sometimes the black ones were made so it was knots of rope along the edge of the head rather than the frayed rope sticking out. I can't find example pics online, but I do remember that. Not a children's toy, but I'm not convinced that kind of thing wasn't in the US...
As for the billboard image, I think part of it may be that racist people would have a complex self-image and rationalisation, or at least the privelege not to see what "those" black people complained about. Like, many of them especially in the day saw the "Mammy" image as wholesome and harmonious, and even racial violence could *sometimes* have an air of "protecting our good blacks from the nasty bad blacks". What I mean is, maybe there was a kind of "we will preserve the warm fuzzy peaceful happy racial harmoniousness in which black people will be the playthings of your snowy white children. ...What? Why are you looking at me like that?" (Obviously the "we like our good blacks" thing didn't always hold, like with lynchings where the rest of the town's blacks were lined up, forced to watch, and warned to get out of town, but see "Birth of a Nation" for instance; DW Griffith thought he was making some stand for human peace and happiness, including for the good "loyal" blacks, even as he hugely demonised their race's struggle for franchise and equality.
No, that's EXACTLY the kind of thing I was wondering if they meantbellatrysMarch 7 2008, 15:28:59 UTC
What I mean is, maybe there was a kind of "we will preserve the warm fuzzy peaceful happy racial harmoniousness in which black people will be the playthings of your snowy white children. ...What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
We've all heard about political "dog whistles" by now, it seems to me this just *has* to be one, but I wonder if they were using it this way, to invoke Our Good Old Status Quo, or as a way of sneakily suggesting that the Boogeyman isn't haha, *really* a Werewolf, we all know who we really mean, but just incase you Don't Get It we include a "golli" doll in the background. (If they were trying to appeal generally across racial lines and - like they are today - get away from the, ahem, 'perception' that the GOP is racists, pretending that they were for "security" for EVERYBODY, they would have shown a Norman-Rockwell-esque group of children of different races. But they didn't even bother pretending, then...)
Re: oh indeed, but not *American*--fledgistMarch 7 2008, 11:28:18 UTC
I'd say it was a subtle attempt to insert the concept of race while not making a big fuss about the big scary negroes. That being, at the time, a purely Southern issue, and the negro vote still being up for grabs with older black voters still fairly securely Republican.
Thus, I wonder what the hell was going on in that Pittsburgh billboard's ad agency, that they had one, rather than a more mainstream Raggedy Anne/Andy doll - was it an attempt to suggest that in a Republican World Order, "Those People" would be kept in their place, puppets in the hands of your [white] children? Or an attempt to interject the concept of race while seemingly to avoid the overt sort of SCARY BLACK PEOPLE fearmongering that has been overt in US political TV ads in my lifetime, a subtle way of reminding viewers of the feared Coming Race War while avoiding the slams they would have gotten even in 1949 if they'd made the bogeyman's hands dark-skinned instead of clawed & inhuman?
Or was it the sort of "innocent" coincidence of the illustrator having his daughter pose in her Alice dress with her fave toy, and it just being a golliwog-type doll? I know such things have happened, but I doubt that anything that coincidental and "off message" would have gone up at such expense, then any more than now. (I wonder if the board was left over from 1948 or if it was for 1950, too - presidential or merely local elections?)
* [sic]
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As for the billboard image, I think part of it may be that racist people would have a complex self-image and rationalisation, or at least the privelege not to see what "those" black people complained about. Like, many of them especially in the day saw the "Mammy" image as wholesome and harmonious, and even racial violence could *sometimes* have an air of "protecting our good blacks from the nasty bad blacks". What I mean is, maybe there was a kind of "we will preserve the warm fuzzy peaceful happy racial harmoniousness in which black people will be the playthings of your snowy white children. ...What? Why are you looking at me like that?" (Obviously the "we like our good blacks" thing didn't always hold, like with lynchings where the rest of the town's blacks were lined up, forced to watch, and warned to get out of town, but see "Birth of a Nation" for instance; DW Griffith thought he was making some stand for human peace and happiness, including for the good "loyal" blacks, even as he hugely demonised their race's struggle for franchise and equality.
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We've all heard about political "dog whistles" by now, it seems to me this just *has* to be one, but I wonder if they were using it this way, to invoke Our Good Old Status Quo, or as a way of sneakily suggesting that the Boogeyman isn't haha, *really* a Werewolf, we all know who we really mean, but just incase you Don't Get It we include a "golli" doll in the background. (If they were trying to appeal generally across racial lines and - like they are today - get away from the, ahem, 'perception' that the GOP is racists, pretending that they were for "security" for EVERYBODY, they would have shown a Norman-Rockwell-esque group of children of different races. But they didn't even bother pretending, then...)
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I knew "Golliwog" from Pros fandom but never had a clue what it referred to. Now I wonder if it's fanon because, eh, not making sense?
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