It's not a black doll - it's a golliwog. More commonly referred to these days, when necessary, as a golly. They were very popular toys for much of the C20 - in the UK they feature most notoriously in Enid Blyton books and on Robertsons jam jars. But you're right that it adds an extra degree of OMG! to the poster.
But the Golly (story, brand-name, collectible toys) isn't part of US pop culture, the way it was in the UK - which is why I'm so curious as to why it was included: *were* there mass-produced toys of this sort, like with Raggedy Ann/Andy, that have been successfully edited out of public consciousness (unlike other racist pop culture artifacts, some of which have been -literally - whitewashed, like the "lawn jockeys", and are still defended by the "traditionalists," like the golli-pleaders in Britain) or was it so common for white mothers to sew their daughters black-caricature ragdolls in Pittsburgh, at least, that the agency would have used it rather than a more-typical teddy-bear? Given that billboard buys have never been cheap, I'm sure it wasn't an accident, but the message - the overt - is really complicated, and the historical/cultural questions it raises are like pulling a thread on a sweater
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My impression from a quick internet trawl is that gollys were certainly common in the US at one point (jam!Robertson was inspired by seeing them there), but perhaps died out sooner. And IIRC, in my early 80s childhood, though they appeared in the odd Blyton book and on jam-jars, they were not by this point actually around as toys any more in the UK. But I don't know enough (anything) about its cultural significance at the point in US political/race history to make an informed stab at why/how the advert is using it, though I agree that it surely wouldn't have been an accident. My best guess (and its completely a guess) would be that if gollys were by the time of the poster becoming less socially acceptible, then there's a potential message of "These people are demanding that your innocent daughter not have her harmless doll, but they don't care about the Evil Birth of a Nation Child Rapists!" Which is pretty much the same argument as the modern ones that e.g. opposing detention without trial de facto means supporting terrorism, and
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::LMAO:: Okay, firstly, *who's* frittering away American promise for Security...? It really seems like the Rs have had the point on that one for a long time, although given his reported nimbleness in defining his terms in that book, I can't say as I'm surprised.
Second, you might wanna read the rest of your fable before you go dissing magic beans. The insult kinda falls apart.
Third, Nineveh beat me to the Golliwog comment. Google "primitive black doll" or something and you'll find enough American examples that I feel safely sure it's not racially progressive. "Vote Republican or the Wolf Man will take away Scarlett's Mammy!"
No, see, the beanstalk leads to COMMUNISM, and a giant Josef Stalin will come down it, but we'll cut it down with civil rights legislation so he falls to his death and we get to keep his magic balalaika or something, I guess... ::headscratch::
I also find it fascinating that "the promise of America" is apparently a dry cow.
Oh, I think it makes PERFECT sense--bellatrysMarch 7 2008, 12:34:56 UTC
"Americans, hold on to your dry cows, i.e., cling to your unhelpful traditions of decreasing utility and value, at any cost! FEAR RISK OF ALL SORTS!!!!"
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
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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
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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...)
Make our Homes and Streets Safe!tlachtgaMarch 7 2008, 04:01:24 UTC
Safe from what--werewolves? Cause seriously, if that's not Lon Chaney Jr...
As for black dolls--I have the old Raggedy Ann and Andy books, and there's what I guess is a "mammy" doll, but I guess in my 4-year-old ignorance, I never thought to connect it with actual black people (like my neighbors or schoolmates), any more than I equated Raggedy Ann with white people (or basically anything other than other ragdolls who may or may not come alive while you're asleep and do lots of cool things that you never catch). But I doubt the racist elements passed over the heads of kids who actually saw those dolls the first time around.
I guess I was a literal-minded child (a doll is a doll, not a person, even if I secretly thought they might be alive like in cartoons), but maybe that wasn't a bad thing.
Overt racism was something I think my mother tried to hide from us for a long time. This lead to an embarrassing occasion in school when I mispronounced the word Niger, and didn't understand why it was upsetting. Never made that mistake
The billboard is so ludicrous and every thing about the it (especially the dolly) so problematic that honestly I had to laugh out loud at it. Not only at the ideas behind it but also at the fact that I wouldn't be surprised to see an exact duplicate today in some parts of the country. Well it was laugh or cry...
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[ETA: here via meandering through cyberspace]
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Second, you might wanna read the rest of your fable before you go dissing magic beans. The insult kinda falls apart.
Third, Nineveh beat me to the Golliwog comment. Google "primitive black doll" or something and you'll find enough American examples that I feel safely sure it's not racially progressive. "Vote Republican or the Wolf Man will take away Scarlett's Mammy!"
As often, Jon Stewart helps: http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=147884&is_large=true (Watch him praise "classical liberalism": conflating market freedom with personal freedom, actual footage!)
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I also find it fascinating that "the promise of America" is apparently a dry cow.
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Yup, that sounds like National Review, all right.
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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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As for black dolls--I have the old Raggedy Ann and Andy books, and there's what I guess is a "mammy" doll, but I guess in my 4-year-old ignorance, I never thought to connect it with actual black people (like my neighbors or schoolmates), any more than I equated Raggedy Ann with white people (or basically anything other than other ragdolls who may or may not come alive while you're asleep and do lots of cool things that you never catch). But I doubt the racist elements passed over the heads of kids who actually saw those dolls the first time around.
I guess I was a literal-minded child (a doll is a doll, not a person, even if I secretly thought they might be alive like in cartoons), but maybe that wasn't a bad thing.
Overt racism was something I think my mother tried to hide from us for a long time. This lead to an embarrassing occasion in school when I mispronounced the word Niger, and didn't understand why it was upsetting. Never made that mistake
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