Sometimes, I like to enter a random word into Google Images and see what comes up. Sometimes it can be really dull (bread, for instance), and sometimes it gives you something more unexpected, like this image to the right (and dozens like it).
The word? "Golly"
I mean, wtf?!
3 comments:
Gollywogs are very popular in the UK with racists.
You stumbled upon an interesting topic here. I was curious enough to look into the origins of this Golly item; and as a general topic – Iconography as It Relates or Pertains To Race Issues – it’s something that has been rattling around the mind for a few years now…There are a broad array of items like these put into circulation throughout the last 300 odd years. Not just black items – there is an array of racial and other ethno-centric tokens that ‘take aim’ if you will at a variety of peoples. (For the purposes of this comment, I’ll exclude the examples produced elsewhere like Japan and Mexico of racially tinged caricatures)
These have been largely removed from circulation, and in the cases of where they exist in collections they have been relegated to storage. Then I think about the regional dialects that have been snuffed by modernity. Then I think about Native languages that have been lost over the last 300 years or so. I think about the smaller, localized traditions and regional customs that have been set-aside in the march of time.
I wonder about the value of purging these images, dialects, traditions and what-have-you from sight and the collective conscious or unconscious. Just because the past may be offensive to the contemporary eye, why clean and expunge the remains and reminders from record. It’s like being a Holocaust denier for ‘the right reasons’.
This attrition approach to history…and I don’t think there is any one entity or ideal to hang this on, no one group or motive; colonialism, centralized authority, religious, progressivism, political correctness, the interconnectedness that the digital age brings with it, more…it does the idea of ‘culture’ and the ideal of ‘history’ a disservice.
I’d like to see these items put on display, a retrospective or comprehensive survey of these items placed in a museum setting. Gollys, Klan dolls, photos of Sambo’s Restaurants and “Coloreds Only/Whites Only” fountain signs, have a media room running racially charged animations and commercials, and then some. I think there is a way to treat these items without approaching them like a bunch of Pentacostals throwing rock and roll records on a bonfire…(not that that is what you, Dave, are doing here, just generally speaking
@ Holster: Oh, I'll agree with that. Museums, classrooms, history books, whatever. Sweeping embarrassing or unpleasant information under a rug never helps anything. Unfortunately, many people are too lazy to properly frame something like this, and so just ignore it all together.
On a side note, my 13-year old daughter looked at the figures, not knowing any of the history behind them, and thoght they were cute. To be honest, if you divorce them from racial stereotypes, they are kind of cute. Unfortunately, it doesnt work that way.
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