Young people ‘no longer think golliwogs are racist’

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/01/young-people-no-longer-think-golliwogs-racist-research/

Posted by EasternFly2210

32 comments

  1. As a young person I’d like to ask what a golliwog is?

  2. I was born in the 70s and I didn’t know it was racist until someone replaced the golliwog with a monkey. I just thought it was a mythical creature like elves and fairies.

  4. W.O.G was stitched onto uniforms of predominantly black prisoners in America, it stands for Workers Of the Government. Similarly a W.O.P is a derogatory term to a American illegal, With Out Papers.
    Both terms are of different times and not nice really.

  5. Like they took the guy off uncle Bens or changed the blackboard in class to a greenboard🙈🤷‍♂️ Absolute nonsense imo. Education is all that is needed. Proper education. It’s been a long road, but the changes have been substantial. There were racist people then, now & in the future, but most if us are not & these woke changes are pointless. Just my two cents😅

  6. Remember them being on the jam jars, that’s about it.

  9. Neither did anyone until someone made it out to be racist

  10. Always thought it was a doll or teddy.

    Unless your calling a P.O.C a golliwog which would be racist.

  11. It never occurred to me as a kid in the ’70s that golliwogs were supposed to be depictions of black people. They were just what they were, a fantasy creature like the wombles, for instance.

    Years later, I was genuinely surprised when I found out the association and then looked into the history of the golliwog.

  12. Context like most things people ignore, I grew up in the 70’s and never saw the “golliwog” as a negative thing it’s was just a doll no different to anything else.

  13. One of my neighbours has their window full of golliwogs facing out into the road.

    They (the dolls, never met the neighbour)’re a bit weird.

  15. So here is an interesting one for the mods, I made the First comment on this thread, but automod caught me, here is my censored comment.

    ——/

    ” Imean typical telegraph article, don’t go read the comments unless you just want the most Facebook aunt g***on boomer takes imaginable.

    But I can’t blame the prof hoe wrote the book the article is based on

    ““I believe that the history of British race awareness can be uniquely understood through the golliwog. This history is difficult for many for different reasons but it needs to be addressed for the same reasons that we do not shy away from studying the Holocaust, African slavery, the British Empire or any other testing history.”

    I think he is more unhappy with the lack of education that anything else but would like to see how he came to that conclusion that the article doesn’t go into.”

    —-/

    I assumed auto mod got me for gollywog, understandable but apparently it was the delicious ham I as censored for.

    Make of that what you will.

  16. I never associated them with racism when I was younger. They were just a character associated with jam to me! Judging by the comments, some young people have never even heard of them to be able to decide!

  17. I grew up reading Blyton’s books and had no clue Golliwogs were meant to be racist. I think I was well in my 20s – in the 2000’s, when I first heard that, and I was completely taken aback by the idea. Later I realised that it was just Enid “Racist Horndog” Blyton co-opting them for that purpose.

  20. Picture the police kicking down your door and charging you with a racially aggravated public order offence for owning a child’s doll. I wish I were making that up.

  21. I don’t see how golliwogs are racist, just look like black/brown raggedy ann dolls. They look cute.

  22. With most things, when enough time passes and the elders die out, the original message gets lost and the young don’t learn the important message.

    Or what’s worse, they know its offensive but don’t understand why, and use it to grab attention trying to be “edgy”.

    I’d think a majority of Millenials and Gen X would cringe at their behaviour when they were teens. I’m sure Gen Z will feel the same eventually

  23. I think the fuss about golliwogs was due to people looking for racism, but failing to find anything substantive.

  24. Some people just need to be upset about something, Gollywogs gave them an outlet to be upset about.

  25. I went on a walk on Christmas day and found a front garden with numerous Golliwogs on display.

    My fairly conservative family were still very wtf about it.

  26. A lot of excuses being made on this thread by what appears to be mostly white people… the irony.

  27. When I was young, I remember reading one of Enid Blyton’s Noddy books, in which Noddy is mugged and stripped naked by a gang of ‘bad golliwogs’…

  28. That’s because young people often don’t know what they are. It’s not because stereotypical depictions of black people are somehow not racist now, it’s because if you’re sufficiently far removed from the original context, it’s not obvious that they’re actually supposed to be depictions of black people at all.

  29. When I was little I had a glowing, but I didn’t know it was supposed to be a black person.

  31. They need reminding about racism and fascism or you get what’s happening in America

  32. Is there anything other than the word of this 67-year-old academic and golliwog enthusiast that this article is basing itself on? Has he done surveys or something? Or is it just a vibes thing where he’s pretty sure golliwogs are cool now?

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