Why its right to be outraged by racist symbols

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Yuri Prasad explores the history of the racist dolls the right was quick to defend

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Saturday, April 15, 2023

Number 2851

The White Hart Inn in Grays, Essex, proudly displayed racist dolls (Wikicommons/ David Anstiss)

It’s just a toy. How can you be so upset with a doll? It was the refrain of rights last week after police investigated a pub with a collection of blackface dolls, known by the racist term golliwogs, sitting proudly behind its bar.

Suella Braverman, the hard-right interior secretary, had harsh words with woke cops after the event, despite no arrests, charges or permanent forfeitures. But the apparent misunderstanding of dolls as a racist symbol has been feigned. Anyone who grew up in Britain in the 1970s and 80s knows they are a racist provocation, just as much as a no black people sign above a pub door.

They were the mascot for the Robertsons brand of domestic jams and marmalades, which later led to pendants, jewelry and collectible dolls. Not only are the dolls a complete caricature with jet-black skin, big white-rimmed eyes, and clown lips, but they’ve also spawned the most loathsome racist termwog.

Those who claim ignorance are a lot like those who think that throwing bananas at black footballers and police chanting monkey noises at black people is just a bit of fun. Unsurprisingly, Essex pub owner Chris Ryley declared his support for White Lives Matter and wore a fascist Britain First t-shirt.

On social media, Ryley wrote: They used to hang them in Mississippi years ago next to a picture of the dolls in his bar. Asked about the message, Ryley said: In the 1800s, when slaves ran away in America’s Deep South, they would beat or hang them. My comment referred to that. He added what he thought was a soothing balm. He wasn’t supposed to harm anyone.

Of course not, mate. In their various incarnations since the turn of the 19th century, dolls were never meant to represent what black people actually looked like. Instead, they were part of a minstrel tradition that emerged in America much earlier, where white people painted black and spoke in imaginary colloquialisms.

Marxist historian David Roediger argues that this blackface culture, which included plays, songs, and fake speeches, was a reaction to the fear of the newly industrialized society. Racist entertainment of the time was used to project the anxieties of white men onto blackfaced characters, he writes in his book, The Wages of Whiteness.

The rapid growth of factories and mills threatened livelihoods and traditions. Skilled craftsmen were replaced by machines. To poor whites and sections of the middle class, wage slavery looked like a betrayal of the supposed benefits of whiteness that the powerful had long promised them. Their anger at being treated like slaves had to be diverted from the bosses.

Racea capitalist invention

Racist cartoons that portrayed black people as idiots, lazy people, buffoons and cowards served this purpose. These reinforced ideas of white superiority and deeply divided the emerging working class. From this racist swamp, a book featuring Golliwog, a black doll-like character, emerged in New York City in 1873.

It quickly spread to Europe where the character took on an increasingly sinister turn. It was children’s literature that was designed to support white superiority. Poetry and novels were dripping with racist filth and mass-produced dolls based on filthy stereotypes sold by the millions.

But the world that spawned blackface was changing rapidly in the 1930s. Across the Empire, rebellion is stirring. Dark-skinned people ridiculed by racists as ignorant have shown great insight in the often bloody battles to take back their country. They forced a humiliated British ruling class to flee most of Asia, Africa and the Middle East within decades. Perhaps this spirit of rebellion should now pay a visit to a particular pub in Essex.

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