Welcome to the Wokeistan reality distortion field
The Guardian's attempt at creating a race related shitstorm over a display of gollies is borderline woke inspired madness.
I’m probably going to catch some crap over this but here goes.
Over the last couple of days, The Guardian has set itself up as our self appointed guardians (sic) of right and wrong. It started with a report about the seizure of a golliwog doll collection from a pub in Essex by a six person police crew. Apparently, this excellent (sic) use of police time arose because of a single complaint by an anonymous person who felt they’d been the subject of a hate related crime. So far so, potentially good, even though the police response can reasonably be argued as excessive. My own reaction was ‘WTF?’ with the intention of swiftly moving on.
Not content with that story, which got virtually no traction, The Guardian expanded on the topic in a series of stories that took aim at Home Secretary Stella Braverman (which I’ll come to later), along with what looks to me to be the media equivalent of a rectal probe into the life of the pub landlord. As a finale - at least as at the time of this story - The Guardian asked whether the display of golliwogs IS a hate crime. Check this screenshot to get a sense of what The Guardian covered:
If you want more, then check out this search result.
Under normal circumstances, I’d likely shrug at the first few stories and move on. But this set of stories offers insight into how media is setting itself up to be the nation’s moral guardians (sic.)
In an age where everything you put online is subject to later scrutiny, The Guardian’s coverage duly discovered the landlord’s Facebook content going back to 2016 (duh?) as ‘evidence’ that said landlord is in fact racist. In their author’s mind, that is enough to heavily imply that the golly display is in fact racist. And then, as the final nail, the Guardian asks and answers the question: What are golliwog dolls and are they illegal to display? proclaiming at the start that they were:
Created by Florence Kate Upton in 1895, the dolls grew out of racist minstrel caricatures, with frizzy hair, big lips and large white teeth. The word golliwog has been used to dehumanise black people
This is problematic at multiple levels:
The contention that Upton created the doll as a ‘racist minstrel caricature’ is not borne out by the recorded history. The attachment of racism to the golliwog didn’t happen until well into the 20th century. During my childhood of the 50s and 60s, golliwog dolls were popular among children in much the same way as teddy bears. Moreover, Robertsons, the jam maker successfully co-opted the golly image into a long running marketing campaign that encouraged buyers to collect enamelled golly badges in a variety of depictions. At the time, no-one I know took offense anymore than anyone took offense at Smurfs or the Seven Dwarves.
By making the direct assertion that gollies and racism got hand in hand at the top of the story, The Guardian sets up its ability to add gravitas by asking a barrister who doesn’t specialize in hate crime to opine on the topic. To his credit, the barrister when asked: Is it illegal to display golliwog dolls? said:
Potentially, yes. Under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, behaviour that is racially aggravated is an offence if at the time “the offender demonstrates towards the victim hostility based on the victim’s membership or presumed membership of a racial or religious group”. Sailesh Mehta, a barrister at Red Lion Chambers, said: “Even displaying them, it could be argued, is an incitement to racial hatred.” He added: “If I were to have a big slogan in my pub that’s defamatory towards black people, then in principle [that] could amount to incitement to racial hatred, and so it becomes a hate crime.”
Nowhere in the reporting of the golly story has anyone suggested that the landlord has a ‘big slogan in my pub that’s defamatory towards black people.’ Then comes the crucial problem. Asked, How easy would it be to secure a conviction for displaying golliwog dolls? The Guardian says:
…the difficulty for a prosecuting lawyer would be convincing a jury of an intent to cause offence. He (Mehta) said: “My view is that, offensive though golliwogs are, it might be difficult to get it past a jury. It wouldn’t be a clearcut case.”
Not content with these answers, The Guardian pressed on with: Have any other laws potentially been breached? Answer:
Under the 2010 Equality Act, businesses, such as pubs, must provide an equal service to customers and staff. Breaches of this would be dealt with as a civil matter and are the responsibility of local authorities. Any breach could result in the local council removing the pub’s license.
So, no crime there. Earlier reports suggest that following a complaint in 2018, the local council had requested the dolls be removed and that the landlord chose to ignore the request. The fact he still holds a pub license suggests to me that the council didn’t have a leg to stand on - at the time.
Pressing the matter further The Guardian asks:
A 2016 Facebook post from Chris Ryley (the landlord) showed dolls hanging from a shelf in the bar alongside a comment saying: “They used to hang them in Mississippi years ago.” Mehta (the barrister) said this could potentially be prosecuted as malicious communication. Essex police are aware of these posts, and they are understood to form part of their investigation.
Finally, The Guardian attempts to broaden the scope of its position by asking whether shops and websites could be prosecuted for displaying gollies. The barrister goes on to point out more difficulties in this case.
Despite plenty of accusations being thrown in the direction of the landlord, so far, there is no reporting of a crime having been committed. Instead, we have a scattered handful of reports of people over the last five or more years who say they are offended or outraged interspersed with cherry picked, and certainly unsavory Facebook posts.
What bothers me is that guilt is presumed on a matter of an undeniably contentious topic where the latest polling suggests that only 27% of those polled find gollies racially offensive while 48% do not. (Do check out the full results because there are important generational divides on this topic and, the survey is restricted to white people, a problem in itself.) In framing its discussion in the manner in which it does The Guardian seems determined to keep its readers on the ‘hate the hater’ spectrum of outrage. That despite the heavily caveated legal opinion. How do I evidence this?
In and among Th Guardian’s various reporting, it announced that it had approached eBay and Etsy about their inclusion of golly dolls, saying with almost unabashed glee that:
On Wednesday morning Etsy listed a collection of 11 Robertson jam golliwogs and a “vintage handmade folk art black African”. Both items were removed after queries from the Guardian.
A spokesperson confirmed that they had been taken down for breaching the site’s prohibited items policy, which bans items “that promote, support or glorify hatred”.
This is troubling because it implies that despite the contentious nature of gollies, platforms and retailers are encouraged to follow perceived offense on a topic that is not wholly settled. It’s the line of least resistance and one dutifully followed by CAMRA, which got itself into trouble:
The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has condemned a pub’s decision to display golliwog dolls but its response has come under fire as not going far enough to stamp out racism.
Note: Morning Advertiser doesn’t allow pulling quotes so you’ll need to read the whole story to get the full context, which sadly doesn’t reference the social media outrage which, no doubt is all over the Rage Machine aka Twitter. Needless to say, CAMRA’s actions are the equivalent of damned if you do and damned if you don’t reflect those who express extreme wokeism.
Discussions about race topics will always get my attention. That’s because of what I ‘learned’ during my childhood, university education and my family of the last 30 years, who come from many ethnic groupings. So when I read The Guardian’s relentless screeds on the topic I have to ask - since when did they become our moral guardians? (sic) And why does this only apply to black people? This is where the Braverman element kicks in.
I have no hesitation in branding Braverman as a racist. Her almost weekly appearances in the mainstream media on this topic are becoming legendary, for all the wrong reasons. In response to the pub landlord furore, she is quoted as saying:
Police forces should not be getting involved in this kind of nonsense. It’s about tackling anti-social behaviour, stopping violence against women and girls, attending burglaries and catching criminals – not seizing dolls.
That was instantly conflated to mean Braverman supports a landlord accused of acting in a racist fashion. Subsequent reports denied the claimed approach to the police which I might buy if it wasn’t for earlier inflammatory remarks specifically naming Pakistani ‘gangs:’
What we’ve seen is a practice whereby vulnerable white English girls, sometimes in care, sometimes who are in challenging circumstances, being pursued and raped and drugged and harmed by gangs of British Pakistani men who’ve worked in child abuse rings or networks.
It’s now down to the authorities to track these perpetrators down without fear or favour relentlessly and bring them to justice.
We’ve seen institutions and state agencies, whether it’s social workers, teachers, the police, turn a blind eye to these signs of abuse out of political correctness, out of fear of being called racists, out of fear of being called bigoted.
It didn’t take long for critics to note that the evidence for Braverman’s assertions is at best thin on the ground and at worst non-existent and that most offenders are likely to be white. That assumes we can trust the data and in that, the best I can discern is that we don’t really know beyond anecdotal reporting. Ironically, days after Braverman’s outburst 21 white people were convicted for child sexual offenses.
What doesn’t get asked is the broader question about where among the whole population, racism manifests itself. In university, I was taught that racism is about the oppression of black or brown people by white people. I kicked back, especially when the conversation was reduced to racism as the oppression of ‘people of colour.’ My response was always the same: “I’m designated white but you put me in the sun for a few days and you’d be hard pressed to distinguish my skin colour from that of your average local person of Asian heritage. What does that make me? Oppressed if someone lobs a racial slur in my direction?” I remember returning from one vacation and a friend saying: “Dude, from a distance I mistook you for Terry.” Terry is English but of mixed black Caribbean and white English heritage. Was I offended? Hell no. For her part, Braverman appears to want go one step further by reframing racism as a culture clash, which is undoubtedly true but only one component of a much more complex issue that, too often, is treated in a reductive manner.
Over and above all this, I am deeply concerned that what is broadly termed culture wars is being amplified by an agenda designed to divide us for political gain. In that context, The Guardian is acting against its usually left of centre agenda.
In an iNews opinion column, Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future, an independent thinktank on race and identity offered a good but incomplete summary:
Suella Braverman’s decision to bring golliwogs back into public debate will underscore her reputation as the Conservative politician with the most appetite for cultural conflict. The crassly offensive views of the landlord means that the Home Secretary risks legitimising racial hatred, rather than just questioning police priorities or making a dubious appeal to nostalgia for golliwogs. Many colleagues, including those who think anti-woke stances can bring electoral advantage to the right, will hope she can pick her future battles and allies more carefully.
Perhaps. But equally, the so-called woke brigade don’t help and in that, The Guardian in particular, plays a central role. When you can successfully resurrect issues that have faded from public concern to enrage those who feel outraged at crass or juvenile slights then you’re not promoting an inclusive society. You’re acting as an agent for division. That, to me, is where the real crime lays.
The Guardian is, nowadays, an avowedly left-wing newspaper.
However, John Edward Taylor, who founded the newspaper in Manchester in the early 19th century, made his fortune out of profits made from a cotton plantation in America that used slaves.
The Guardian supported the South (aka the Confederacy) in the American Civil War and depicted United States president Abraham Lincoln as “abhorrent”.
Nine other of the eleven initial backers of the Guardian were in the cotton trade, in Manchester. One was the part owner of an estate in Jamaica where over 100 people were enslaved.
While the golliwog incident is much more recent, I would suggest that The Guardian's racist past also deserves some transparency.
Despite its mediocre circulation, The Guardian is very influential thanks to the web. I lot of people rant about the UK Daily Mail which I very rarely look at but I do look at the Guardian quite regularly. It is IMO toxic, divisive and seems intent on spreading fear in a number of areas, while encouraging people to focus on whatever chips on their shoulder they are brooding over.
I used to sometimes comment on the few articles they allow the people they are 'guarding' to comment on, but unless you are agreeing with their stance comments are deleted, even if you are providing links etc refuting the article. I am now under 'pre moderation' meaning I'm on their naughty chair for not conforming.
There's a whole media class - The G, plus NPR, PBS etc in the USA - who are constantly rattling the tin cup for cash pretending to be plucky folks challenging the man.
I grew up with Jackdaw folders about slavery and Golliwogs.
https://www.jackdaw.com/p-324-the-slave-trade-its-abolition.aspx
There were lots of Jamaicans in Coventry where I grew up, no one I knew from the Caribbean had the slightest issue with Gollys. As a kid Gollys actually made me feel warm and fuzzy about black people. It seems to me with have a large group of pernicious busy body people intent on divide and rule based on racism, climate anxiety and anything else they can get their hands on to 'Guard' everyone else.