A Post

[tadorna]

I haven't been posting much lately. Normally I would start off with lots of excuses and apologies for my appalling behaviour, but I'm trying to cut down on that sort of thing.

Nothing to report about the job stuff at present. Nothing much to report about anything, really.

I've said it before, but I need to stop wasting vast swathes of time reading the comments posted to blogs and online news articles. It's like I'm deliberately poisoning myself with other people's stupidity. There are lots of other things I could be doing: knitting, practising the piano, writing... hoovering.

That said, I have been somewhat preoccupied of late by the Carol Thatcher affair. Honestly, I don't even how to begin talking about it. Maybe the idea that somebody who has a high-profile job in the UK media in 2009, and whose parent ran the country for over a decade, could somehow have missed the fact that it's offensive to go around calling black people 'golliwogs'. How is that even possible? Or the fact that, having discovered this fact, that person would not simply apologise and move on. Maybe the fact that I'm really tired of hearing people say, "Oh, but in her day, these things were acceptable. It was just a lovely toy." Here's the thing. I'm 34. I had one of those lovely toys as a child (a present from an elderly relative, I think) and I seem to remember I was quite fond of it. I saw the logo on the jamjar at breakfast every morning. I didn't think these things were racist at the time (I didn't think about them much at all), but that doesn't mean they weren't. I was a child. I was also a child in a culturally diverse, working class area of North London. Racism was there, in the street and in the playground, and it was vicious. It surrounded all of us, and yet for me it could be something in the background, something always off to one side. It buzzed in my ear, but I was able to wave it away like an annoying fly. Because I was white, and that meant I never really had to see it. I could go to school and play with my friends, few of whom were white, and come home and play with Golly (who, incidentally, was not allowed out of the house. I don't think I ever questioned why. I'd actually forgotten that until now). I was not forced to make connections.

Eventally I grew up.

There was some Tory nitwit on the radio bemoaning the loss of these delightful toys and that lovely whimsical word, to the 'PC Brigade'. When Carol and I were children, he said, nobody thought there was anything wrong with them. Nobody. Right. Carol Thatcher is what, mid-50s? If you're that age, there has been a sizeable black population living in this country for your whole life. But when you say 'us', you mean white people. Say what you mean.

These things we cling to are not valuable. They are racist caricatures of racist caricatures, and they hurt people. There is nothing not racist about them. The lengths some people are now going to to prove that their beloved toys are nothing whatsoever to do with black people, and never were, that they somehow exist in a vacuum, are incredible to me. You can't make things nice and unproblematic just by wanting it. Honestly, people. Let go of this stuff now. Is it really that important to you? It's degrading and embarrassing. Grow up.

Ok, just had to get that off my chest. I'm definitely going to do my ironing now.

Comments

[coeur_de_noir]

That is a really well thought out comment.

Australia is so casually racist in our language and behaviour - largely, I think, because we still percieve ourselves as largely anglo. These issues will start to surface here soon, IMO.

[ia-ne.livejournal.com]

I've said it before, but I need to stop wasting vast swathes of time reading the comments posted to blogs and online news articles. It's like I'm deliberately poisoning myself with other people's stupidity.

Every so often, even though I know better, I will read the comments on imdb.com. Deliberately poisoning is a very apt description! It's like I don't believe just how stupid people can be and have to make sure again and again...

[tevere.livejournal.com]

In Indonesia there used to be a brand of toothpaste called 'Darkie' -- because, geddit, black people's teeth look really white! A few years ago someone in marketing clued up and changed it to 'Darlie'... but left the logo, a caricature of a grinning black man in a top hat, as it was. Nobody I polled seemed terribly concerned about it, and some even took it as an opportunity to warn me against the 'Nigerians' (common belief seems to be that all Africans in Indonesia are from Nigeria), who would steal my money and sell me drugs...

Sigh.

[galactic-jack.livejournal.com]

There was a bit of a furore over the Gollywog comment, but nothing on the level of Brand/Ross, when she clearly should have reprimanded far more harshly. Is it levels of media/public interest? As in Brand/Ross = bigger personalities?

Either way, your thoughts act for me as entirely apt last words on the topic. Nail on head.

And, I do hope the spiders have gone away. ;)

[birdsflying]

I am on an epic quest for Greasemonkey scripts that will kill comment sections off. I have one for Youtube and a kill-filter for LJ but yeah, I am right there with you.

I spend a lot of time on the Guardian website and I have two rules - never read CiF and never respond to CiF. Same goes for the BBC HYS. I am not always good at keeping these rules, mind.

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post. And I agree it's fatal to read comments to most news blogs.

[purple-hazed.livejournal.com]

Well done and well said! I am also shocked that my gran had a fox fur with the head still on. That is offensive and disgusting too!

[yellow-oranges.livejournal.com]

hopefully racism will be a thing of the Past one day. I hope it's soon.

Noooo don't read comments willy nilly! Most disheartening.

[msilverstar]

People say hurtful things, I'm still having trouble not saying "gyp" when I mean "cheat". But apologizing is the right response, rather defending the hurtful things we say, insisting that our casual racist slurs are more important than other people's feelings. People think pinching women's asses was a way of expressing friendship: damn straight that's not politically correct any more!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

When I was little, I had a book called 'Zehn kleine Negerlein'. Ten little negrolets.

I now can't think of what to say about that. It seems you've said it all.

You know, until your rant just now I, also, shrugged off this thing as storm in a pc teacup. Somehow I hadn't realised that it was Carol Thatcher who was saying this. And my mind was changed! Does that mean that in my brain it's okay for a random person to say gollywog but not for the Iron Lady's daughter?

It's all interesting, and somewhat unsettliing, to think about.

[rossywar.livejournal.com]

That whole "it's just a joke!" attitude winds me up - a racist joke is still racist. That's why it's called a racist joke. I think it was quite right of the BBC to sack Carol Thatcher *gets on high horse*: Language and attitudes like that are completely unacceptable in a work-place.

[nostoi.livejournal.com]

This is the most sensible thing I've heard on this topic. The past is the past - we did a lot of things that we now realise aren't acceptable; having caricatures of black people as toys was one of them.