UK: Charge for Golliwog Gal

http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1272

http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2658

I had a call this morning from a journalist concerning an almost surreal situation in Worcestershire. The basis of the story revolves around some poor lady who has been persecuted just for selling “http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2516" dolls:

A SHOP owner in http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2753 today defended her right to sell golliwog dolls, despite a call for them to be removed from sale.

Margo Harreld, who runs Rhubarb in Chapel Walk in the CrownGate Shopping Centre, said she had been selling the gollidolls, to give them their politically correct title, for a number of years and said they were very popular.

But Richard Woodhead, chairman of the Worcestershire Racial Equality Council, said they should be removed because they are offensive to ethnic minorities.
No official complaints have been received about the dolls, but Mr Woodhead said they had been brought to his attention by BBC Hereford and Worcester.

“This just reinforces the stereotypes that we have been trying to get rid of for so long,” said Mr Woodhead. “It is http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1972.”Mrs Harreld, who also has a shop in Hereford, said the dolls were in no way intended to be racist. “People who come in and buy them, do so for the nostalgia,” she said. “They remember them from years gone by. “This is just political correctness gone made, again, just as you can no longer sing Baa baa black sheep’.”

Last year your Worcester News reported how a shop owner in Bromyard was investigated by police for selling golliwogs.
The dolls were removed from a window display at A&E Pettifer’s store after a passer-by said they were offensive.

Police seized the toys under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, which makes it an offence to display material which could be deemed threatening, abusive or insulting.
West Mercia Police later decided not to press charges.

Yes you read that correctly, “Police seized the toys under Section 5 of the Public Order Act”. Well why not go one stage further by forcing the whole population of Worcester to watch as the purveyor of such wickedness is burnt to death on a giant pile of the offending items? Well she wouldn’t do it again would she and after all, look what happens to those poor African shopkeepers who are caught in possession of Sindy or Barbie dolls.

The whole ridiculous situation is exactly the same as the “controversy” surrounding the latest console game, Resident Evil Five. The game features white characters batlling black zombies in a Mogadishu-like setting. Surprise, surprise the game has sparked howls of protests from the race relations industry, but thankfully there’s nothing they can do about it. You see the developers are a company called Capcom, a hugely successful Japanese outfit based in Osaka. Their rather blunt response was that they have been producing games in which white zombies were unceremoniously dealt with so what’s the fuss all about. That’s the rather paradoxical thing about these so called liberals, they are just so serious, it’s just a game for heaven’s sake.

http://simondarby.blogspot.com/2008/02/touchdown.html

2008-02-14