Ship of Fools: Enid Blyton - trouble in toyland

Thread: Enid Blyton - trouble in toyland Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

Apologies for linking to ''The Daily Mail'', but an article discusses the writer's home town, Beaconsfield, which is planning to have a celebration of Blyton and her work.

Some feel she is a racist. They are not happy with her memory.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2278980/Enid-Blyton-Racism-row-Blyton-festival.html

I read all the usual Blyton stuff and apart from ''lashings of cream'' and other childish happenings I can't recall much of her work.

What do folk think should Blyton be removed from the library and the toy room? Was she a writer of her time? Is she a harmless chidrens author or a racist of the worst sort?

Saul

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Yes - should be removed. A study by Rob Dixon, ‘Catching Then young: Sex, Race and Class in Children’s Fiction’ (Pluto Press 21978) found that, far from being ‘harmless dolls’ golliwogs were associated with fear and darkness.

In one Enid Blyton story, Here Comes Noddy Again, a golliwog wakes up Noddy at midnight and invites him to a party. He drives to a ‘dark, dark, dark wood’ and lots of golliwogs, who have been hiding in the back seat, surround him. As he gets out of the car, more golliwogs are hiding behind the trees. They strip Noddy naked and drive away. So golliwogs are associated with hijack and ambush.

Florence Upton, inspired by Blyton, wrote a story about three golliwogs called Golly, George and nigger in ‘The Three golliwogs’.

In Blyton’s The Little Black Doll, all the dolls in a dolls’ house refuse to play with Sambo, so Sambo leaves home. He finds another dolls’ house where a sick old lady lives alone. He sweeps the house for her and then he fetches the doctor, who returns with him to help the old lady. It is raining whilst they travel and, as a ‘reward’ for his good deed, Sambo becomes white. The rain has washed his blackness away so he returns to his former dolls’ house where he is welcomes – because he is now white.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

Seems to me I read several "Blyters" as a kid; if they contained racism, that made no impression on me, probably because at the time the US society in which I was living was also racist, and I knew no better.

What I recall was that the books were entertaining adventure stories, and that's why I read them.

Methinks the protestors need a teapot to hold their tempest in; it appears that later editions of Blyton's work have been blanderized to remove objectionable words and phrases, just as in the US we now have a version of Huckleberry Finn, surely one of the least-racist books ever composed, with the word "nigger" redacted and replaced with -- what was it? "Slave?"

Mind you, I object to the word "nigger" and would not use it ordinary discourse except as an example of unacceptable usage in contemporary life.

That said, neither Samuel Clemens nor Enid Blyton are contemporaries of ours, and maybe we can learn something from the fact that Clemens was ahead of his time and place in his understanding of race relations, while Blyton apparently was representative of her time and place.

I really don't see what's wrong with telling young readers, "Attitudes like these were once common and acceptable. Can you imagine? Fortunately, most of us have outgrown such crude ideas."

Posted by claret10 (# 16341) on :

Personally I read most of the Enid Blyton books as a kid, I never really noticed the racism as already said I read them for the adventure. I had a gollywog toy and it never occured to me that it was a racist toy.

However as a child I didn't have a tv and despite there being children of other races, racism wasn't an issue at my school. So I can see that possibly children brought up differently may find some of the stuff offensive.

However I feel despite the author's -isms, they are good well written stories and as long as adjusted for a modern audience they are still worth keeping.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Yes - should be removed. A study by Rob Dixon, ‘Catching Then young: Sex, Race and Class in Children’s Fiction’ (Pluto Press 21978) found that, far from being ‘harmless dolls’ golliwogs were associated with fear and darkness.

Incidentally, while we're on the subject of plaques, do you think the recent plaque commemorating a stay in a house by Lenin should also be removed?

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

The Torygraph had a news item too............

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9870065/Town-torn-over-celebrations-of-Enid-Blytons-racist-work.html

I can see that some of the imagery just won't do it in 2013.

I think this might be similar to the Huckleberry Finn discussion in the USA although I know little about that.

Racism was endemic in society at that time and was quite cutting and harmful Thank goodness that casual racism is (generally) a thing of the past.

Part of me would always wish to read a book in it's original form. I seem to remember Tin Tin was under criticism when he went to the Congo. But I can also understand that modern sensibilities would be offended at some of these views and it appears Blyton was not averse to making quite nasty comments about people with darker skin than hers.

Saul

Posted by Ronald Binge (# 9002) on :

I never picked up on Enid Blyton being racist - my very youngest years were spent in a multicultural street in Tottenham and can vouch for the innate "colour"blindness of children when your parents are decent and tolerant, as mine were. I even had a golliwog and hand on heart never thought of it as either scary or derogatory of black children.

I do remember being very disappointed with Charles Kingsley and the Water Babies - not the whole story, which I loved, but his backhander to a character called Dennis, who was characterised negatively as being "only" a Paddy.

Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on :

I think she is a product of her time, there is nothing in the language that I didn't hear from adults around me.
I now regonise that they were racist but it was nothign unusual then.

I have also read all of Agatha Christie and there are times when things casually said in her books that jar today. There is a lot of casual racist, sexist and class-ist attitudes in her writing.

It night not be quite as blatant but it is the prevailing attitudes again,but we don't suggest not reading or celebrating her.

It seems to me that we someitmes pick somebody like that to pick on so that we can exorcise our guilt about our forefathers beliefs..

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
It seems to me that we someitmes pick somebody like that to pick on so that we can exorcise our guilt about our forefathers beliefs..

Bingo.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

I read Noddy as a child, but I didn't make any association between golliwogs and black people. It just never occurred to me.

Posted by Ronald Binge (# 9002) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:

quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
It seems to me that we someitmes pick somebody like that to pick on so that we can exorcise our guilt about our forefathers beliefs..
Bingo.

Indeed. I particularly enjoy Dorothy L. Sayers Lord Peter books (and always rather fancied Harriet Vane) but there is a lot of casual racism in the background, tempered with the sympathetic portrait of Lord Peter's friend Freddy Arbuthnot's relationship with his Jewish wife Rachel Levy.

As a wise History teacher taught us once, you can only judge the past by the standards of the time.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

She was of her time, and needs to be read in that context. Rather like the Bible, really!

A black friend of mine at college always wore a golliwog badge. I remember her getting really cross when people started going all politically correct and saying we shouldn't be wearing them. She refused to take hers off.

I still have a black china doll, handed down to me by my grandmother. His name is 'Little Black Sambo', after the Enid Blyton story. It certainly didn't make me hate black children, in fact I've taken extra special care of the doll during my life as it is so precious, being easily breakable.

Perhaps instead of banning the stories, they can be used to teach children about racial issues and how attitudes have changed (or sadly in some cases not changed) over time.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

Several years ago, there was an intense (if short-lived) scandal here in the US when someone's 3-year-old, left alone in the TV room to watch The Lion King, somehow ran a chunk of said videotape backward, allegedly revealing an unraveling cloud of dust-motes spelling out "sex," or some such nonsense.

What adults make of such events (even when the events are factual, as I suspect the one above is not) have nothing to do with what little kids make of them.

I remember thinking at the time, "People are upset about backward-running dust-motes they think spell out "sex," but not concerned about someone leaving a 3-y.o. alone long enough to figure out how to run a videotape backwards, much less a 3-y.o. who can read "sex" in moving, shape-shifting letters and also have some idea what that word might mean in practical terms, yet be so defenseless against the Powers of Commercial Darkness as to sustain damage from reading the word?

YMMV, but that's not a 3-y.o. I'd want to share living quarters with.

However, back to the point: as is clear from this thread, kids and adults see the world differently, and adults probably do more harm than good by pitching fits over stuff like this.

Racism used to be casual and endemic. Now most (or at least many) of us are sensitized to racism. The best way to make sure that sensitivity "sticks" and even increases is to preserve the evidence of its former existence, plus evidence of the damage it caused.

Meanwhile, a great many kids still enjoy Blyton's adventure stories (plus they've apparently been sanitized for contemporary consumption). Can't we honor an author's genuine skills even while shaking our heads over her backward social notions?

If we can celebrate only "perfect" people, we'll have no one to admire at all.

I thought Richard Nixon was a paranoid freak. Despite this, he established a US relationship with the Chinese -- a significant accomplishment. The world and its inhabitants are a complicated mixed bag. Get used to it.

Posted by Aravis (# 13824) on :

It is simply not true that Enid Blyton always portrayed the golliwogs in a negative light. Out of the original books I have seen, there is one very disturbing book featuring a gang of golliwogs. However, in "Noddy and the Bumpy Dog" Mr George Golly is described as "a very nice fellow" and his son Gilbert is best friends with Noddy's little neighbour, Master Tubby Bear - and the villain is a goblin; two other books feature no golliwogs but each have a monkey as a lovable rogue; and "Noddy has an Adventure" has Sammy the (white) sailor doll as the criminal, and Mr Golly as the innocent victim of crime when his plum tree is raided in the night.

I'm not a huge fan of Enid Blyton, but I'm also not a huge fan of people condemning books or films when they haven't seen the originals. I also think that, fifty years on, it's pretty easy to spot the flaws and prejudice in Enid Blyton. I'd be far more worried by some of the underlying assumptions in Twilight, for example.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

Agrees with Porridge for once! For heavens sake guys! [Mad]

I used to love Enid Blyton, I even nicked the "Famous Five" and "Faraway Tree" books out of my sisters' bedroom to read when I was young.

We also had gollywogs, and never associated them with black people. Nothing was really a problem until these self-righteous busy-body do-gooders made them problems.

Oh yes, I vaguely recall that we had a sense of humour back in those days as well!

Posted by The Kat in the Hat (# 2557) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
I still have a black china doll, handed down to me by my grandmother. His name is 'Little Black Sambo', after the Enid Blyton story. It certainly didn't make me hate black children, in fact I've taken extra special care of the doll during my life as it is so precious, being easily breakable.

I think your doll is more likely to be named after the Helen Bannerman book "Little Black Sambo". A story I remember with affection from childhood.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Porridge wrote:

quote:
Methinks the protestors need a teapot to hold their tempest in; it appears that later editions of Blyton's work have been blanderized to remove objectionable words and phrases, just as in the US we now have a version of Huckleberry Finn, surely one of the least-racist books ever composed, with the word "nigger" redacted and replaced with -- what was it? "Slave?"

In fairness to the editor of that book, he wasn't trying to put togehter a definitive edition of Huckleberry Finn to replace all the others. He said that he considered the book to be worthy of teaching, but his concern was that, as written, it becoming impossible to teach in mixed-race classroooms, because the constant use of the word "nigger" was often causing discomfort and disruption.

As I recall, he also wrote an introduction to his edition, explaining his purpose, and thus letting the readers know that it wasn't the book exactly as written.

Havving said that, it seems to me that there was an alternative, less bowdlerish solution to the problem the editor was grappling with, ie. simply don't teach Huckleberry Finn. Only a very small number of books can be taught in any given English class, and there's no reason why Huckleberry Finn, great though it is, has to be one of them. Lots of kids graduate from high-school without ever having studied the book formally, I'm sure.

[ 15. February 2013, 23:12: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

The editor's introduction

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
She was of her time, and needs to be read in that context. Rather like the Bible, really!

A black friend of mine at college always wore a golliwog badge. I remember her getting really cross when people started going all politically correct and saying we shouldn't be wearing them. She refused to take hers off.

I still have a black china doll, handed down to me by my grandmother. His name is 'Little Black Sambo', after the Enid Blyton story. It certainly didn't make me hate black children, in fact I've taken extra special care of the doll during my life as it is so precious, being easily breakable.

Perhaps instead of banning the stories, they can be used to teach children about racial issues and how attitudes have changed (or sadly in some cases not changed) over time.

Just because something doesn't make you hate black people doesn't mean it isn't racist. Just because a black person is OK with something doesn't mean that thing isn't racist. Golliwogs are racist, no matter how beloved they are.

Posted by anne (# 73) on :

In my memory of Enid Blyton's books - and I must have read scores of them as a child in the 70s - the worst racism is directed towards Gypsies and travellers.

The Secret Seven and Famous Five seemed to spend a great deal of time foiling the evil intents of "swarthy", gypsies with dark curly hair. Partly I think that this seems worse to me than the "Gollywog" stories, because those are clearly about toys rather than people.

A child reading about naughty gollywogs or teddy bears or toy soldiers may be less influenced in their attitude to race than a child reading a book in which people from a particular ethnic group commit crimes and are thwarted by heroic children from another ethnic group (and a dog.)

Actually, if I was looking for a reason to ban Blyton, it would probably be on the basis of sexism rather than racism, but what do I know?

Anne

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I read Noddy as a child, but I didn't make any association between golliwogs and black people. It just never occurred to me.

I think we read our own ideas into things. Leo's insistent narrative above reminds me of the scene in Chasing Amy where the militant Black Power speaker retells Star Wars as a racist tale of a black guy committing crimes, and in the end taking his black face off and finding redemption when he's revealed to be a white guy underneath.

Yes there was racism in the past and much imagery pricks our modern sensibilities now. But in children's fiction, sometimes a golliwog is just a golliwog.

Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on :

I think someone on that council had better then to also remove Shakespoeare , anti black & anti semetic, Any author of the 19th century who shows a
white" Britain.
Come on people Enid Blyton wrote in an era before mul;ticultutalosm . Same notation for C.S. Lewis Natnia is a replay op]of Britain, his space trilogy totally white . I think we need to honour Enid Blyton her books had little to no violence and encouraged people working together [Votive]

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Censorship because "we know better" doesn't have a brilliant track record for producing social improvement.

I appreciate that the word "discrimination" has nasty overtones but it also has necessary ones. Picking up on Porridge's story of the three year old may bring out my point.

One of the skills we learn is the ability to discriminate usefully. Between good and bad, helpful and harmful. "Fire hot, can burn". "Fire good, keeps us warm when it's cold". Parents engage with us in that process, point things out, answer questions.

I loved reading to my children and I love reading to my grandchildren. IME children ask questions about stories and part of the delight of reading to them and with them is the surprising questions they come out with. There are always plenty of opportunities to explain.

Enid Blyton's stories contain lots of good things about friendship and helping out people in trouble. And they also contain some "antique" social attitudes, common enough in her time but now recognised as neither helpful nor fair. Children can enjoy the stories today (many still do) and be helped to discriminate. Between forms of discrimination which are unfair - and those which are helpful.

We've made discrimination such a dirty word these days. To be opposed to the discrimination which demeans others is an excellent value. But that's not all there is to say. It's easy to overlook a much more positive benefit.

To discriminate simply means to mark or perceive distinguishing features. And leaning to do that well, without prejudice, is very helpful.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Strange thread, Porridge and Mark Betts agree and Barnabas62 and I do not.

Yes, there has been widespread casual racism in the past. No, no one is perfect. Many of our heroes have had feet of clay.
Does one throw away Shakespeare for his antisemitism, Churchill for his racism, George Washington for his poor treatment of Native Americans? No, but one does highlight these faults. One does not forget.
Burn Blyton's books, bury her memory? No. Celebrate her legacy? I am not so certain. A teaching moment is available through Huck Finn, I am not so convinced it is through The Little Black Doll.
A thought: It is considerably easier to dismiss "quaint" attitudes of the past if you have not experienced those attitudes yourself.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

lilbuddha wrote:

quote:
Burn Blyton's books, bury her memory? No. Celebrate her legacy? I am not so certain.

That's the thing. These discissions often get forced into a false dilemna, ie. you either support the special treatment being afforded this writer(eg. festivals in her honour), or you support censorship. But of course there are innumerable points in between those two approaches.

That said, if Blyton's work does indeed have continuing literary merit, I can understand people wanting to commemorate her in some way, especially in her home region. Now, with a writer like Shakespeare, you could hold conferences on his work that includes discussion of his less palatable aspects(eg. anti-semitism), since Shakespeare naturally lends himself to the discussion of important topics in the first place.

But from what I've been told about Blyton(never having read her), there doesn't seem to be a lot to chew on in terms of nuancing her racial attitudes. We can debate whether Jim in Huckleberry Finn represents a groundbreaking portrayal of a fully human black man, or if Twain, despite his intentions, was still somewhat stuck in the old racial stereotyping(eg. it's been argued that Jim is essentially child-like).

But with stuff like this, it doesn't look to me like there would be much of a springboard to discussion. Blyton seems to have just been using cheap racial caricatures(not even original to her books) for the purposes of popular entertainment.

[ 16. February 2013, 06:23: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

To say it again, I've never read Blyton, so if I have in any way misconstrued her work, consider that retracted. My general point about there being a difference between writers like Mark Twain and writers like [Name your favorite racially-insensitive hack] still stands.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Oh I know all about being on the receiving end of "quaint" i.e. demeaning attitudes. I'm a working class Geordie by upbringing in a much more class-ridden UK than exists today. I learned to distinguish between thoughtless automatic culture-conditioned attitudes and genuine meanness of spirit. If you confront them, you do so in different ways.

I don't think Enid Blyton's books encourage meanness of spirit and they don't have to perpetuate thoughtless attitudes either. It ain't rocket science to dinstinguish between the two.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

Somehow we want our authors (like our politicians, film stars, music stars) to be a form of ''perfect'' don't we?

Shakespeare's lines where, is it Shylock, protests his humanity (do I not bleed, do I not etc etc etc)show am empathy the writer has to Jewish people surely? Yet he wasn't averse to making ''the other'', the different, a scoundrel.

I suppose for me Blyton's work sums up an idealistic and never reachable middle class ''perfection'' that is much more strongly perceived than the undoubted racism. The children all seemed to be middle class and of course they had the ability to become ensnared in amazing adventures.

Like all of us, Blyton was flawed. No reason then for the good citizens of Beaconsfield from not celebrating her, it seems from responses thus far?

I shan't be going anyway, but the discussions have been interesting.

Saul the Apostle.

Posted by cross eyed bear (# 13977) on :

I loved Enid Blyton as a child. She wrote far more than the toyland books, which I never got into.

My Blyton phase lasted from 6-8, in which time I read all the famous five, secret seven, five find outers (or was it 4? ), all three school series, willow/cherry tree farm, and a load more. I didn't read the toyland stories and didn't enjoy Magic Faraway Tree, etc.

I think I enjoyed her books as they showed children being independent and taking perceived adult roles. They are childcentric books, with adults either being the villain or just taking a periphery role. They also often have a sanctimonious tone, with the good children always winning. As a good child, I liked this.

At 8, I couldn't cope with the sanctimonious tone any more and laid the books aside. I'm thankful for the two years of exciting reading she gave me.

Even during my fan phase, it was very clear that she was writing in another time. Children going into tearooms on their own. Tearooms full stop. Long bike tours, with stopovers at one of the many farmhouses on the way. The language. Tere was always a sense that this was escapist fantasy.

Some of the books do have the casual racist attitudes of their time, but by far and away not all. I remember noticing one incident in retrospect in a rare book of hers about six naughty children and how all but one - a boy with an Irish name - repent. At the time, I found it exciting that one hadn't repented, didn't pick up on the name. I didn't notice an Indian classmate looked different until I was about 10, though - children can often be colour blind.

Enid Blyton is a matter of taste and she wrote in a time which is not ours. I took enjoyment from the books, as indeed my 8 year old niece is apparently also doing. We grow out of them soon enough and I was certainly able to recognise that her time was not mine

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Celebrate her legacy? I am not so certain. A teaching moment is available through Huck Finn, I am not so convinced it is through The Little Black Doll.

Enid Blyton wrote literally hundreds of books. I spent my childhood in the 80s and 90s reading her and I have boxes of her books in storage. Yet I never once come across her golliwog character. Yet this one or two short tales are being used by some people to ruin her entire legacy? This is ridiculous to me.

What should Blyton be remembered for. One or two short tales that now offend us? Or her entire body of work? Blyton was a wonderful entertainer and has enthralled generations of children, expanding their imaginations and fueling their dreams. She should be celebrated as one of our greatest children's authors.

But if we want practical reasons to celebrate the messages of her books then how about the way she talks about animals and the environment. Her characters always cared for animals and protected them from others. I remember Philip especially instilled a great love for animals in me, and a respect for nature.

She portrays the natural world so beautifully, as a wild, exciting playground. As a kid, you just want to get outside in the fresh air and join her characters on the moors and the seashore. Her books shows you the value of friendship and teamwork, and courage when facing bad people. One of her standalone books was all about a group of children setting up a club dedicated to doing good deeds for people in their village.

Enid Blyton is one of the most positive influences we have for our children and should not only be celebrated but encouraged. I will certainly be passing my Blyton books on to my future children, just as my mother passed them to me.

Posted by ElaineC (# 12244) on :

I learnt to read with 'Noddy Goes to Toyland' and other Noddy books in the late 50's. As has been said further up the thread, I never associated the golliwog character with real people. My favourite Blyton books were the girls boarding school series. She was very much of that time

Thinking about that time I never met a non-white person in my school days. I went to a private primary school and then a grammar school. I worked in the defence industry when I left college and you had to be security cleared and there weren't many non-white people who qualified. That changed gradually over the years.

I still have to have security clearance in my present job and three out of the four members of my team are non-white.

Posted by bib (# 13074) on :

I loved the Enid Blyton books I read as a child and didn't find anything objectionable in the them. It is unfortunate that EB books are being analyzed by politically correct adults who reckon they can regulate children's minds and feelings. My late mother was a school librarian who resisted the instruction to remove EB books from her library as she said there were some children who needed an easy read in order to encourage them on to a wider range of books.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
... Golliwogs are racist, no matter how beloved they are.

No, not 'are', 'have become'. Debate has made people sensitised to the issue. Fifty years ago, Golliwogs meant jam.

I didn't read much Enid Blyton as a child, and am not sure why. People gave my children them and I've read them aloud. If I were to follow the fashion and condemn her writing, it would be for spiritual complacency rather than the more usual accusations.

Much of it seems to be of the school,
"Celia had never known anything but poverty. Her father was poor. Her mother was poor. Her grandparents were poor. The butler was poor. The cook was poor. The maids were poor. the gardener was poor. Even the boot boy was poor."

Having said that, and moving on from her works, it does now sound as though she wasn't a very nice person and was given to self-deception.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

I echo Hawk's comment that Blyton wrote hundreds of books; to focus in on one, as leo does, seems unfair.

Blyton's basic premise was that white, middle-class Englishmen were the pinnacle of creation. White working class people, like "cook" or "gardener" or assorted farmers, were ok, but their main role was to show their admiration of the superior middle-classes and keep them fed.

Americans may have been white, but they were inevitably loud, badly-spoken, chewed gum and were often despicably nouveau-riche.

Eastern Europeans were white but inevitably sinister and often part of an international jewel stealing gang. There was an English boy in one who was blighted by a French step-father, IIRC.

Her attitude towards gypsies was deeply racist.

But generally, the further a character was from the white, middle-class English ideal, the more character flaws they were likely to have.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

In the study I mentioned above, there is an account of a London infants school where a maternity cover teacher read Blyton to her class and the playground became very racist where it hadn't been before.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Well, leo, I suppose if it was just dished out without comment. But that's not teaching, is it?

On the wider point, do we really need to get all binary about these things? I think there is a scale of toxicity associated with art and literature of all kinds. On my own personal scale of 1-10, I'd give Martin Luther's The Jews and Their Lies a definite 10, and even the most excessively middle-class snobby-superior Blyton story about a 3.

Surely it's possible to see the difference? And you'll note that Luther's diatribe is available via the Jewish Virtual Library; required reading for anyone interested in the development of antisemitic tendencies within Christianity, but pretty confusing if presented as a model of protestant Christian thinking on the subject. I keep saying; we need to distinguish. We need to learn tools to enable us to do that.

[BTW, that link is so nasty that I'm not sure it's work safe.]

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
In the study I mentioned above, there is an account of a London infants school where a maternity cover teacher read Blyton to her class and the playground became very racist where it hadn't been before.

What story was the maternity cover teacher choosing to read to her class? I read Blyton to my children as bedtime stories, but I'd like to think I had the nous to avoid any of the racist ones. And I'm not a trained teacher.

(I can remember missing out comments about "foreign" boys squealing when they were hit by a cricket ball, unlike stalwart English boys!)

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

Like a lot of her contemprories, there is indeed a lot of casual racism (and sexism) in Blyton's books. But that doesn't mean we should ban them or try to diminish her achievements. It simply means that we have to read them in the light of where we are today.

Not long ago, I read the entire series of Richard Hannay adventures by John Buchan. They are still great stories, but again, you have to make a mental adjustment to cope with the racism and the unspoken assumption that even strong women belong in the home and go all to pieces as soon as a man is around.

I've always loved Blyton's "Adventure" series (Circus of Adventure, Valley of Adventure etc). I would still recommend them to children - cracking stories that any half-way decent child can get immersed in. I doubt that children reading these books would end up racists or sexists - but there may be some very interesting conversations to be had afterwards!

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
I echo Hawk's comment that Blyton wrote hundreds of books; to focus in on one, as leo does, seems unfair.

Blyton's basic premise was that white, middle-class Englishmen were the pinnacle of creation. White working class people, like "cook" or "gardener" or assorted farmers, were ok, but their main role was to show their admiration of the superior middle-classes and keep them fed.

Americans may have been white, but they were inevitably loud, badly-spoken, chewed gum and were often despicably nouveau-riche.

Eastern Europeans were white but inevitably sinister and often part of an international jewel stealing gang. There was an English boy in one who was blighted by a French step-father, IIRC.

Her attitude towards gypsies was deeply racist.

But generally, the further a character was from the white, middle-class English ideal, the more character flaws they were likely to have.

NEQ

seems to have put the finger on the pulse here.

Often the stories were about middle class children and anything else was the other. Joyce Grenfell was famously quoted about having a Jewish person in her kitchen and not feeling right about it. The doyen of prissy humour; but all par for the course at that time.

The trouble is with the blinkered world that Blyton inhabits, is that it doesn't seem to look beyond those close confines, but she was never perfection and she churned out these tales by the dozen.

Growing up in Liverpool in the late 60s 70s was interesting as the Dorset exploration ground of these privileged children and the freedom they had was an idyll that seemed out of reach. My friend was mixed race and he enjoyed the stories but maybe he saw them for what they were childrens escapist tales.

In 2009 Helena Bonham Carter played Blyton and her comments about Blyton are interesting; she was a flawed individual - aren't we all?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1227422/New-TV-drama-reveals-Enid-Blyton-barking-mad-adulterous-bully.html

Saul

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
In the study I mentioned above, there is an account of a London infants school where a maternity cover teacher read Blyton to her class and the playground became very racist where it hadn't been before.
What story was the maternity cover teacher choosing to read to her class? I read Blyton to my children as bedtime stories, but I'd like to think I had the nous to avoid any of the racist ones. And I'm not a trained teacher.

Can't remember - I read the study a long time ago.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Just checked - it was Little Black Sambo.

This thread seems like a rerun of debate all the way back in 1972.

quote:
which began when Bridget Harris of the Teachers Against Racism group gave a statement on Little Black Sambo to The Times which was to print an article on the new, boxed set of the com¬plete works of Helen Bannerman. The statement aroused a storm of fury from outraged readers who had loved Little Black Sambo when they were children and who thought that Teachers Against Racism were seeing harm where none existed. The Times published at least twenty letters attacking the position outlined by Harris and only three in favour.

Those who say that they loved the stories and that they didn't to them any harm (the sort of statement made by Tory MPs about corporal punishment who later get caught in spanking parlours) should note this:

quote:
What strikes me is that so many writers of the other letters apparently found it enough to assert that they, personally, had found the stories, or Little Black Sambo, charming, lovable, amusing, interesting or enjoyable. This kind of view often goes with an it-never-did-any-harm-to-me attitude. But what are such arguments — if they can be called that — supposed to prove? Both these attitudes are quite beside the point. It's what all racist books have done to all children over a long period of time that matters. Whether a particular child was affected by a particular book or not is irrelevant. People exposed to infec¬tious diseases don't always catch them. Also, of course, we don't have to take their word for it when people say a book never did them any harm.

and this:

quote:
As a Black Briton, born and educated in this country, I detested LBS as much as I did the other textbooks which presented non-white people as living entirely in primitive conditions and having no culture. I did not relate to him, but the white children in my class identified me with him."

(Source is the book I mentioned above.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
... Golliwogs are racist, no matter how beloved they are.
No, not 'are', 'have become'. Debate has made people sensitised to the issue. Fifty years ago, Golliwogs meant jam.

I didn't read much Enid Blyton as a child, and am not sure why. People gave my children them and I've read them aloud. If I were to follow the fashion and condemn her writing, it would be for spiritual complacency rather than the more usual accusations.

Much of it seems to be of the school,
"Celia had never known anything but poverty. Her father was poor. Her mother was poor. Her grandparents were poor. The butler was poor. The cook was poor. The maids were poor. the gardener was poor. Even the boot boy was poor."

Having said that, and moving on from her works, it does now sound as though she wasn't a very nice person and was given to self-deception.

No, golliwogs are racist by their nature. They portray black people in a racist way, it doesn't matter how many people associated them with jam. They haven't become racist because people are pointing out the racism [Roll Eyes]

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

I'm astonished that a teacher, who must have access to hundreds of story books, chose "Little Black Sambo" (by Helen Bannerman, not Enid Blyton, as already pointed out) to read to her class.

Bannerman, born in 1862, was two generations earlier than Blyton. LBS was published in 1898. It predates Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit."

I don't think many Victorian books for very young children really work today. And I certainly don't think that you can argue against Enid Blyton because a book by a different author published many years earlier is now seen as racist.

Posted by Sergius-Melli (# 17462) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
No, golliwogs are racist by their nature. They portray black people in a racist way, it doesn't matter how many people associated them with jam. They haven't become racist because people are pointing out the racism

I'm afraid not. Golliwogs have become racist because at somepoint it has been decided they are racist and it has been pointed out.

If they existed and were not racist by intent or perception in the past then they are not "by their nature" racist, it has only been through 'pointing out' that they have become racist.

The doll was a characature of black people, in the same fashion that other characatures exist of other groups of people (most recently Bankers, journalists, corrupt-police officers, politicians etc. etc. etc.) - it is a fundamentally human thing to characterise people, and in the course of describing a bunch of people to use a quick and simple word (in the same way that you instinctivly use the acronym LGBTQ to describe a particular sub-set of humanity with the acronym by its very nature excluding others and paints a picture of the group you are referring to.)

Whether the term 'golliwog' and it's shorter form 'wog' are racist now is still open for debate with films such as 'The Wog Boy' being an example of where hte term is used as a humourous self-identifier rather than as having conotations of a racial slur.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
I'm astonished that a teacher, who must have access to hundreds of story books, chose "Little Black Sambo" (by Helen Bannerman, not Enid Blyton, as already pointed out) to read to her class.

Bannerman, born in 1862, was two generations earlier than Blyton. LBS was published in 1898. It predates Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit."

I don't think many Victorian books for very young children really work today. And I certainly don't think that you can argue against Enid Blyton because a book by a different author published many years earlier is now seen as racist.

There are plenty of racist examples in Blyton - like when Noddy is in a car and lots of gollywogs pop up from hiding, take him to the woods and strip him naked. (echoes the 'How many niggers can you get into a mini?' 'joke'.)

Posted by Sergius-Melli (# 17462) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
There are plenty of racist examples in Blyton - like when Noddy is in a car and lots of gollywogs pop up from hiding, take him to the woods and strip him naked. (echoes the 'How many niggers can you get into a mini?' 'joke'.)

So your point is that it is racist because, I'm guessing, it presents black people as criminals?

If so your charge of racism would only hold if each and every 'bad' person in Blyton's books were presented through the golliwog characters which as demonstrated above isn't the case.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
No, golliwogs are racist by their nature. They portray black people in a racist way, it doesn't matter how many people associated them with jam. They haven't become racist because people are pointing out the racism
I'm afraid not. Golliwogs have become racist because at somepoint it has been decided they are racist and it has been pointed out.

If they existed and were not racist by intent or perception in the past then they are not "by their nature" racist, it has only been through 'pointing out' that they have become racist.

The doll was a characature of black people, in the same fashion that other characatures exist of other groups of people (most recently Bankers, journalists, corrupt-police officers, politicians etc. etc. etc.) - it is a fundamentally human thing to characterise people, and in the course of describing a bunch of people to use a quick and simple word (in the same way that you instinctivly use the acronym LGBTQ to describe a particular sub-set of humanity with the acronym by its very nature excluding others and paints a picture of the group you are referring to.)

Whether the term 'golliwog' and it's shorter form 'wog' are racist now is still open for debate with films such as 'The Wog Boy' being an example of where hte term is used as a humourous self-identifier rather than as having conotations of a racial slur.

I am astonished that people can still believe this in the 21st Century. Blyton;s golliwogs are always naughty, as in the 'dark, dark wood'story. and there is a family of them named 'mumbo jumbo' who eat 24 pancakes in one sitting. Mumbo Jumbo is hardly a value-free term which later became dubbed 'racist'.

It was also, when first invented, meant to be hated:

quote:
The Golliwogg was based on a Black minstrel doll that Upton had played with as a small child in New York. The then-nameless "Negro minstrel doll" was treated roughly by the Upton children. Upton reminiscenced: "Seated upon a flowerpot in the garden, his kindly face was a target for rubber balls..., the game being to knock him over backwards. It pains me now to think of those little rag legs flying ignominiously over his head, yet that was a long time ago, and before he had become a personality.... We knew he was ugly!" Upton's Golliwogg character, like the rag doll which inspired it, was ugly. He was often drawn with paws instead of hands and feet. He had a coal black face, thick lips, wide eyes, and a mass of long unruly hair.3 He was a cross between a dwarf-sized black minstrel and an animal. The appearance was distorted and frightening

The Golliwog Caricature Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology, Ferris State University Nov 2001

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
I'm astonished that a teacher, who must have access to hundreds of story books, chose "Little Black Sambo" (by Helen Bannerman, not Enid Blyton, as already pointed out) to read to her class.

Bannerman, born in 1862, was two generations earlier than Blyton. LBS was published in 1898. It predates Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit."

I don't think many Victorian books for very young children really work today. And I certainly don't think that you can argue against Enid Blyton because a book by a different author published many years earlier is now seen as racist.
There are plenty of racist examples in Blyton - like when Noddy is in a car and lots of gollywogs pop up from hiding, take him to the woods and strip him naked. (echoes the 'How many niggers can you get into a mini?' 'joke'.)

I'm not disputing that there are lots of examples of racism in Blyton; I'm just surprised that a trained teacher would choose a book which has been regarded as racist for several decades now as suitable to read to a class of infants.

Wikipaedia says that Blyton wrote an "estimated 800 books" Some are utter dross. It seems unfair to pick out a couple of examples and damn her entire output.

Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

quote:
I've always loved Blyton's "Adventure" series (Circus of Adventure, Valley of Adventure etc). I would still recommend them to children - cracking stories that any half-way decent child can get immersed in.

The "Adventure" series was my favourite, too, followed by the Five-Find-Outers and Malory Towers.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
There are plenty of racist examples in Blyton - like when Noddy is in a car and lots of gollywogs pop up from hiding, take him to the woods and strip him naked. (echoes the 'How many niggers can you get into a mini?' 'joke'.)

Does it? I've never read a Noddy book at all, but Wikipedia tells me that 17 of the 24 Noddy books were published before 1959 (when the Mini was introduced) which rather suggests that wasn't Blyton's intention at all.

PS

I haven't heard this 'joke'. What is the 'punchline' to it?

Posted by Sergius-Melli (# 17462) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Blyton;s golliwogs are always naughty, as in the 'dark, dark wood'story.

Hardly true, one example does not make for a confirmed fact in all situations.

Since you evoke Upton, her writtings presenteed the golliwog as a jovial, friendly and gallant - hardly the negative characature of an entire group of people, in fact as the peep you mention makes reference to (although hidden fairly well within an entirety of negativity on the issue) and this article, rather unexpectedly, from the that lefty-rag seems to suggest that we are reading far too much into what Enid Blyton wrote...

And yes mumbo-jumbo isn't an weighted-free term (and since I never read Noddy I have no idea of the context but...) in its historic usage refers to the veneration of false idols rather than much else... so it's quite possible that Enid Blyton is making some social comment on a meanigless ritual in through the characters rather than being derogatory - as I say I never read Noddy (I was much more Thomas the Tank Engine at that age - even now I have to confess [Big Grin]

- so I may be wrong and that would clearly be shown by the context of the piece.)

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
There are plenty of racist examples in Blyton - like when Noddy is in a car and lots of gollywogs pop up from hiding, take him to the woods and strip him naked. (echoes the 'How many niggers can you get into a mini?' 'joke'.)
Does it? I've never read a Noddy book at all, but Wikipedia tells me that 17 of the 24 Noddy books were published before 1959 (when the Mini was introduced) which rather suggests that wasn't Blyton's intention at all.

PS

I haven't heard this 'joke'. What is the 'punchline' to it?

The 'joke' updated to a mini - its origins may well have been a horse and cart. There was certainly a telephone box version.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Blyton;s golliwogs are always naughty, as in the 'dark, dark wood'story.
Hardly true, one example does not make for a confirmed fact in all situations.

Yopu mistake my one example t be unique.
Read Here Comes Noddy Again, Five Fall into Adventure (where Anne is terrified of a golly's face), The Mystery oif thge Spiteful Letters where Frederick threatens to make up as a golly.

How about The Little Black Doll where Sambo believes his blackness to be a punishment (that was republished as late as 1965)?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

I collected Robertson's golliwog badges as a 12 ish year old child. I no more connected them to black people than clowns to white people. But, when I found out they were offensive to black people I got rid of them. I didn't want to collect something that was offensive to my friends.

I didn't read Enid Blyton - I found the tone of her books far too 'jolly hockey sticks' for my taste. I didn't read them to my sons and don't read them to my classes at school. But, at the same time, I wouldn't take them off the shelves either.

I don't think she deserves to be either lauded or pilloried - she was a person of her times, just as we all are.

Posted by Sergius-Melli (# 17462) on :

And next you'll be telling me that Blyton hated the environment and should be complaining to PETA everytime we read that one of the characters inher book was scared by an animal, or an animal was presented in a negative light.

How do react to a minority villian in a modern novel? Is the author racist in that instance or not? As has been put about earlier, do we rewrite Shakespeare or Webster because they present certain characters negatively... Blyton wrote in her time, for a time that is different from our own, that didn't have the acking desire to see discrimination and prejudice lurking round every corner... as a society we really do need to get over ourselves and stop feelign guilty about the past and learn to make a better future whilst acknowledging and celebrating the success and richness (no matter how far it does or does not live up to our modrn standards) that the past contained.

On another thread peeps were concerned with the erosion of the place of history in our syllabus... it seems that peeps on this thread seem intent on rewritting history (by editing Blyton's books) and failign to appreciate the holistic picture of that history they seem so intent on preseving elsewhere...

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I collected Robertson's golliwog badges as a 12 ish year old child. I no more connected them to black people than clowns to white people. But, when I found out they were offensive to black people I got rid of them. I didn't want to collect something that was offensive to my friends.

I was given some as a child (again, around when I about 12). I'm not and have never been into badges and took them to a local bric-a-brac shop where I sold them for about £35. It was a small fortune for a boy. A great day.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

I think Enoch got it right when he pointed out "not are" but "have become".

I wonder if Enid Blyton were writing today, whether she would be writing racist material. I doubt it, which makes me more sympathetic towards her being a product of her time.

If the people of the thirties, or even seventies, who were "casually racist" as it has become known, were suddenly transported to 2013, would they be able to stop saying the racist things they said then because it's no longer acceptable? I think most people would, but the mores of the time were different. The people were decent, but the culture different. Put them in a more tolerant culture and the people - in the main - will be more tolerant.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
No, golliwogs are racist by their nature. They portray black people in a racist way, it doesn't matter how many people associated them with jam. They haven't become racist because people are pointing out the racism
I'm afraid not. Golliwogs have become racist because at somepoint it has been decided they are racist and it has been pointed out.

If they existed and were not racist by intent or perception in the past then they are not "by their nature" racist, it has only been through 'pointing out' that they have become racist.

The doll was a characature of black people, in the same fashion that other characatures exist of other groups of people (most recently Bankers, journalists, corrupt-police officers, politicians etc. etc. etc.) - it is a fundamentally human thing to characterise people, and in the course of describing a bunch of people to use a quick and simple word (in the same way that you instinctivly use the acronym LGBTQ to describe a particular sub-set of humanity with the acronym by its very nature excluding others and paints a picture of the group you are referring to.)

Whether the term 'golliwog' and it's shorter form 'wog' are racist now is still open for debate with films such as 'The Wog Boy' being an example of where hte term is used as a humourous self-identifier rather than as having conotations of a racial slur.

Golliwogs were racist even when people didn't have a problem with them, it's just that society as a whole was more racist, therefore no one cared. And I don't see how racist portrayals of black people that refer to pseudo-Darwinist 'science' that suggests black people's inherent inferiority is even close to self-identified LGBTQ people [Confused]

Racist CARICATURES are different to pointing out CHARACTERISTICS. Black people do not look like golliwogs make them out to look like, but people actually are bankers or LGBTQ.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
And next you'll be telling me that Blyton hated the environment and should be complaining to PETA everytime we read that one of the characters inher book was scared by an animal, or an animal was presented in a negative light.

How do react to a minority villian in a modern novel? Is the author racist in that instance or not? As has been put about earlier, do we rewrite Shakespeare or Webster because they present certain characters negatively... Blyton wrote in her time, for a time that is different from our own, that didn't have the acking desire to see discrimination and prejudice lurking round every corner... as a society we really do need to get over ourselves and stop feelign guilty about the past and learn to make a better future whilst acknowledging and celebrating the success and richness (no matter how far it does or does not live up to our modrn standards) that the past contained.

On another thread peeps were concerned with the erosion of the place of history in our syllabus... it seems that peeps on this thread seem intent on rewritting history (by editing Blyton's books) and failign to appreciate the holistic picture of that history they seem so intent on preseving elsewhere...

A minority villain in a modern novel whose villainy is treated as an aspect of their minority status (for example, a Jewish villain who is villainous because they are Jewish) is certainly a racist portrayal. Likewise, Shakespeare and others of course had racist aspects to their stories. I am not for rewriting Blyton, by the way, but certainly pointing out her racism. I think you are exaggerating what people are actually saying. And I don't see why it's a good thing to just 'get over it' and ignore evil - evil should be exposed, no matter how small.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

But Jade, if someone makes a racist statement having been nurtured in a racist society, then is that person truly a racist?

I think racism is an absolute. If you were racist in the 15th Century and you would be just as racist if you were brought up in the late 20th/early 21st Century, then it's safe to say you are racist.

If you were racist in the 15th Century, but wouldn't be if brought up today, then you are not a racist.

I don't think racism is a relative value. Yes society can be called racist, but to single out individuals brought up in that society, when we have no proof that had they been brought up in a more englightened society, they would not have made racists stetements, is simply wrong. Yes, to society, no to individuals unless they are racist in a more tolerant society.

Posted by the giant cheeseburger (# 10942) on :

My opinion on the small portion of Enid Blyton books I've read is that the casual racism is there, it's not imagined. Whether the author intended them to be racist or not is irrelevant, the problem being that we're talking about people reading them now, after the author's casual racism has been exposed and society is no longer as accepting of that as in the past.

It seems obvious that not all of EB's books will be as bad as others, in some it might not be present at all. I think the best path to travel for a school library here is to respond to this criticism by reviewing all of her books, judging each one separately (and perhaps in connection with others in the same series) rather than assuming all of them are equally badly tainted.

Reviewing the collection in a school library and retiring the less appropriate items is something that should be a common routine which cycles through the whole collection every couple of years. School libraries don't have the infinite space to keep on expanding their collection without retiring any books, so it's important that it's constantly re-assessed to make sure less appropriate books (regardless of their age) are not taking up space on the shelves which could be used by other books which would be more valuable to the collection.

quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
No, golliwogs are racist by their nature. They portray black people in a racist way, it doesn't matter how many people associated them with jam. They haven't become racist because people are pointing out the racism
I'm afraid not. Golliwogs have become racist because at somepoint it has been decided they are racist and it has been pointed out.

If they existed and were not racist by intent or perception in the past then they are not "by their nature" racist, it has only been through 'pointing out' that they have become racist.

The doll was a characature of black people, in the same fashion that other characatures exist of other groups of people (most recently Bankers, journalists, corrupt-police officers, politicians etc. etc. etc.) - it is a fundamentally human thing to characterise people, and in the course of describing a bunch of people to use a quick and simple word (in the same way that you instinctivly use the acronym LGBTQ to describe a particular sub-set of humanity with the acronym by its very nature excluding others and paints a picture of the group you are referring to.)

I think it's extremely offensive to suggest that people should be subjected to caricatures purely because they happen to be of a certain ethnic extraction. That's racist, for sure. Just because it's taken some time for awareness of this casual racism to spread doesn't make it any less racist.

Casual racism like this is the most insidious form of racism, because it's hidden under the surface and harder to define than an aggressive BNP-style open racism where it's easy to fight against because it's clear for all to see. The most obvious way that you can tell a person is unaware of their casual racism is that they'll say "I'm not a racist, but..." and proceed to make a racist statement, and when their racism is challenged they'll try to "prove" they aren't a racist by saying something along the lines of "I can't be a racist, one of my good friends is from Japan."

Caricatures are great, but leave them for people who choose a public life like that of a politician, footballer, banker, lawyer or whatever other occupation is regarded as being fair game.

quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
Whether the term 'golliwog' and it's shorter form 'wog' are racist now is still open for debate with films such as 'The Wog Boy' being an example of where hte term is used as a humorous self-identifier rather than as having conotations of a racial slur.

I need to correct you on this. Wog is a slang term in Australia for people of Italian or Greek extraction, it is not a short form of golliwog has nothing to do with any ethnic groups which may be regarded as 'black.' This is where Nick Giannopoulous and his films/shows come in, he's talking about Greek wogs, not any other use of wog in other places which relates to 'black' ethnicity as a shortened form of golliwog.

It's generally regarded as a non-offensive nickname, same as the way that Australians refer to people from the USA as Yanks, the British as Poms and New Zealanders by making humping motions and sheep noises.

The difference between these nicknames and proper racist epithets is seen best whenever there's a big natural disaster of some kind in NZ - their previous Prime Minister (Helen Clark) said she could take a few jokes about sheep or accents/eccints if that was the price of having Australian leaders on the phone asking what support they could send before she could ask.

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Incidentally, while we're on the subject of plaques, do you think the recent plaque commemorating a stay in a house by Lenin should also be removed?

No. The infamous are just as much a part of history as the famous. I would also draw your attention to this part of the article, which illustrates nicely that history is never as simple as "us = good, them = bad" - you always have to filter the official version to take into account the fact that history is always written by the winners...

quote:
One Tory Councillor wrote to the local paper, pointing out that "Thousands died in the red terror he instigated. The descriptions of Cheka terror are virtually beyond description: victims were slowly lowered into furnaces or boiling water, buried alive, or covered in water to become living ice statues in the cold." He went on to ask, "had Franco lived in Camden, would we be comfortable erecting a plaque to him?"

Cllr Marshall was rounded on by Professor Bill Bowring, who spoke at the unveiling of the plaque. The professor said, "As in every civil war in history there were atrocities on both sides. But the only evidence for the crimes with which Cllr Marshall charges Lenin is to be found in the White propaganda of the time. These allegations are highly questionable."

I bet there are plenty of plaques around the place which point out the locations of infamous crimes in the UK. Should they be removed along with airbrushing out any trace of Lenin, the founder of a state which was an ally of Britain during World War Two?

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I collected Robertson's golliwog badges as a 12 ish year old child. I no more connected them to black people than clowns to white people. But, when I found out they were offensive to black people I got rid of them. I didn't want to collect something that was offensive to my friends.

Exactly - I did too.

We learn and repent. We shouldn't excuse the past.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
this article, rather unexpectedly, from the that lefty-rag

If you think The Guardian is 'lefty', that shows how far to the right this blighted country has moved. I'd say tat the Guardian was establishment-liberal.

I wonder how many Blyton defenders/never did me any harm are right wingers? Bet there aren't many if any socialists.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

leo let me ask you a question - do you have a sense of humour, and/or enjoy creative writing?
Or does everything have to be scrutinized by the politically-correct Thought Police, who will ensure any fun or enjoyment is sucked out of it?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Birth of a Nation and Intolerance are shown in film schools. They were a turning point in film making, from a technical standpoint. The techniques developed by their creator are widely lauded, while the man himself is not. D.W. Griffith was a racist and the message of Birth is rubbish.
Griffith's contribution to every film you view should not be forgotten. Nor should the utterly horrid attitude represented by his work and his audience.
"It was the attitude of the times," should not be an excuse for past behaviour, but a caution for current.
And for both Blyton and Griffith we should also factor in that they were entertainers. Whilst I would be amongst the last to say entertainment has no value, they developed no vaccine.

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
But Jade, if someone makes a racist statement having been nurtured in a racist society, then is that person truly a racist?

Yes. It makes their attitude understandable, but it does not completely mitigate it.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
So your point is that it is racist because, I'm guessing, it presents black people as criminals?

I'm surprised how often black people play the criminal , or slightly dodgy personality even on today's TV.
__________________________________

I'm with deano on this one . Many of the people I've known were reared on racist attitudes . I mean look at some of those sit-coms from the 70s.
Despite that, only a tiny minority would be deliberately discourteous to a black or ethnic person under normal circumstances.

Enid Blyton had her faults like any of us . Trying to villainize her on a charge of racism is just the work of whiter than white trendies IMO.
You know the sort of thing,-- nevermind 'bug-splatting' folks on the other side of the planet with Drone strikes , lets all turn on Enid B for inventing the golliwog.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:

You know the sort of thing,-- nevermind 'bug-splatting' folks on the other side of the planet with Drone strikes , lets all turn on Enid B for inventing the golliwog.

Not a zero-sum thing, yeah?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Would people cease with the vilify BS? No one has so far said this. What some are saying is do not glorify.

Posted by The Kat in the Hat (# 2557) on :

I remember my junior school teacher in the mid 70s reading one of the "Adventure" books (I think it might have been the Mountain of Adventure". It did feature a character who referred to himself as a "poor nigger".
The reason I remember this is because she asked us where we had got to in the story and a classmate said it was where the nigger did something. She immediately used this as an opportunity to say that although that was how the character referred to himself, it was not acceptable to ever use that to describe someone. It was very memorable and made us very aware of racism.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Incidentally, while we're on the subject of plaques, do you think the recent plaque commemorating a stay in a house by Lenin should also be removed?
No. The infamous are just as much a part of history as the famous. I would also draw your attention to this part of the article, which illustrates nicely that history is never as simple as "us = good, them = bad" - you always have to filter the official version to take into account the fact that history is always written by the winners...

i take issue with the idea that Lenin was not a man with blood on his hands (even if the specific allegations in the article are denied by some lefty professor). And there are a number of unpleasant people who have plaques on walls (including the rather incongruous sight of a plaque for Ho Chi Minh on the wall of the New Zealand High Commission). But I would've thought that Enid Blyton has a much better claim to a plaque than Lenin, hence why I asked the question of Leo who wanted Blyton's taken down. It was just a passing thought that made me pose the question.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Yes - should be removed. A study by Rob Dixon, ‘Catching Then young: Sex, Race and Class in Children’s Fiction’ (Pluto Press 21978) found that, far from being ‘harmless dolls’ golliwogs were associated with fear and darkness.

In one Enid Blyton story, Here Comes Noddy Again, a golliwog wakes up Noddy at midnight and invites him to a party. He drives to a ‘dark, dark, dark wood’ and lots of golliwogs, who have been hiding in the back seat, surround him. As he gets out of the car, more golliwogs are hiding behind the trees. They strip Noddy naked and drive away. So golliwogs are associated with hijack and ambush.

Florence Upton, inspired by Blyton, wrote a story about three golliwogs called Golly, George and nigger in ‘The Three golliwogs’.

In Blyton’s The Little Black Doll, all the dolls in a dolls’ house refuse to play with Sambo, so Sambo leaves home. He finds another dolls’ house where a sick old lady lives alone. He sweeps the house for her and then he fetches the doctor, who returns with him to help the old lady. It is raining whilst they travel and, as a ‘reward’ for his good deed, Sambo becomes white. The rain has washed his blackness away so he returns to his former dolls’ house where he is welcomes – because he is now white.

Ha ha! This is pure gold.

But to answer the OP, I've steered my children away from Enid Blyton, not because of racism (it doesn't appear in the books we have) but because I don't think she was that good a writer and hence has dated somewhat.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
i take issue with the idea that Lenin was not a man with blood on his hands (even if the specific allegations in the article are denied by some lefty professor). And there are a number of unpleasant people who have plaques on walls (including the rather incongruous sight of a plaque for Ho Chi Minh on the wall of the New Zealand High Commission). But I would've thought that Enid Blyton has a much better claim to a plaque than Lenin, hence why I asked the question of Leo who wanted Blyton's taken down. It was just a passing thought that made me pose the question.

Isn't it funny how lefty causes have to always be grouped together. If you are pro-equality, it means you have to be pro-"choice" and pro-Lenin. You would in fact become the left-wing equivalent of a holocaust denier. Oh, and of course, an Enid Blyton hater!

Posted by Sleepwalker (# 15343) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
I'm astonished that a teacher, who must have access to hundreds of story books, chose "Little Black Sambo" (by Helen Bannerman, not Enid Blyton, as already pointed out) to read to her class.

I still have my copy of Little Black Sambo. It is a nonsense story. How can tigers converse with a young boy? How can they tie their tail around an umbrella? How can them chasing each others tails at speed around a tree turn them into ghi? And can any boy eat 169 pancakes? It's ideal material for a young child's story. My family is of mixed heritage and we all read it, we had golliwogs and collected golliwog badges. Not one of us ever considered any of it anything remotely to do with black people. There was no evidence of any risk to the children who enjoyed the story or collected the badges. Children collect badges. They have black and white dolls, teddy bears, fluffy dogs, you name it.

Adults imposed their own views without any consideration to the nature of children's imagination and their thinking.

I think it would be interesting to discuss a book such as Little Black Sambo with children, just to see what their instinctive reaction is to it and then follow up the next day when they have spoken to their parents about it! Obviously by that time I probably wouldn't have a job, but it would make an interesting study nonetheless.

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Isn't it funny how lefty causes have to always be grouped together. If you are pro-equality, it means you have to be pro-"choice" and pro-Lenin. You would in fact become the left-wing equivalent of a holocaust denier. Oh, and of course, an Enid Blyton hater!

Neither funny nor true. There are plenty of campaigners against abortion who support social justice and the number of left-wingers who recognise Lenin for what he was continues to grow.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Neither funny...

It wasn't supposed to be.

quote:
...nor true. There are plenty of campaigners against abortion who support social justice and the number of left-wingers who recognise Lenin for what he was continues to grow.

Granted it isn't always true 100% of the time, but it is usually the case, with a few exceptions such as a gay rights group who also happen to be pro-life.

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Granted it isn't always true 100% of the time, but it is usually the case, with a few exceptions such as a gay rights group who also happen to be pro-life.

Or the many Catholics who are pro-social-justice, or left-wingers such as Orwell, or disability groups who campaign for social justice and against abortion, or liberals such as Michael Ignatieff, or.... basically you're "usually" right, except for all those many, many occasions on which you're wrong.

Posted by John Holding (# 158) on :

quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
Wog is a slang term in Australia for people of Italian or Greek extraction, it is not a short form of golliwog has nothing to do with any ethnic groups which may be regarded as 'black.' This is where Nick Giannopoulous and his films/shows come in, he's talking about Greek wogs, not any other use of wog in other places which relates to 'black' ethnicity as a shortened form of golliwog.

It's generally regarded as a non-offensive nickname, same as the way that Australians refer to people from the USA as Yanks, the British as Poms and New Zealanders by making humping motions and sheep noises.

"Wogs" famously "begin at Calais" ... at least they did towards the end of the 19th century in England.

John

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
leo let me ask you a question - do you have a sense of humour, and/or enjoy creative writing?
Or does everything have to be scrutinized by the politically-correct Thought Police, who will ensure any fun or enjoyment is sucked out of it?

It's not difficult to have a sense of humour and write creatively and also not produce racist works. Many authors manage to do it.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
But Jade, if someone makes a racist statement having been nurtured in a racist society, then is that person truly a racist?

I think racism is an absolute. If you were racist in the 15th Century and you would be just as racist if you were brought up in the late 20th/early 21st Century, then it's safe to say you are racist.

If you were racist in the 15th Century, but wouldn't be if brought up today, then you are not a racist.

I don't think racism is a relative value. Yes society can be called racist, but to single out individuals brought up in that society, when we have no proof that had they been brought up in a more englightened society, they would not have made racists stetements, is simply wrong. Yes, to society, no to individuals unless they are racist in a more tolerant society.

People in a racist society who thought and said racist things in say, the 15th century were perfectly aware that they were racist. They just didn't see racism as a negative thing. I think it makes things a case of diminished responsibility but doesn't excuse the racism entirely and it is still racism.

Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :

I find it intriguing that while there is no doubt that Blyton's stories are full of ingrained -isms and snobbery, snobbery itself is seen as one of the worst vices in her school stories. The "nice" girls have no time for the posh girl who looks down on the "low-down, dirty circus girl" or the daughter of the French teacher.

I don't know exactly what this adds to the discussion, except perhaps that it's easier to see faults in others than ourselves. Or that Blyton wasn't particularly self-aware - lots of people seem to be of the opinion that she is so popular with children because her emotional development was stuck at the age of about 12.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

I have never read anything by Enid Blyton, but I loved 'Little Black Sambo' as a child.

As I saw it, Sambo came out on top of his encounter with the tigers. They tigers behaved foolishly, and Sambo's behavior was intelligent.

It never occurred to me that this was a put-down of dark-skinned people. I saw it as a story in which a child outwits dangerous animals.

Moo

[ 16. February 2013, 21:48: Message edited by: Moo ]

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
People in a racist society who thought and said racist things in say, the 15th century were perfectly aware that they were racist. They just didn't see racism as a negative thing.

I think the historical picture is very complex. The Wiki view of the history of racism contains some indication of the variations through place and time. But it does seem that a common element was belief that physical differences and character/ability differences were correlated in some way. Such beliefs were common, respectable, deeply rooted. And wrong.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

What about Blake's The Little Black Boy , with his line "But oh, my soul is white?

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I have never read anything by Enid Blyton, but I loved 'Little Black Sambo' as a child.

As I saw it, Sambo came out on top of his encounter with the tigers. They tigers behaved foolishly, and Sambo's behavior was intelligent.

It never occurred to me that this was a put-down of dark-skinned people. I saw it as a story in which a child outwits dangerous animals.

Moo

The issue isn't with the story itself, but with the title "Little Black Sambo" and the illustrations. You can still buy it today, with the characters renamed and with different illustrations.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
People in a racist society who thought and said racist things in say, the 15th century were perfectly aware that they were racist. They just didn't see racism as a negative thing.
I think the historical picture is very complex. The Wiki view of the history of racism contains some indication of the variations through place and time. But it does seem that a common element was belief that physical differences and character/ability differences were correlated in some way. Such beliefs were common, respectable, deeply rooted. And wrong.

Good comment Barnabas 62. Whether we call sinful/wrong behaviour by another name it is still negative whichever way we spin it. Racism, is, IMHO, fundamentally about ''us'' being better than ''them'', whoever ''them'' may be. This is as old as time and is part of the human condition. IMHO.

Blyton's racism was most likely well entrenched and deeply rooted, so much so that she would have never regarded herself as ''racist'' in any way.

I suppose the politicians and civil servants in late 1930s Britain never saw themselves racist when they stopped hundreds of thousands of ''bloody Jews'' from entering Britain to flee from Nazi Germany (although some did enter Britain in very controlled numbers e.g. the ''kinder transport'').

It is about place and time. However the golden rule of ''treat others as you would like to be treated yourself'', spans all ages, and even if surrounded by intolerance and hatred, resistance to the prevailing norms can take place.

Blyton was who she was and by all accounts a deeply flawed imperfect creature who wrote hundreds of very popular books. Wrong though some of her attitudes were, she was a middle class woman from Beaconsfield, and her values were similar to thousands of others (but that's no excuse) and that casual superiority and casual racism has diminished greatly since her zenith.

Saul the Apostle.

[ 17. February 2013, 07:34: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

Blyton was who she was and by all accounts a deeply flawed imperfect creature who wrote hundreds of very popular books. Wrong though some of her attitudes were, she was a middle class woman from Beaconsfield, and her values were similar to thousands of others (but that's no excuse) and that casual superiority and casual racism has diminished greatly since her zenith.

Yes, this is exactly what I was trying to say, but you put it much better.

But would you object to a festival in her honour?

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Boogie, I suppose the real problem is "taint by association". Personally, I wouldn't attend an Enid Blyton festival but I'd probably go to a museum exhibition of her life and work.

What's the difference for me? I suppose it is between interest and some form of affirmation. I'm pretty sure from what I've read that I wouldn't want to affirm either Enid Blyton's character or the abiding literary quality of her work.

Point is, she wasn't all bad. Her writing for children has got quite a lot of redeeming features as well as some unpleasant ones. So she was flawed.

Anyone here think they aren't? Can't we get used to the idea of judging these things in the round and with some sense of proportion?

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

People have been critical of Enid's character flaws on this thread, but could I suggest that no-one has ever made her out to be a Saint in the first place. People have only ever thought of her as a good, creative childrens' writer - nothing more, nothing less. So people won't be going to Beaconsfield to worship at the shrine of St Enid, they will just be joining together to celebrate the enjoyment of her books which they have had in former years. So DON'T BE A KILLJOY!! [Two face]

We might not like the way all the children in her books seem to be middle class, with a rich Uncle Quintin. But I don't believe this was a reflection of her life, more likely how she dreamt of what her life could have been like. Sure, she was middle class, but quite likely not very happy or fulfilled in her own life.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

I suppose the politicians and civil servants in late 1930s Britain never saw themselves racist when they stopped hundreds of thousands of ''bloody Jews'' from entering Britain to flee from Nazi Germany (although some did enter Britain in very controlled numbers e.g. the ''kinder transport'').

My guess is they had rather more pressing matters on their minds, -- Like an imminant World War ?

The recurring theme in this thread seems to be that we all have our failings and , with hindsight, things we'd rather have done different.
I'd would say Britain has made a radical shift in it's thinking towards different races since the days of the slave trade, something that was never going to happen over-night.

Interesting to see just how far the air-brushers intend to go in deleting our embarrassing history . Don't forget the the dog named N in the film epic 'Dambusters'.

Posted by Sleepwalker (# 15343) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
It never occurred to me that this was a put-down of dark-skinned people. I saw it as a story in which a child outwits dangerous animals.

That's because it never was a put down of dark skinned people and it only ever was a story in which a child outwits dangerous animals, and then eats 169 pancakes (every child's dream! well, if you like pancakes anyway)

Adults in a subsequent generation have put a different slant on the story and on the pictures but that doesn't detract from it in its original form which is exactly as we enjoyed it in childhood.

Not only can you get an altered version of the story at Amazon, you can get the original too. And so you should because books should never be banned. To me banning books is the first sign of a totalitarian state.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
leo let me ask you a question - do you have a sense of humour, and/or enjoy creative writing?
Or does everything have to be scrutinized by the politically-correct Thought Police, who will ensure any fun or enjoyment is sucked out of it?

Someone else has already answered this for me - that there is plenty of humorous, creative writing that doesn't involve reinforcing prejudice. Did you read my quotation, above, by a black person and the hurt that Blyton caused? If one gets 'fun and enjoyment'; by hurting other people, then one is presumably some sort of sadist.

'Political correctness' is about good manners and care for other people.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

Enid Blyton wrote over 700 books. She churned them out. Part of her ability to churn out books was based on the fact that she had a range of stereotyped characters which could be trotted out without any effort at nuance or subtlety.

For example, all academic characters were short-sighted, wore glasses and were absent minded. An academic schoolgirl might simply mislay things in an amusing manner but a full-blown professor would be absent-minded to the point of being unable to remember how many children he had, or what their names were.

All French people mangled the English language, causing mirth to the English speakers.

All Scots were called either Jean or Jock and were canny with money.

All farmers wives were plump and jolly.

All American children were spoiled, chewed gum and mangled the English language.

No-one could ever claim that Blyton's stories had any literary merit. However, they were excellent at providing children who were just transitioning to independent reading with interesting, well-plotted stories. If you look at the the books aimed as the "first independent readers" now, lots of them have bright pink, sparkly covers and are aimed at girls, or blue/green covers and aimed at boys. Blyton's books at least have the virtue of not suggesting that girls ought to be mainly interested in pink / fairies / sparkly things / clothes / becoming pop stars.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
leo let me ask you a question - do you have a sense of humour, and/or enjoy creative writing?
Or does everything have to be scrutinized by the politically-correct Thought Police, who will ensure any fun or enjoyment is sucked out of it?

Okay, let's tackle this one head on. (My writing credentials are available for anyone to check.)

When you write a story, you do it primarily for yourself. Even with the modicum of success I've had, there's no guarantee that my (or any other) publisher will buy it. You don't write something because it's 'commercial' or 'popular'. It allows you incredible creative freedom - you can, literally (and literately) write anything you want. You can put in really offensive stereotypes of women, men, blacks, Welsh, gays, Americans, French, working classes, Muslims, whatever. No one but you ever has to read that story.

However, the moment you think about getting it published is the moment you have to consider both your publisher and your audience.

Now, my publisher, in common with pretty much every other commercial publisher out there, will consider firstly, will it sell, and secondly... there is no second. Yes, there are other considerations like literary merit and will the offence caused/possible law suits be worth the money made. But if they can't make money from it, they won't publish it. They're not charities.

I've never had an editorial direction saying "this is offensive, take it out/tone it down". That might be because I'm a raving lefty and that fits in with my publishers sensibilities, but then again, probably not, because they publish right-wing SFF writers too.

However, once the story is out in the wild, I cannot stop people from reading it and passing judgement on it. Everything will be scrutinised by the politically-correct Thought Police, whether I like it or not.

Public discourse on the mores shown in past and contemporary fiction is not just expected, but to be encouraged. If you've written something that's blatantly offensive to blacks/gays/gypsies (another favourite target of Blyton), then you can't expect it to go unremarked on, especially with the advent of social media.

Stiffly-worded letters to the publisher could be thrown in the bin, but you can't do that with message boards and twitter. Neither the author nor the publisher can control the debate about content any longer.

And this is probably for the better. If I've done something offensive - pick a thing at random: all Jews are money-grabbing hook-nosed blood-drinking shysters - then no matter the comedic potential and letting all the other little anti-Semites laugh along with me, after all it's just a joke, it's a work of fiction, no one is hurt, it's not like I'm throwing stones through synagogue windows... well, no. I should be called to account for that.

So Blyton's casual racism, classism and sexism needs to be acknowledged and challenged critically. Yes, she was a product of her time, born in 1897. George Orwell was born in 1903. He was also a product of his time - the same time as Blyton.

So let's have a museum about the work and life of Enid Blyton, but let's not make it a shrine. She got plenty of stuff wrong while writing entertaining stories for white, middle-class Britain. Her place in children's literature should be acknowledged, along with her faults.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

I suppose the politicians and civil servants in late 1930s Britain never saw themselves racist when they stopped hundreds of thousands of ''bloody Jews'' from entering Britain to flee from Nazi Germany (although some did enter Britain in very controlled numbers e.g. the ''kinder transport'').

My guess is they had rather more pressing matters on their minds, -- Like an imminant World War ?

Rolyn,

no, it was a lot more to with the fact that they were jingoistic, insular, bloody minded, anglo saxon, middle class, supremacist, racists, that's why.

Saul

[ 17. February 2013, 21:45: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

On the possibly anti-villification/stereotyping side of the equation was Enid Blyton promoting gay marriage or at least equality through her portrayal of Noddy and Big Ears' relationship?

Posted by HenryT (# 3722) on :

I was born in 1959. I don't know why, but my mother had a firm "no Enid Blyton" rule from the time I learned to read. So, some people had some sort of issue with her by the early 60's. My mother wasn't notably much of a social progressive, either.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

Thanks to the people who pointed out that my doll was probably named after Bannerman's 'Little Black Sambo'. However, confusingly, although Enid Blyton's book is called 'Little Black Doll', the doll's name is Sambo.

In LBS, the tigers run faster and faster round the tree turning into butter. Clever, canny Sambo therefore avoids being eaten and is quite the hero. (Positive)

In LBD, Sambo wanted to be pink; the doll's blackness is washed off by rain. (Psychologically very negative)

However, there is apparently another story in which the other children say they don't like Sambo's new pink face and they colour him in black again!

Posted by Aggie (# 4385) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Enid Blyton wrote over 700 books. She churned them out. Part of her ability to churn out books was based on the fact that she had a range of stereotyped characters which could be trotted out without any effort at nuance or subtlety.

For example, all academic characters were short-sighted, wore glasses and were absent minded. An academic schoolgirl might simply mislay things in an amusing manner but a full-blown professor would be absent-minded to the point of being unable to remember how many children he had, or what their names were.

All French people mangled the English language, causing mirth to the English speakers.

All Scots were called either Jean or Jock and were canny with money.

All farmers wives were plump and jolly.

All American children were spoiled, chewed gum and mangled the English language.

No-one could ever claim that Blyton's stories had any literary merit. However, they were excellent at providing children who were just transitioning to independent reading with interesting, well-plotted stories. If you look at the the books aimed as the "first independent readers" now, lots of them have bright pink, sparkly covers and are aimed at girls, or blue/green covers and aimed at boys. Blyton's books at least have the virtue of not suggesting that girls ought to be mainly interested in pink / fairies / sparkly things / clothes / becoming pop stars.

I used to read a lot of Enid Blyton books when I was a small child, and to me they were just a good yarn. I did not notice any overt racism towards black people, but what I did notice was her racism and stereotyping of gypsies and travellers, as being swarthy, head-scarf wearing thieves and fraudsters. Also, her class snobbery, as anyone with a "lower-class" accent who said "ain't" or "innit" - were either smelly or a crook or both.

No, Enid Blyton's books did not have any literary merit whatsoever. Her use of English, aside from her character stereotyping, was very poor and extremely cliched. I recall in one of her stories she wrote about someone going back to their "nice meal of fish and chips". I know she wrote for children, but there are better adjectives than "nice" to describe something pleasant.

[ 18. February 2013, 09:35: Message edited by: Aggie ]

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

Is literary merit the basis for the festival, though?

I know nothing about Beaconsfield (if that's the right name). I suspect it's a smallish town. I suspect, that as in many such places, someone on the Board of Selectmen or Council or local Historical Society or what-have-you was trying to drub up an excuse for attracting tourists and trippers to come drop lots of money in local business pockets.

Enid Blyton wrote several hundred books, achieved some fame (or infamy), and thus offered the requisite excuse. Many people will recognize the name, have fond memories of reading her output, and may therefore take a daytrip to this festival, in much the same way that people attend Star Trek conventions or hang about Poe's or Houdini's graves on Hallowe'en.

If you consider Blyton to be an evil purveyor of racist schlock, there's a simple solution: don't go.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
If you consider Blyton to be an evil purveyor of racist schlock, there's a simple solution: don't go.

Had to look twice at the name after reading this. [Disappointed]

There have been reasonable arguments on this thread for the ignoring of celebration. This is of one of them.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

Alan Massie seems to think everything is quite cool in Toyland.............

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/allanmassie/100068224/enid-blyton-deserves-recognition-whatever-her-views-on-race-its-ri diculous-to-judge-her-by-modern-standards/

I tend to go with the view Blyton's work deserves recognition, and in a museum I'd be interested to see her work shown.

I wouldn't particularly want to ''celebrate'' it in Beaconsfield. This is purely a personal view despite having read many of the adventure stories that she wrote. I did, as a young kid in Liverpool, realise she was writing about a ''different world'', but even in Dorset where some of the tales seem to have been set, it was wholly unrepresentative of what life was ''really like''.

But to be fair this is pure escapist fiction and a form of quaint ''comfortable'' middle class English fiction, written with a mind set of the 1930s, so again context is everything I suppose.

Saul

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

Reasonable or not, lilBuddha, there's a problematic substrate to the OP which we've yet to touch upon. At some point in the last, dunno, 20-30 years, celebrity has apparently become a social value in and of itself, almost completely independent of the reasons for said celebrity. In short celebrity gets, well, celebrated. Maybe it's one of the characteristics of mainstream US culture which, like Coca-Cola, my countrymen have managed to foist upon the world, to the detriment of just about everybody.

While I could wish otherwise, the fact is that millions follow (for example) the Kardashians, who are, AFAICS, famous solely for being famous. Should we celebrate such people? I'd rather we didn't, but since the universe has so far failed to put me In Charge, I wasn't consulted in the matter.

I'm sure it's Blyton's "famousness" that's behind this festival, not her literary style, not her prolificity, and certainly not her racism. Is that a problem? I think it may be, but I'm sure many others don't. Becoming famous, even briefly, and even for nefarious reasons, now seems to confer some sort of credential or validity, all by itself. And few of us bother much any more about the backstory producing the "fame."

The festival in Blyton's long-time home is simply one manifestation of our fixation with celebrity. "Whoa, mates! We could do a plaque -- no, wait! Let's get up a whole week-long festival! Everybody's read old Enid's stuff. They'll come crawling out of the woodwork. We'll rake it in by the bucket-full!"

And that, after all, is almost certainly the real point of the festival.

Personally, I would not attend this festival in order to honor Blyton if it were held across the street from my front door. I might attend such a festival, though, in support of the local bed-and-breakfast, souvenir shop, and pub.

It may be that Beaconsfield has no other "celebrities" to celebrate. It's latched onto this chance at 15 semi-lucrative minutes of fame (since fame, regardless of how it's achieved, seems unfortunately to have become a social good within our culture).

Vocal objections, demonstrations, etc., will only draw bigger crowds -- and they too, after all, may need a pint, a memento, and perhaps a place to stay.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Beaconsfield has Disraeli- I was always a Gladstone man myself but he would be well worth a festival, literary and historical/political. And Wikipedia also suggests, among others, Terry Pratchett, GK Chesterton, Edmund Burke, Robert Frost- so plenty to be going on with (and you could tie Burke, Disraeli and Chesterton together pretty well).
Come to think of it, has Pratchett ever parodied Enid Blyton? Now that would be worth reading.

Posted by trouty (# 13497) on :

Blyton's fiction was of a much higher literary merit than Leo's.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by trouty:
Blyton's fiction was of a much higher literary merit than Leo's.

Maybe I should write some racist stuff so that I can live off the royalties.

Posted by Sleepwalker (# 15343) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
'Political correctness' is about good manners and care for other people.

It can also have the look of totalitarianism about it too.

In answer to the OP, I think Blyton's work and life should be celebrated. She was a very popular author of her time who appealed widely to children and was very successful. Any racism that may be there - and I haven't read her books so I cannot comment - is part of the package and should be seen within the context of her time just as the content of all books, historical and contemporary, are viewed within the context of their time.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Beaconsfield has Disraeli- I was always a Gladstone man myself but he would be well worth a festival, literary and historical/political. And Wikipedia also suggests, among others, Terry Pratchett, GK Chesterton, Edmund Burke, Robert Frost- so plenty to be going on with (and you could tie Burke, Disraeli and Chesterton together pretty well).
Come to think of it, has Pratchett ever parodied Enid Blyton? Now that would be worth reading.

In light of this information (thank you, Albertus), I begin to wonder anew at the possible motives for the festival, and now suspect that racism may indeed be involved. With people like these to celebrate, why settle on Blyton?

As one result of time aboard this Ship, I've formed a general (and possibly faulty) impression that a US Joe-Six-Pack will fare poorly against his UK equivalent in having a grasp of general information about the history of the country from which he hails. Will the average UK Bloke know who Disraeli, Chesterton, and Burke are? I'm not sure what the US equivalents to these Illustrious Personages might be, but I suspect our Joe Six-Pack would be clueless about them.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

Porridge, with all due respect, I think, not being acquainted with the culture at first hand, you are off track.

I don't know whether Enid Blyton is known at all where you are, but here, she was, and still is, a very well known children's writer.

However, she's also been quite controversial since she died, for reasons that have varied over the years, poor style, complacency, lack of content, representing social attitudes that were outmoded even in their own time, and more recently, racism.

So commemorating her wouldn't be a gesture to celebrity. It's more, 'is this a writer you loved, your children love, and would you rather they did or they didn't?'

Posted by the giant cheeseburger (# 10942) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
As one result of time aboard this Ship, I've formed a general (and possibly faulty) impression that a US Joe-Six-Pack will fare poorly against his UK equivalent in having a grasp of general information about the history of the country from which he hails. Will the average UK Bloke know who Disraeli, Chesterton, and Burke are? I'm not sure what the US equivalents to these Illustrious Personages might be, but I suspect our Joe Six-Pack would be clueless about them.

Really? My impression as neither a US or UK citizen is that the average person in the US has a disproportionately high understanding of basic US history and their significant figures.

It does seem to come at the expense of their education as global citizens though. I reckon that filling in countries on an unlabelled map of even Western Europe would be harder for a USian than doing the same on a map of Central/North America would be for a UKian.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Beaconsfield has Disraeli- I was always a Gladstone man myself but he would be well worth a festival, literary and historical/political. And Wikipedia also suggests, among others, Terry Pratchett, GK Chesterton, Edmund Burke, Robert Frost-

Robert Frost?

He was born in California and moved to Massachusetts at the age of eleven. He subsequently settled in New Hampshire; his poems give a good picture of rural New Hampshire life.

What does he have to do with Beaconsfield?

Moo

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Beaconsfield has Disraeli- I was always a Gladstone man myself but he would be well worth a festival, literary and historical/political. And Wikipedia also suggests, among others, Terry Pratchett, GK Chesterton, Edmund Burke, Robert Frost-
Robert Frost?

He was born in California and moved to Massachusetts at the age of eleven. He subsequently settled in New Hampshire; his poems give a good picture of rural New Hampshire life.

What does he have to do with Beaconsfield?

Moo

Frost moved to Great Britain as a youngish man, and his first publications were in the UK.

Only after he made his chops there was he able to return to his native soil and gain respect for his verse, which was not then "fashionable" in poetic terms.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Aggie:
what I did notice was her racism and stereotyping of gypsies and travellers, as being swarthy, head-scarf wearing thieves and fraudsters. Also, her class snobbery, as anyone with a "lower-class" accent who said "ain't" or "innit" - were either smelly or a crook or both.

No, Enid Blyton's books did not have any literary merit whatsoever. Her use of English, aside from her character stereotyping, was very poor and extremely cliched. I recall in one of her stories she wrote about someone going back to their "nice meal of fish and chips". I know she wrote for children, but there are better adjectives than "nice" to describe something pleasant.

I could provide many examples of the opposite. Lower class characters being good friends of the main characters such as Ernie in the Five Find-Outers, and Barney the orphaned boy who was poor and slept rough who was the de facto leader of the group in the 'R' mystery series. In other places her turn of phrase and use of language was excellent, and really brought scenes alive.

There is a great danger of judging someone based only on cherry-picked examples.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
In light of this information (thank you, Albertus), I begin to wonder anew at the possible motives for the festival, and now suspect that racism may indeed be involved. With people like these to celebrate, why settle on Blyton?

As one result of time aboard this Ship, I've formed a general (and possibly faulty) impression that a US Joe-Six-Pack will fare poorly against his UK equivalent in having a grasp of general information about the history of the country from which he hails. Will the average UK Bloke know who Disraeli, Chesterton, and Burke are? I'm not sure what the US equivalents to these Illustrious Personages might be, but I suspect our Joe Six-Pack would be clueless about them.

Or what about 6 year old Joe whose mother wants somewhere to take him out for the afternoon. Do you think little Joe would be interested in a week long festival about a nineteenth century politician? No. Well must be because he's racist then. That the only possible explanation.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

Originally posted by Porridge:

quote:
In light of this information (thank you, Albertus), I begin to wonder anew at the possible motives for the festival, and now suspect that racism may indeed be involved. With people like these to celebrate, why settle on Blyton?

What would a festival of Disraeli involve? Or a Robert Frost festival?

Enid Blyton's books are full of descriptions of picnics and tea rooms. A Blyton festival would involve lots of "ices" and lashings of ginger-beer; sandwiches, macaroons, scones and jam. Attractions might include a gypsy caravan; circus performers, face-painting. There would be stalls selling books (dozens of titles still in print) and souvenirs, such as Noddy toys and Famous Five jigsaws. I've seen Noddy car merry-go-rounds. There might be fancy-dress. Perhaps an opportunity to try lacrosse (something I've never come across outwith Blyton's school stories).

A Blyton festival has the potential for a great family day out. What could a Disraeli festival have, that could possibly compete with a jolly good slap-up tea?

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
It may be that Beaconsfield has no other "celebrities" to celebrate. It's latched onto this chance at 15 semi-lucrative minutes of fame (since fame, regardless of how it's achieved, seems unfortunately to have become a social good within our culture).

That's the way it is with mid-profile locales that are insecure about their place in the world.

My hometown of Edmonton tries to promote Marshall McLuhan's "boyhood home" as an important cultural asset. This despite the fact that McLuhan had moved away from Edmonton by the age of three, and does not seem to have spent any significant amount of time there afterwards.

"Oh, but it was in Edmonton that he saw a horse pulling a wagon in the distance, and wondered why it was so small, and that helped form his ideas on media!!" Maybe that's true, but I doubt that residents of London, Paris, or New York would bother with such barrel-scraping in order to boost their cities' claim to greatness.

(And yes, I got a minor thrill in writing this post, from letting everyone know that Marshall McLuhan was born in Edmonton.)

link

[ 18. February 2013, 22:42: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

The construction of enemy figures interest me. Why is it, that certain people or certain groups of people arouse ire? What does that say about those who construct those figures?

Let's start with the person who may or may not have (had) racist views, someone like Blyton or Jim Davidson. The ire that they arouse can be due to a desire to have someone who one can put an imprint on: This person is bad! That gives one security, knowing who is good and who is bad (with the one calling them bad, of course, being good). It gives orientation, as well as a playing out of inner conflicts; they can represent our own capacity for hate, or someone or some people from our pasts. That Luis Suarez for example was universally vilified despite the absence of proof of racism shows how this can also be linked to group-think.

Then we have the enemy figure of the "lefty" or "PC brigade". They form the function of being the one who, again, one can hate or dislike. I find it noteworthy that they often become vilified in discussions about racism*.

I believe this to be an unconscious mechanism, whereby people or things like Enid Blyton become part of something else, my past, my childhood, my school, my parents; in other words, things that have shaped our identities. (I myself read The Famous Five and The Secret Seven has a kind and loved them.) While one has probably never met that thing in question, they are tied up with our identity. Therefore suspicions about them become suspicions about us.

Hence the need for the "lefty" or "PC brigade". Questions about anyone about suspect areas of our pasts arouse defensiveness, and therefore an attack on what turns out to be a convenient figure.

This is also a feature of the "we cannot judge their actions/beliefs as that's what people did/thought then" get-out-of-jail card, used to try to do what in German is called a Totschlagargument, meaning saying something in order to kill off discussion. Context is indeed very important in order to understand why people did or thought certain things. It's the basis for historical analysis. A deeper look at context will show a more complex world than "everyone was racist then", but rather that it contained people who took responsibility for acting against racism in within that context, people like the scientist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the politician George Padmore and writer James Baldwin are just three examples of people acting against racism well before anti-racism work began to be more widespread.

I believe us all to have enemy figures of our own constructions, figures that serve various needs we have. I believe them to turn such threads as this one into theatre, theatre made largely by people speaking from a position of dominance in society.

Oh, and I find Lenin to be very suspect, to say the least.

* Only the mention of the words "black people" or "racism" can arouse defensiveness in some white people, but people who consider themselves to be liberal or anti-racist cannot allow themselves to be openly defensive or hostile towards black people. People on the left or other anti-racism campaigners therefore form a useful outlet for these feelings. Note that the likes of the EDL in England or NOP and ONR in Poland also rail against "lefties". I'm not calling anyone here an EDL members, just saying that, that they have a similar vocabulary should offer a pause for reflection.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
The construction of enemy figures interest me. Why is it, that certain people or certain groups of people arouse ire? What does that say about those who construct those figures?

Let's start with the person who may or may not have (had) racist views, someone like Blyton or Jim Davidson. The ire that they arouse can be due to a desire to have someone who one can put an imprint on: This person is bad! That gives one security, knowing who is good and who is bad (with the one calling them bad, of course, being good). It gives orientation, as well as a playing out of inner conflicts; they can represent our own capacity for hate, or someone or some people from our pasts. That Luis Suarez for example was universally vilified despite the absence of proof of racism shows how this can also be linked to group-think.

Then we have the enemy figure of the "lefty" or "PC brigade". They form the function of being the one who, again, one can hate or dislike. I find it noteworthy that they often become vilified in discussions about racism*.

I believe this to be an unconscious mechanism, whereby people or things like Enid Blyton become part of something else, my past, my childhood, my school, my parents; in other words, things that have shaped our identities. (I myself read The Famous Five and The Secret Seven has a kind and loved them.) While one has probably never met that thing in question, they are tied up with our identity. Therefore suspicions about them become suspicions about us.

Hence the need for the "lefty" or "PC brigade". Questions about anyone about suspect areas of our pasts arouse defensiveness, and therefore an attack on what turns out to be a convenient figure.

This is also a feature of the "we cannot judge their actions/beliefs as that's what people did/thought then" get-out-of-jail card, used to try to do what in German is called a Totschlagargument, meaning saying something in order to kill off discussion. Context is indeed very important in order to understand why people did or thought certain things. It's the basis for historical analysis. A deeper look at context will show a more complex world than "everyone was racist then", but rather that it contained people who took responsibility for acting against racism in within that context, people like the scientist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the politician George Padmore and writer James Baldwin are just three examples of people acting against racism well before anti-racism work began to be more widespread.

I believe us all to have enemy figures of our own constructions, figures that serve various needs we have. I believe them to turn such threads as this one into theatre, theatre made largely by people speaking from a position of dominance in society.

Oh, and I find Lenin to be very suspect, to say the least.

* Only the mention of the words "black people" or "racism" can arouse defensiveness in some white people, but people who consider themselves to be liberal or anti-racist cannot allow themselves to be openly defensive or hostile towards black people. People on the left or other anti-racism campaigners therefore form a useful outlet for these feelings. Note that the likes of the EDL in England or NOP and ONR in Poland also rail against "lefties". I'm not calling anyone here an EDL members, just saying that, that they have a similar vocabulary should offer a pause for reflection.

Some of us have ''enemies'' and tag the same as threats because they will harm us if we take no notice of them surely? If the German ruling class had taken a wee bit more notice (and done something about it), of an Austrian ex corporal and cheap jack painter, the world might have been a better place.

We put ''red flags'' on people often, not always, for very good reason.

Saul

[ 19. February 2013, 14:05: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Originally posted by Porridge:

quote:
In light of this information (thank you, Albertus), I begin to wonder anew at the possible motives for the festival, and now suspect that racism may indeed be involved. With people like these to celebrate, why settle on Blyton?

What would a festival of Disraeli involve? Or a Robert Frost festival?

Enid Blyton's books are full of descriptions of picnics and tea rooms. A Blyton festival would involve lots of "ices" and lashings of ginger-beer; sandwiches, macaroons, scones and jam. Attractions might include a gypsy caravan; circus performers, face-painting. There would be stalls selling books (dozens of titles still in print) and souvenirs, such as Noddy toys and Famous Five jigsaws. I've seen Noddy car merry-go-rounds. There might be fancy-dress. Perhaps an opportunity to try lacrosse (something I've never come across outwith Blyton's school stories).

A Blyton festival has the potential for a great family day out. What could a Disraeli festival have, that could possibly compete with a jolly good slap-up tea?

I might ad a coconut noddy shy too. Plus a troupe of reformed golliwogs who teach children diversity and tolerance [Devil]

Saul

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

I wasn't talking about enemy figures in general.

The role of the ruling classes with the Nazis is a matter for another thread.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Yes, I'm sure that the reason they've picked Blyton for a festival is that she has a wider cultural footprint than any of the others I mentioned. A Chesterton Festival could be quite fun, though- Father Brown stories and the Napoleon of Notting Hill acted out in the streets, a recreation of the Battle of Lepanto on the local pond, and a very great deal of beer-drinking.

Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :

Albertus - if you're looking for a Pratchett parody of Blyton, try Maurice and his Amazing Educated Rodents! It's a Discworld book for children, and one of the characters states at one point that, in order to solve the mystery, they ought to be four children and a dog!

Posted by Signaller (# 17495) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
That's the way it is with mid-profile locales that are insecure about their place in the world.

Beaconsfield, insecure?

Hmmm. Perhaps some explanation of the place that Beaconsfield occupies in the finely-graded ranks of English outer suburban dormitory towns would be helpful. It has a very old, very picturesque High Street, and lots of very large and discreet houses lurking in the hinterland. It has the New Town, round the railway station, which is slightly less posh. But the essential thing about Beaconsfield (pronounced Beckons-field, never Beekons-field) is that it isn't Gerrards Cross: the next door neighbour that is a byword for new money and vulgarity. Beaconsfield is refined, discreet, and very rich, and its personality and prejudices fit perfectly with Enid Blyton. The nice people, in their nice houses, go up to Town on the nice trains from the nice station, and at the weekends they drive down the nice M40 to their lovely second homes in the nice Cotswolds, where their nice children would have jolly adventures if they could only they aren't allowed to cos Mummy and Daddy are terrified of the lower orders.

In short, Beaconsfield doesn't need Blyton, and most of the population would probably much rather no grubby festival-goers came to clutter it up. It doesn't even make much of the Disraeli connection, but leaves that to Hughenden, six miles away, where his house is.

I don't live in any of these places, I hasten to add.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Joyce Grenfell, whose monologues are not usually unkind about the characters portrayed, had one called "Writer of Children's Books" which has the author addressing a group of her child fans, and it is wicked. Not in the street meaning. The author talks down to her audience, and describes her plots involving small groups of children, with dog, having adventures. It is possible to see this author as Blyton. Not quite a parody of the books, though.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Joyce Grenfell, whose monologues are not usually unkind about the characters portrayed, had one called "Writer of Children's Books" which has the author addressing a group of her child fans, and it is wicked. Not in the street meaning. The author talks down to her audience, and describes her plots involving small groups of children, with dog, having adventures. It is possible to see this author as Blyton. Not quite a parody of the books, though.

Grenfell famously said about Jewish refugees:

quote:
there's something a bit un-cosy about a non-Aryan refugee in one's kitchen".

Saul

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Grenfell famously said about Jewish refugees:

quote:
there's something a bit un-cosy about a non-Aryan refugee in one's kitchen".
Saul

I was interested by that, and googled it. There were three references, one refering to one of the others, and none giving the source. Not quite famous, perhaps. I wondered about the context.

I have a book including letters by Grenfell, written between her and Katherine Moore, who was a member of the Friends Meeting I'm a member of, and who we used to give lifts to. I have spent the time since your post scan reading it.

Moore on two occasions refers to giving homes to Jewish refugees, but Grenfell does not respond in the selected letters, though one actually refers to a man who had been a refugee following Moore around in her kitchen and conversing while she was cooking.

Grenfell refers to Jacob Bronowski very positively for the characteristics of his Jewishness, and also writes positively of Bernard Levin.

In one place, Grenfell writes, while discussing religion "I think if only we didn't wear hats labelled Jewish-Quaker-R.C.-Anglican, etc., we could all meet far more simply in the same place. "

So it wasn't in any of these published letters that the quote comes from, and it appears from what has been selected for publication that Grenfell was not anti-semitic.

The reason I wanted the context for that quote, which I had never come across before, was that it does not make clear that it refers to someone who had had a non-Aryan refugee in their kitchen, which was not at any time compulsory, but was down to the choice of the kitchen owner. Giving a home to someone who needed to eat kosher would indeed present a challenge, would it not? But without the context, it is not possible to know what was intended. Was it in one of her monologues, perhaps? Google does not tell.

There is no trace in the writing I have just read of the sort of person who would have intended those words as racist.

Do you know the context? Could you let me know where I can find it, as I would be interested to know it.

[ 19. February 2013, 21:52: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Further to the above, I find that Maureen Lipman, in conversation with David Aaronovitch, discussing playing Grenfell, said "Although she definitely had traces of the antisemitism of the time"...

In view of the rest of her interview, I don't think Lipman would have touched the monologues with a bargepole if she had thought there was more than a trace.

I couldn't find anything else.

[ 19. February 2013, 22:18: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Just out of interest, Penny S, I repeated the exercise and got a similar result. However, the paper in "Patterns of Prejudice" looks reasonably academic and may actually cite a reference. I can't check the text though as it needs payment. You could try to order an interlibrary loan. Of course, Saul may have a reference for you.

Your point about context is well-made IMHO.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Honest Ron, I do hate it when tracking things down leads to academia. It is so frustrating. And a library off print would cost, as well.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Ah well - only trying to help! It's the best probability I could find as a non-combatant.

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

Penny S

you are right to query that and I had been reminded of the Grenfell quote by this thread BUT I found reference to it only by this article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/jan/26/schools.comment

To be fair it may be the most famous quote that Grenfell never actually said.

I stand to be corrected or informed.

Certainly the context was Jewish immigration and it may have been referring to the period in the 1930s when a small number of Jewish refugees were allowed to settle in the UK (anti semitism was rife at that time).

Saul

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

I also found this from Maureen Lipmann, the actress, who played Grenfell:

quote:
Maureen Lipman: Although she definitely had traces of the antisemitism of the time, I am attracted to very English people. I don’t know why that is, but where I justify my choice of Joyce Grenfell is that she was an outsider – and all great observers and commentators come from a world of outsiders, because you look in without joining. And she was an outsider because she came from the Astor family and was included in all the Astor things, the weekends and the dressing up and the parties, but she had no money. Her mother was a ‘bolter’ who ran off several times. So the standard idea of Joyce Grenfell, as coming from an absolutely rock-solid background, is wrong, she was a bit pillar to post. And her mother was American. But when it was announced that I was going to play her, I got some very nasty letters: ‘Keep your hands off! She was English!’ Just turn on LBC or go on a blog and you’ll find people like that who have nothing to do but air their fascist views.

Grenfell would have most probably said the comment about non aryan's in her kitchen as a slightly batty jibe, but aserbic barb, at Jews. This was at a time when anti Jewish feeling was widespread in the class that Grenfell came from. I suspect that as a performer it was a ''one off''.

Blyton's views on blacks, gypsies and the ''lower orders'' were all par for the course at the time.

Saul

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Honest Ron, that was not a comment about your contribution. It was exasperation at all the searches I have done which end up at JSTOR, or Wiley, or Pubmed, or Elsevier, or... Usually, these are not searches which justify the spend, and often the abstract is enough, but it is a pain.

Saul, I did find the Guardian reference, and the Lipman quote, which I referred to in my second post. It seemed interesting though that when Lipman referred to the nasty responses she had to the idea of her "doing" Grenfell, it was to presumably anti-semitic objections, and not to objections to her imitating an anti-semitic character.

Did you find the Youtube of Lipman doing the woman flying the Atlantic, in which an ordinary English woman comments on her neighbours' criticism about a mixed marriage with an African American? I was interested that that came up in the search I did for "Joyce Grenfell anti-semitic", very high up.

Meanwhile, back to the OP theme, here is an exchange early on in the book of letters which confirms my identification of the subject of the monologue:
Moore: "There was a wonderful number on Enid Blyton (not by that name) in your last show. I can't remember what it is called..." She goes on to ask about a recording.
Grenfell: "I'm afraid the "Writer of Children's Books" isn't recorded." She explains this is because she is still using the piece on her tours.
It really is the nastiest bit of Grenfell I've ever read, almost as if she knew Blyton and had formed a negative opinion from direct knowledge. I can't find a link to a version on the internet, but it is in the book "George, Don't Do That!", which contains a number of her nursery school monologues (she is quite destructive of a certain sort of teacherly attitude to small children, but not quite in the same way, and the teacher is not identifiable as a particular person). (I bought the book to read from in school - classes loved it. I was not up to Lipman's standard of "doing" Grenfell, though.)(I did not read the Blyton more than once, once I had spotted the target, and that the children did not get it anyway.)

[ 20. February 2013, 07:32: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I saw the television drama of the life of Enid Blyton. I could not help getting an uncanny impression that Helena Bonham-Carter had found that the longer she played the central character, the more unlikeable she found her.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Blyton's views on blacks, gypsies and the ''lower orders'' were all par for the course at the time.

This needs more nuance.

Being bigoted against blacks, gypsies etc could certainly pass in polite company with approving comment. But it was far from being universal, even in white, middle-class society.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

It might be worth noticing that gypsies haven't come under the PC radar yet - so it is still OK to hate them, if you want to.

I think the reason for this is the affect they have on property prices, so it is not economically viable to like them.

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

Indeed, Doc Tor. As I said in my lengthy post earlier (if I may quote myself):

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:

This is also a feature of the "we cannot judge their actions/beliefs as that's what people did/thought then" get-out-of-jail card, used to try to do what in German is called a Totschlagargument, meaning saying something in order to kill off discussion. Context is indeed very important in order to understand why people did or thought certain things. It's the basis for historical analysis. A deeper look at context will show a more complex world than "everyone was racist then", but rather that it contained people who took responsibility for acting against racism in within that context, people like the scientist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the politician George Padmore and writer James Baldwin are just three examples of people acting against racism well before anti-racism work began to be more widespread.

We in GB have a racist heritage. Blyton was part of the racist landscape. Others chose not to be.

The point is not in demonising her, making her bad while we are good, rather in being prepared to acknowledge the bad she did amongst that which we consider to be good (say, in stimulating a thirst for adventure).

I mean, in general life, surely we don't make out people we like to be perfect?

[Crosspost]

[ 20. February 2013, 12:06: Message edited by: Rosa Winkel ]

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Blyton's views on blacks, gypsies and the ''lower orders'' were all par for the course at the time.
This needs more nuance.

Being bigoted against blacks, gypsies etc could certainly pass in polite company with approving comment. But it was far from being universal, even in white, middle-class society.

Where to start?

If we accept that the British ruling class were in fact very status and class conscious, and that they were also very race conscious too.

The largest ethnic population in the UK, probably until the late 1950s, was the jewish population. Blyton's views are of a piece with Grenfell's in that anything intrinsically ''foreign'' was seen to be dubious, the phrase ''wogs begin at Calais'' was not just an empty phrase.

I have quoted a review of a writer called Louise London ( ''Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-1948: British Immigration Policy, Jewish Refugees and the Holocaust'' Louise London Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001) who states that 1930s Britain showed very clear tensions around race and immigration (apologies for the length):

quote:
London's work follows in the line of those more critical of Britain's role in the Holocaust, most notably Martin Gilbert, Tony Kushner and David Cesarani. In fact, Cesarani and Kushner are able to lay claim to a new school of thought on Anglo-Jewish relations.In his work Kushner has advanced the argument that Britain's claim to be a liberal, tolerant country is not true. A form of antisemitism lies at the heart of Britain's liberality in that there is a desire in British society for the Jews to assimilate and, when they choose not to, they are viewed as problematic, which is an argument with which London would certainly concur. She begins her work by stating that between 1933 and 1948 Britain held a consistent line on limiting Jewish immigration (p2). Refugees would be assisted only if it was in the interests of Britain, a concept that holds true today if the attitude taken by many towards the current issue of asylum is considered. Thus, while Britain would 'tolerate' a certain amount of immigration for humanitarian reason, this 'toleration' was limited by several interlinked factors.

The anti ''foreign'' sentiments Blyton shows in some of her works are indeed of their time. Add in the Black shirts of Moseley's BUF and there is a potent mix of xenophobia and prejudice.

Saul

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
The largest ethnic population in the UK, probably until the late 1950s, was the jewish population.

Bzzt. Irish. As in "no blacks, no Irish, no dogs".

You could reasonably argue that the Irish are almost like us, while an observant Jew is not - though a secular Jew with a name change is - and blacks are obviously different.

But my mother's experiences in Brixton in the late 1950s and early 60s (where she worked) show quite clearly that some parts of indigenous British society had few problems with obviously different ethnic groups.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Bzzt again: White British (or if you prefer, White English). What I think you both mean is largest ethnic minority population.

[ 20. February 2013, 15:08: Message edited by: Albertus ]

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Bzzt again: White British (or if you prefer, White English). What I think you both mean is largest ethnic minority population.

Albertus,

yes.

Saul

Posted by Sergius-Melli (# 17462) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
We in GB have a racist heritage.

To add to this, every country has a racist heritage (it's part and parcel of the tribe organisation we have developed as a species), and Rosa, you are most right about presenting Blyton in balance and context, especially since racism (in its form of slavery etc. etc.) is still prevelant today in so many countries and cultures in a fashion that far outstrips any racism of the white British of even 100 years ago.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
It might be worth noticing that gypsies haven't come under the PC radar yet - so it is still OK to hate them, if you want to.

I think the reason for this is the affect they have on property prices, so it is not economically viable to like them.

That isn't true. There's been a long-running debate about whether to say 'Roma', 'Romany', 'Traveller' etc.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
It might be worth noticing that gypsies haven't come under the PC radar yet - so it is still OK to hate them, if you want to. ...

It's because they are white and low class, only more so. When someone said how glad they were that society has become more tolerant than it used to be, I said that IMHO that isn't true.

It's more tolerant of gays, and feels obliged to be so about race. But it is acceptable to be openly offensive about chavs, the working classes and especially the shiftless, the sort of people Shameless is about, in a way that was beyond the pale fifty years ago.

Posted by HenryT (# 3722) on :

Enoch, I come from Scottish working class roots. My grandfather was a scaffy, and my grandmother was"in service" in a hotel, a chambermaid. They were exceeding sharp about those they considered shiftless, about fifty years ago.

[ 20. February 2013, 23:53: Message edited by: HenryT ]

Posted by LucyP (# 10476) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
To add to this, every country has a racist heritage (it's part and parcel of the tribe organisation we have developed as a species), and Rosa, you are most right about presenting Blyton in balance and context, especially since racism (in its form of slavery etc. etc.) is still prevelant today in so many countries and cultures in a fashion that far outstrips any racism of the white British of even 100 years ago.

Towards the end of my Enid Blyton phase in childhood, I began to realise that I was the wrong nationality, ethnicity, and class to “be one of” the children whose adventures I so enjoyed. It didn't matter. I could still relate to the stories in the same way I related to any other stories about children far away, in another time and place. Enid Blyton's characters were portrayed as ordinary children (of their culture) – who made their lives important by impacting the adult world, solving mysteries that the adults couldn't solve.

Of course, we need to be aware of racism, but it seems to me that there is a lot of conflation of (1) unthinking and non-malevolent ethnocentricism with (2) active bigotry and hatred of other races. There are people who make a living from refusing to accept that there can be any shades of grey (no pun intended) in race relations.

Jessica Mitford was the daughter of an English aristocrat. She became a Communist, then migrated to America. Looking back on her childhood in 1960, she described her father's ethnocentricism thus:

quote:
According to my father, outsiders included not only Huns, Frogs, Americans, blacks and all other foreigners, but also other people's children, the majority of my older sisters' acquaintances, almost all young men – in fact, the whole teeming population of the earth's surface, except for some, though not all, of our relations and a very few tweeded, red-faced country neighbours to whom my father had for some reason taken a liking. In a way, he was not 'prejudiced' in the modern sense. Since the thirties, this term has come to mean the focusing of passionate hatred against a selected race or creed; the word 'discrimination' has even become almost synonymous with prejudice. My father did not 'discriminate'; in fact he was in general unaware of distinctions between different kinds of foreigners. When one of our cousins married an Argentinian of pure Spanish descent, he commented; “I hear that Robin's married a black.”

I'm reminded of an incident which occurred in an office in Hackney. A new staff member, not from Hackney, put in a grievance against a Caucasian staff member from Hackney for having made a racist comment (“I can't tell you girls apart when you change your hairstyles every week.”) The reaction of the other black staff members (all from Hackney) was fury at the newcomer in defence of the perpetrator: “so what if she said something racist, she don't mean no 'arm by it, she's one of us.” The Caucasian staff member's words, technically, were racist – but the staff member's attitude towards, and relationship with, her colleagues, was not.

[ 21. February 2013, 06:05: Message edited by: LucyP ]

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

Lucy P said:

''Jessica Mitford was the daughter of an English aristocrat. She became a Communist, then migrated to America. Looking back on her childhood in 1960, she described her father's ethnocentricism thus:

''According to my father, outsiders included not only Huns, Frogs, Americans, blacks and all other foreigners, but also other people's children, the majority of my older sisters' acquaintances, almost all young men – in fact, the whole teeming population of the earth's surface, except for some, though not all, of our relations and a very few tweeded, red-faced country neighbours to whom my father had for some reason taken a liking. In a way, he was not 'prejudiced' in the modern sense. Since the thirties, this term has come to mean the focusing of passionate hatred against a selected race or creed; the word 'discrimination' has even become almost synonymous with prejudice. My father did not 'discriminate'; in fact he was in general unaware of distinctions between different kinds of foreigners. When one of our cousins married an Argentinian of pure Spanish descent, he commented; “I hear that Robin's married a black.''

..................................................

Thank you for that quote. Informative.

Mitford's account of her father (1930s?), exactly sums up, in perhaps at the extreme end of the spectrum, the predominant view of white middle and upper class English men (and to a degree women) of the 1930s.

Why not look at the ''white flight'' tendencies of the white English today; it may not be called white flight, but that is what it is.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21511904

Now the raw data has to be interpreted, BUT there is a real hard core thing, which perhaps exists in all of us, the desire to live amongst those of our tribe and kin.

Yes I know I will get an opposite view from Henry in Tower Hamlets saying how he is thrilled to be living in multi cultural London. Overall the evidence points contra.

Blyton et al were creatures of their time and her views were not unusual.

Saul

[ 21. February 2013, 07:25: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LucyP:
... I'm reminded of an incident which occurred in an office in Hackney. A new staff member, not from Hackney, put in a grievance against a Caucasian staff member from Hackney for having made a racist comment (“I can't tell you girls apart when you change your hairstyles every week.”) The reaction of the other black staff members (all from Hackney) was fury at the newcomer in defence of the perpetrator: “so what if she said something racist, she don't mean no 'arm by it, she's one of us.” The Caucasian staff member's words, technically, were racist – but the staff member's attitude towards, and relationship with, her colleagues, was not.

I don't think that's racist. You could make the same comment about young white girls and their hairstyles. Most of us have thought it, but you have to be female to get away with saying it. Changing colour (of hair, not skin) can make somebody look completely different.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Blyton's views on blacks, gypsies and the ''lower orders'' were all par for the course at the time.
This needs more nuance.

Being bigoted against blacks, gypsies etc could certainly pass in polite company with approving comment. But it was far from being universal, even in white, middle-class society.

That's no more nuance than before. There seems to be an astonishingly simplistic view of Blyton being portrayed by her detractors, so far that I doubt any of them have read many of her books beyond the golliwog ones.

Blyton was bigoted in the sense that she did not use her childrens books to overturn social conventions of her time. She wasn't a radical. The social conventions weren't however the un-nuanced 'foreigners, gypsys and poor people are bad'. There is no sign of that in her books, despite the repeated unsubstantiated allegations of her overeager detractors.

Blyton indeed saw in her society, and reflected in her books, the idea of different classes as 'having their place', so even when the children in her books made friends with a working class child, and the friendship was protrayed as perfectly okay, there were still social conventions that had to be obeyed, such as the working class friend eating in the kitchen with the cook rather than at the dining table with the family.

This seems extraordinary to us now but at the time this wouldn't have cast any aspersions on the moral character of the poor child, or presented them as worse than the genteel children, it was just how society was ordered, and few people saw any issue with this at the time, including the lower classes. But apart from these hints of existing societal structures, the children generally get on very well with all classes alike, neither rich or poor being presented as universally 'bad'.

Blyton's attitude to gypsy's was that of one who didn't know anything about gypsies, of course. She took her knowledge from generally accepted beliefs and literary tropes of her day. But those tropes were not simple 'all gypsies are bad'. They were considered rough and ready, but also quite romantic figures at times. If you read a good quantity of her books, rather than cherry-picking a few quotes out of context, then you'll soon see that gypsies and circus people are a varied mixture of people.

I remember in Five go off in a Caravan for instance, the children are initially suspicious of the strange and hostile circus folk pitched nearby, who are equally suspicious of the 'posh' kids. Yet when they get to know each other they make fast friends. There are surly characters, violent characters, and bad characters among them, but there are also friendly, wise, and good characters, just like everyone else.

I haven't read the books for some time I admit. But from my memories of them, I don't think Blyton was racist at all, even by modern standards. What astonishes me most about her books is actually the lack of fear of the 'other' that is found in them. The children are happy to make friends with groups of strangers they meet, poor, or rich, in ways we wouldn't dream of in our fearful, insular modern world. In the Farm trilogy for instance, the children meet Tammylan the Hermit, an exceptionally wise and good man who lives in rough squalor nearby to their house. Nowadays we would phone the police to move such a squalid tramp away from our children, but in Blyton's world he is presented as a romanticised, wonderful figure who teaches the children about nature and caring for the world around them.

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I have never read anything by Enid Blyton, but I loved 'Little Black Sambo' as a child.

As I saw it, Sambo came out on top of his encounter with the tigers. They tigers behaved foolishly, and Sambo's behavior was intelligent.

It never occurred to me that this was a put-down of dark-skinned people. I saw it as a story in which a child outwits dangerous animals.

Moo

Ironically, Bannerman wrote her books to promote good race relations and improve people's knowledge of Indian culture. All the books focus on the intelligence and ingenuity of the main character. Then the term Sambo got hi-jacked by racists and turned into an insult.

Blyton's slightly different. Her books were a great read when I was the right age, but they are full of casual racism and sexism ... Like much of the literature of the time. Tin-Tin has already been mentioned, but other literature of the time is similar. There's some amazing Rubert the Bear illustrations ... And some of the Willard Price books aren't all that.

I'm not sure what's worse, Blyton's attitudes or the over-reaction to them now. They were acceptable then, but not now. Maybe it's better to acknowledge that and have a discussion than book banning. Bearing in mind that the next generation wil judge some of our acceptable prejudices equally harshly.

Tubbs

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

The festival is going ahead it seems......

http://www.buckinghamshireadvertiser.co.uk/south-buckinghamshire-news/local-buckinghamshire-advertiser-news/2013/02/21/beacon sfield-blyton-festival-goes-ahead-despite-racism-allegations-82398-32853098/

Like many have said Blyton was of her time. I can only say when I read her books the adventures seemed remote, somehow unattainable but they were fiction of course.

It appears much of anything deemed offensive (like golliwogs and the n word) have all now been removed.

I certainly won't be rushing to Beaconsfield. I wonder how many black and ethnic minority folk either read her books and how many will they be trooping off to Beaconsfield for lashings of cream, butter and warm scones?

Saul the Apostle.

Posted by womanspeak (# 15394) on :

I read all the Noddy's and progressed to read every Famous Five and Secret Seven book I could get my hands. I also loved the Naughtiest Girl in the School books - all by Blyton. I did have a gollywog in the 50's but I don't remember playing with him.

But now I am quilter who cannot understand the fashion of gollywog quilts. The gollywog is obviously an unacceptable image for children's quilts and accessories. One hopes that those who design and use these images are ignorant of the dark past of racism and slavery. However if they are just ignorant then providing such information should work. But discussions at my quilt guild have fallen on too many deaf ears, and use of this cultural artifact remains as misguided as was its production in the first half of the 20th century.

Are gollywogs still a decorative image used in the U.S. - one hopes not!

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Ironically, Bannerman wrote her books to promote good race relations and improve people's knowledge of Indian culture. All the books focus on the intelligence and ingenuity of the main character. Then the term Sambo got hi-jacked by racists and turned into an insult.

I've read in a number of places = no particular site worth linking to, but Google will throw up a few - that the name of the character is an Anglicisation of one of the titles of Shiva.

[ 22. February 2013, 07:34: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by womanspeak
Are gollywogs still a decorative image used in the U.S. - one hopes not!

They never were. My only acquaintance with golliwogs came from reading British books.

Moo

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Ironically, Bannerman wrote her books to promote good race relations and improve people's knowledge of Indian culture. All the books focus on the intelligence and ingenuity of the main character. Then the term Sambo got hi-jacked by racists and turned into an insult.

I've read in a number of places = no particular site worth linking to, but Google will throw up a few - that the name of the character is an Anglicisation of one of the titles of Shiva.

That's actually slightly odd. The original Sambo was south Indian. But as a name, it has much more the typical sound pattern of the languages like KiSwahili spoken virtually universally from Kenya down to the Cape.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Ironically, Bannerman wrote her books to promote good race relations and improve people's knowledge of Indian culture. All the books focus on the intelligence and ingenuity of the main character. Then the term Sambo got hi-jacked by racists and turned into an insult.

I've read in a number of places = no particular site worth linking to, but Google will throw up a few - that the name of the character is an Anglicisation of one of the titles of Shiva.
That's actually slightly odd. The original Sambo was south Indian. But as a name, it has much more the typical sound pattern of the languages like KiSwahili spoken virtually universally from Kenya down to the Cape.

I had my doubts about the spelling - some sources give, I think, Shambhu, but I wan't sure if that was correct, so settled for describing it as an Anglisisation. In the way that WWI Tommies turned Ypres into Wipers.

[ 22. February 2013, 19:03: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Ironically, Bannerman wrote her books to promote good race relations and improve people's knowledge of Indian culture. All the books focus on the intelligence and ingenuity of the main character. Then the term Sambo got hi-jacked by racists and turned into an insult.

I've read in a number of places = no particular site worth linking to, but Google will throw up a few - that the name of the character is an Anglicisation of one of the titles of Shiva.

It's all in this book IIRC, "Sambo Sahib : the story of Little Black Sambo and Helen Bannerman" by Elizabeth Hay. I read it whilst at college.

Tubbs

Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :

Sambo as a phrase may have been used to denote a black person in the 18th Century.

The other derivative is from the Spanish. It may have come from the Congolese word ''nzambu'' (monkey). Sambo became a racially offensive name and is now not commonly used in the UK.

The golliwog was a well known character in Blyton's books. Now replaced.

In it's shorter form the term became ''wog'' which was a common name for anyone not British (Wogs begin at Calais was one common phrase). It is not a nice term even today (in the UK).

There are differing versions of how the word "golliwog" came into existence. One story is when the British soldiers were in Egypt in the 19th century, the Egyptian labourers working for the British Army were required to wear armbands with the letters W.O.G.S. indicating they were Working On Government Service and these labourers were called Ghuls (غول), an Arabic word for ghost, by the British soldiers.

Children of the Egyptians played with rag dolls of black stuffed material and the British (soldiers) bought them as gifts and took them back to Britain. After the Egyptian labourers the dolls were hence called "ghuliwogs" and then golliwogs.

This may or may not be true but, as they say, the rest is history.

Saul.

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