An antique shop has sparked controversy for selling ‘racist’ golliwog dolls.
Photos posted to Reddit on Tuesday show the children’s toys on display at The Woodcraft Shop, in the Tasmanian tourist town of Richmond.
Golliwogs are seen as a derogatory and offensive stereotype of black people.
An antique shop has sparked controversy for selling ‘racist’ golliwog dolls.
The doll has been popular since the late 19th century, but due to changing attitudes, sales of the doll have virtually stopped.
‘Are Golliwogs still being sold in 2024?’ wrote one commenter.
Another said: ‘It’s blatant racism. Disappointing.’
“I’m most offended by the price, $99 WTF Tassie?” a third added.
‘You could say that antiques preserve history… but new ones? no, at that moment you were just taking advantage of racism,” another person wrote.
But some defended the store’s right to sell the historic doll.
“Calm down, they’re just dolls,” one person wrote.
“Manufactured outrage,” said another.
Daily Mail Australia spoke to the antique store but declined to comment.
In 2021, local mayor Brendan Blomeley sparked controversy when he shared a photo of golliwogs for sale in the same store.
“(It’s) great to know that the PC brigade hasn’t taken full control.”
He later defended himself by saying he was not racist and believed the dolls were not either.
The photos showed a laminated sheet of paper showing the “true history” of the dolls.
It is said that golliwogs date back to the time when British soldiers occupied Egypt towards the end of the nineteenth century.
This account is widely disputed by historians and academics alike.
Instead, it is generally accepted that the term ‘golliwog’ was created and refers to a character from Florence Kate Upton’s 1895 book The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwog.
The character was a black doll, complete with frizzy hair, big lips and big white teeth.
Many First Nations people in Australia believe that the sale of the children’s doll may seem insignificant, but it represents a broader cultural problem.