This is not a commentary or observation on the antique shop itself but instead on the items themselves. Indeed there were so many antiques homeware in the shop that I absolutely love and will share with you on a later date. 🙂
I grew up reading Enid Blyton books and I still have fond memories of so many of them – The Wishing Chair, The Faraway Tree, The Famous Five, The Secret Seven… to name but a few. The Three Golliwogs was amongst one of those Enid Blyton books I read growing up and indeed was my first introduction to the term ‘Golliwogs’. I didn’t think about it nor realise till I was in my 20s that Golliwogs were actually supposed to be black people – I just assumed they were mythical creatures like Pixies and Elves. Needless to say, these days, I would be very uncomfortable and indeed offended if someone referred to me by that term despite growing up with fond memories of reading about the adventures of Wiggie, Waggie and Wollie.
Today I found quite a few antique yet controversial items and I guess I wanted to find out what you thought about them – especially in the context of antiquing, one of the key elements of which I feel should be a reflection of a certain period in history. On the one hand, there are some antiques like the money box (see above) which I think is more than likely to cause offence to quite a lot of people however, there are some items like this Al Jolson album (see below) where Al is in blackface on the cover which seems quite offensive on the surface but when you find out more about Al Jolson, you’d see he was quite the opposite and in fact stood up for African American rights as far back as the early 1900s.
In any case, I would really like to hear your opinion on these oldies. Are they appropriate to still have around? Would you have them? Are you offended (or perhaps ambivalent) about them? What would you do if you came across them? So many questions…
Please do feel free to be entirely frank and honest with your opinions but obviously not offensive/derogatory/disparaging. 🙂
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