Royal Adelaide Show removes golliwog dolls after social media backlash
THE Royal Adelaide Show has been forced to remove three award-winning golliwog dolls from a display of handicrafts following a racism outcry on social media.
THE Royal Adelaide Show has been forced to remove three award-winning golliwog dolls from a display of handicrafts following a racism outcry on social media.
The three dolls, which are a caricature of black people stemming back to the 19th and early 20th century, won first, second and third place in the handicrafts division but have since been removed from display.
The Facebook group Deadly Yarning from South Australian Aboriginal communities posted images of the dolls at midday on Sunday.
“When you go to the 2018 Royal Adelaide Show Royal Adelaide Show only to see #RacistDolls being awarded 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in the Judging,” the post read.
Dozens of people responded to the post including the official Royal Adelaide Show account, which said “no offence was intended”.
“There are variety of traditional dolls entered in the handicrafts competition including Parisian dolls, Japanese dolls and African dolls, however the dolls above have been removed from the display.”
This is not the first time the Show has been called out for the controversial entry in its annual crafts competitions.
In 2016, The Advertiser columnist Petra Starke said the dolls should be “consigned to the rubbish bin of history where (they) belong”.