Harry Connick Jr and the Golliwogs

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These dolls are Golliwogs, toys popular in Oz and Europe in the last century. While they don't sell them much anymore, I've spoken to some Aussies who hold them in high regard.

As an American, my first thought at looking at that doll is that it's racist and promotes an incorrect stereotype of people of African descent. However, to many Aussies, it's completely harmless, which brings me to Harry Connick jr.

A few months ago, Harry was a guest judge on the Aussie show Hey Hey It's Saturday. The show had an act called the Jackson Jive, which was 5 guys in blackface another in "whiteface" as Michael Jackson.

Seems a bit racist too, doesn't it? Apparently, not to Aussies. But Harry Connick Jr thought so, and demanded an apology from the show's host, causing a bit of a stir in the country. Some Aussies came out in support of Harry, saying that  the skit is dated. But others (including people I talked to), call Harry a presumptuous, overly-PC whiner (I believe my friend Gus' words were 'what an oss-hole').

Why?

Something being offensive is always a matter of perspective. Does making fun of people of African descent seem so wrong to me because it touches on a wound of guilt that I carry as a member of a race that enslaved another race for hundreds of years?

I have seen very few people of African descent in this country. And those that I have, there is not that undercurrent of fear and prejudice towards them that I have experienced in various places in America.

No, in Australia, that racism is directed towards Asian people, but that's another story for another time.