Racist toy on sale in capital shop
The ears wriggle and the eyes roll in the deep-set Negro face as he swallows the coin - ‘‘Greedy n ..... boys’’ are for sale in central Wellington.
While the Chinese-made money boxes are not now marketed using the n-word, they are almost exact replicas of money boxes - now sold as antiques - that had the offensive term cast in their metal body.
The modern version is for sale for $30 from Just Men in Dukes Arcade in central Wellington.
Tasos Paivagioteus, from Just Men, said he had heard them referred to by numerous names but had received no negative feedback about the ‘‘cute little guy’’ in the few years he had sold them.
‘‘People remember in the old days; they say, ‘My father used to have it’, or, ‘My grandfather used to have it’.
‘‘We have never had a negative comment.’’
But out on the streets of Wellington, people were less tolerant. ‘‘It’s kind of inappropriate in this day and age,’’ Anna Loughnan said.
‘‘Antiques are fine because it is cultural heritage but I’m not into the revival of old things like golliwogs and things like that leave them in the past.’’
Wellington antique dealer Peter Wedde, who has an 1880s American version, said the ‘‘n ..... ’’ term would have been used ‘‘all the time’’ in the United States during the 19th century.
‘‘They fit into quite a long tradition of 19th-century American money boxes.’’
In the 1950s,a Christchurch company started making New Zealand equivalents, though these were of lesser quality and smaller than the American originals.
One found online from 1882 was called the ‘‘jolly n ..... bank’’ and had the name cast into it while one on YouTube described the ‘‘greedy n ..... boy’’ money bank as a ‘‘ racist toy made in New Zealand in 1930s’’.
In 2014, the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint about a Trade Me listing for an antique ‘‘awesome Early NZ Greedy N ..... Boy Money Box’’, saying the term was ‘‘offensive, racist pejorative’’.