Golliwog doll sales dropped amid backlash

Golliwogs will not be listed on a Facebook selling page after a row over the deletion of comments from those challenging the ‘‘offensive’’ dolls.

The Nelson Buy Sell Swap Facebook page came under fire after a group said their comments opposing the golliwog listing from a Picton seller were removed, while abusive comments supporting the dolls were allowed.

The page’s administrator, known as Lawrence, refused to give his last name and declined to explain why he had been deleting the comments.

However, he said he had now deleted all golliwog sale listings and would not list them in future.

The move followed opposition to Picton woman Cathy Dalzell’s listing of golliwog dolls on the page at a time when Black Lives Matter protests swell around the world. A Dunedin dairy removed golliwogs for sale after complaints.

Last year, she and another woman were banned from selling the dolls at the Picton market, after cruise passengers from Britain and the United States complained.

The other woman no longer makes and sells golliwog dolls.

On Tuesday, Bee Fradis was blocked from the Nelson Buy Sell Swap Facebook page following the publication of the Stuff article where she spoke out against the golliwogs.

Six more people have since told Stuff they were blocked from the page for challenging the sale of Dalzell’s dolls, or had their comments deleted. However, they were shocked other ‘‘racist’’ and ‘‘hateful’’ comments had been allowed.

One expletive-filled comment defending the golliwogs was not deleted.

Another commenter called those complaining about golliwogs a ‘‘bunch of moaning idiots’’.

A poll on the Nelson (New Zealand) Community page asking if golliwog doll sales should be allowed showed that on Wednesday, 300 people voted ‘‘yes’’, 156 voted ‘‘no’’, and 100 voted ‘‘I don’t care, it’s just a doll’’.

Nelson woman Jennifer Benton said she tried to make ‘‘relevant, informed and educated’’ comments about golliwogs on Dalzell’s recent sale listing. However, she was met with ‘‘hateful’’ comments, and when she reported the post to the page admin, they deleted only her comments.

Another Nelson woman, Ash Gee, was blocked from the page for speaking out against the dolls.

Gee said anyone defending golliwogs was perpetuating ‘‘casual racism’’, and the idea that ‘‘people of colour’s thoughts, feeling, experiences and histories don’t matter’’.