Darkie Day (Part 2): Some People Would Find These Offensive...

What the hell is Darkie Day?!?

"Anita" had no idea what she was in for. Her parents were Indian, but Britain was her home, and she'd been to Cornwall several times with her boyfriend, who hailed from the West Country (albeit genteel Somerset).

She and Ian liked the Duchy so much they decided to spend New Year's there, relishing the chance to see one of Britain's top tourist destinations in the raw, without too many daytrippers around to spoil the atmosphere.

Off-season, Padstow felt like a close-knit fishing community; by comparison, St. Ives seemed positively cosmopolitan.

Although Cornwall one of the whitest counties in England (which is saying something), Anita and Ian never had any problems there—unlike parts of south London, where you risked assault simply for passing through the neighbourhood on the train.

Occasionally the Cornish would stare, but more out of curiosity than anything else: mixed-race couples were a rarity, and Anita's dark skin and black hair contrasted sharply with Ian's very English lack of pigment.

The day before New Year's, the two of them visited Padstow with Ian's parents, strolling along the small harbour and dipping into the shops in the Old Town, which was little more than a knot of streets next to the waterfront.

While browsing among the watercolours, Cornishware and alabaster tiles decorated with crabs, Anita happened to notice something else in the corner—a small collection of golliwogs.

Let it go, she thought.

One time she and her sister had been shopping in York, and they'd spotted some of the googly-eyed ragdolls on display.


"Excuse me," her sister told the attendant, "some people would find these offensive—black people, for example."

"Well, black people don't have to buy them, do they?" snapped the Yorkshirewoman behind the counter.

And it turned into a massive row.

As a journalist and self-professed member of north London's chattering classes, Anita's natural instinct would have been to jump on her high horse and get all Guardianish about it: "This is outrageous!"

But she wasn't the kind to make a scene, especially not in front of her future in-laws. I'm with Ian's parents, let's not start a massive row. And anyway, people in Cornwall would have no idea what she was talking about, and they wouldn't really care. You could moan all you liked, and they would think, 'Well, you're the first dark face that I've seen in God knows how long, so if I'm selling golliwogs, and they're selling like hotcakes, then to hell with political niceties."
©J.R. Daeschner

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