Golly Bars
Slate has a story about an apparently racist “Nogger Black” bar (black on the outside!) being sold in Sweden by a Unliver subsidiary. Which reminded me of “Golly Bars“, AKA Golliwog Bars. These were a staple of growing up in Dublin that Unilever (through its subsidiary HB in Ireland) sold as a vaguely ice-cream-textured treat with an ugly blackface wrapper. What the fuck is up with Unliver anyway? In later years, HB/Unilever changed the “Golly Bar” and abstracted the blackface into a rather impressionist design to try to obfuscate the Golliwog’s nasty origins, finally changing completely to some lame polar bear or something. I think possibly my first awareness of racism, and of institutionalised racism, came when I was all of 5 or 6. I was sitting there wondering why some of my ice pops had pictures of dracula, or bunnies, or cows but for the life of me I couldn’t understand why this one had a picture of a person with dark skin who didn’t look very happy at all. I remember asking my parents and getting a vague answer that didn’t satisfy me. I decided to stick to the Dracula Pops, because there was a serious ice pop I could get my teeth into! Besides, HB’s version of “ice cream” bore more of a resemblance to flavoured cardboard than anything else. Just don’t get me started on Minstrels chocolates! And oh yeah, Unlever also does a brisk trade in “skin whitening” creams in many Asian countries where the paler you are, the posher you are, apparently.
