-- Kudos to Pam Noles for this post, responding to an interview with Kevin O'Neill. I realize the possible hypocrisy of me criticizing Kevin O'Neill in this instance, given that my last story also contains a racist doll, but at least I don't deny that when the automaton was created it definitely had racist overtones, regardless of how many other ways it was used or how else it contributed to scientific discovery.
It also bears mentioning that in her earlier essays, Pam never said "Don't use the Golliwog." What she did say is this:
As I've said before, writing is research, empathy and effort; anything in the world is on deck as potential source material. But if you're going to take on something as culturally loaded as blackface or minstrelsy, a footnote needs to be included - you've got to have your A-Game on. Like dealing with a select few other extremely thorny topics, this is not something one should go into without awareness. If you are a current day person choosing to toy with this construct, going into it with scant knowledge of or ignoring the big picture, is so unwise. If you choose to work with this trope willfully blind and you screw it up, you deserve whatever level of invective comes your way. You must proceed with awareness.
And this is why I love Pam's big beautiful brain so much.
I know I've linked to it before, but it's worth the redundancy: go read her full series of essays on the Golliwog in the Black Dossier.