Golliwogs, racist caricatures and 'n****r money' piggy bank at shop

An antiques shop has been branded appalling for selling a huge haul of racist items and labelling one a ‘n****r money’ piggy bank.

Ceramic figures of golliwogs, the heavily criticised children's book The Story Of Little Black Sambo and another offensively caricature-esque piggy bank of ‘Smilin’ Sam From Alabam’’ were also on sale.

The items are openly displayed and offensively labelled in glass cabinets in the Memories Antiques store in Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester.

A spokesperson for anti-racism charity Hope not Hate labelled them ‘outdated, outmoded and offensive’.

‘It's appalling to use the N-word to describe anything,’ they said.

‘It seems on the face of it pretty amazing that somebody in this day and age is still selling these things, particularly with that kind of terminology.

‘It looks like an aberration. I suspect the owner will say these are antiques, but we’re not in that time now.

‘These golliwogs, no matter what people's memories of them may be, represent something from an earlier era when there was greater ignorance.

‘People now know the suffering that black people and other minorities had to go through in the bad old days.

‘Take the Windrush Generation and the suffering they’ve gone through – in that context, today it doesn't look appropriate and it certainly is outrageous to use the term "n****r".’

Derogatory and racist caricatures were used during the US era of Jim Crow, between 1877 and the mid-1960s, to support racial segregation.

African Americans were regularly depicted as ‘innately intellectually and culturally inferior to whites’, according to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.

While The Story Of Little Black Sambo, released in England in 1899, has been heavily reviled for its derogatory depiction of a ‘sub-human’ black youth.

Memories Antiques sits in the town centre alongside tea rooms, restaurants and an equestrian store.

Spread across two floors, the shop is crammed with vintage items including books, jewellery, crockery, clothing, records, toys and footballing memorabilia.

Local shopper John Pearce said: ‘You don't want to deny history but that word in its own right is not appropriate.

‘Those articles were made and at the time virtually nobody thought there was anything wrong with them, but it's a statement on our history that we’ve hopefully evolved from there and changed our views as a nation.

‘I can fully understand why the majority of people would find that offensive.’

The shop has since confirmed that after complaints from two other customers, they have chosen to remove the ‘n****r money’ piggy bank from sale.

It is unclear whether or not the other items are still being sold.

A spokesperson for Memories Antiques said: ‘Two ladies came to speak to me and I wasn't aware of the item [being called that by the dealer].

‘One of the ladies came to say she was quite upset by it and I said I totally understand.

‘The money box was removed immediately.

‘That was the name of the item – it wasn't intended to be offensive.

‘That's the name it was called when it was first made in the 1930s or something like that.

‘[After the complaints] I said to the dealer ‘you must realise that is inappropriate in today's society?".’

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