Everybody wants in on the action.
Posted on 12/14/2006 3:41:42 PM PST by SJackson
A note arrived recently from Lori Bell-Santek, who is frustrated because she has been unable to find African-American Baby Alive dolls for her two biracial granddaughters.
She made the rounds at Target, Wal-Mart and a few other stores and all she could find were white versions of Baby Alive.
"In Wal-Mart," she wrote, "I took a moment to look up and down the aisles. It was the day after Thanksgiving, and the store was filled with shoppers. In the doll aisle were several little girls of color, and they were all looking at the same 'white, blond, blue-eyed' dolls. I walked through the store and saw so many people of color. But in the toy section everything is about being white."
Since she knows that Hasbro makes an African-American and a Hispanic Baby Alive, she checked the stores' Web sites. They were out of stock well before Christmas.
My own experience backs up her story. I also needed to purchase some African-American dolls. Bargain hunter that I am, I started checking newspaper ads by early November for the dolls and other toys. Toys "R" Us had a sale in mid-November, and I purchased three African-American dolls.
I continued looking because one of the dolls was not the requested version, so I checked most of the west side stores that sell dolls. I never did find the requested doll. In fact, I can't recall that I saw any other African-American dolls.
After Bell-Santek's note arrived, I stopped at Toys "R" Us again (wooden puzzles were buy two, get one free) and I noticed that all of the African-American dolls in one big display were gone.
So some girls in our area will not be getting the doll they really wanted for Christmas. And that's too bad. As Bell-Santek wrote, "I realize that my granddaughters are white as well as black, but when they look in a mirror, there is not a white, blond, blue-eyed reflection. My granddaughters, the oldest only 3, have every right to own a doll that looks like them.
"I can assure you that every white mother/grandmother I know would be so angry if they went into store after store and could not find a white doll, a white action figure, a book with white characters, a world that didn't acknowledge the culture and heritage that is familiar to them."
Besides, some of the earliest research on racial identification showed the importance of dolls in children's self-image.
No doubt most minority parents will buy white dolls if that is all they can find a white doll is better than none for a child counting on a doll for Christmas.
But there's a market waiting to be served, and the demographic data indicate that market is growing here.
While I agree with most of Bell-Santek's comments, I don't share her pessimism. "It breaks my heart that one day," she wrote, "my granddaughters will realize that the world fails to see how wonderful they are. ... I wanted somebody to care enough to make a change. And I am sad, because I know that isn't going to happen."
As she herself notes, Pleasant Co. is already making American Girl dolls of color, but these are high-cost dolls. Other companies are making more affordable dolls of color they just aren't being stocked here in the quantities needed.
But stores and companies these days use bar codes to keep accurate records of what sells and what sells out early. If there's money to be made, they will eventually respond.
It may take several years, but I think the day will come when there will be plenty of minority dolls available. I just hope that day comes before Bell-Santek's granddaughters have outgrown dolls.
Judie Kleinmaier is the opinion editor for The Capital Times. E-mail: jkleinmaier@madison.com Published: December 13, 2006
shortage ping
Sounds like a business opportunity.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
They have a "right" to dolls that "look like them"?
That is just pathetic.
No they don't. They have no right to own any kind of doll, never mind a doll of a particular make. But if the money is at hand, they have a right to buy any doll made, or no doll at all. And the doll companies have a right to make any kind of doll they want to and sell it, and Wal-Mart has a right to sell any kind of doll made, and a right to respond to their market. And you have a right to start a company that makes dolls, and to start a store that sells them, and beat out the current stores and doll manufacturers.
Everybody wants in on the action.
Whatever happened to the good-old Raggedy Ann doll? Frankly I'm sick of girl toddlers playing with dolls that look like whores.
Is that Ken's boyfriend?
So? Manufacture your own and corner the market.
Stupid broad.
whores or mutants.
"But there's a market waiting to be served,"
If so, I can't imagine there's no one out there willing to cash in on it. I just hope we're not going to see litigation over quotas of ethnicity specific toys.
My kids identify with Orange-Americans, due to their early exposure to Sleepytime Ernie.
No, that would be "Dont Ask Dont Tell GI Joe."
There. Headline fixed.
Not that there's anything wrong with that...
Ok....
I guess we have to be politically correct with proper quotas of various races and ethnicites of dolls.
God help us if we have to have gay, lesbian, and transgendered dolls so that little girls and boys can have those role models too.
Sheesh.
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