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
Yes, which is why some enterprizing people bought out all the Black and Hispanic dolls and put them up on ebay for 3 x the price. But the idiot with the "Bi-Racial" daughters nerver thought of that.
Want an example? Think $3,000+ PS3's. Maybe we should claim discrimination because PS3's are nowhere to be found.I don't want a PS2(plenty of those in stock), I want a PS3 and if I can't have one then the stores are in bigggg trouble. /s
It is pathetic. What about those white people of "color" who end up purchasing blonde hair, blue eyed baby dolls in spite of the fact that their children have red or brown hair and green or brown eyes. There are very few dolls that represent what my children look like. They aren't scarred.
My daughter has unusual coloring ~ Curly brown hair, beigy skin and green eyes.
Making a custom Cabbage Patch doll twenty years ago was the answer.
Mine dated Luke Skywalker. LOL
That was explained in the article. However, I'll recap: These biracial girls don't see blond haired, blue eyed reflections in the mirror that would match these dolls. They (the girls) simply look more African American than caucasion. Surely that is easy enough to understand?
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. This is not rocket science.
My brunette is also a curly top. She has the Shirley temple ringlets with greenish/brown hazel eyes. She looks non-white in the summer with her tan! My red head is turning more auburn. She has green eyes and tans. Most redheads don't tan well.
I agree. However, the majority of the white population aren't super fair skinned with platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. If their complaint is that they don't have dolls that look like their children.....I say join the crowd! Only....I'm not really complaining. I think the whole thing is stupid.
so buy it online http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=166151011
Light eyes usually go with skin that freckles. Light-eyed people with deep tans are very striking; they're lucky they have some melanin protection from the sun.
"Would a black doll sold by Walmart in Canada still be considered African-American?"
-- --
Wouldn't a Libyan muslim doll sold at Wal Mart also be African-American?
That would be like Senator Osama Obama writing a book about his WHITE mother rather than his BLACK sperm donor who knocked-up him mom and abandoned them both shortly thereafter.
Would Obama be where he is today without his sperm donor?
Thanks for those. There's a store near me that carries these, so I will see if I can find a "friend" for my daughter. The doll she has now is a Strasburg doll, and cost $40, and while it is nice, it is maybe a bit too nice for a 2yo (at least for now).
To the poster who mentioned having to change out the manufacturing line, I assume you mean having to clean the molds due to the different colors used. That could be solved by doing different color runs on different days (i.e. Mondays is dark skin day, tues is bronze, etc). The molds probably have to be cleaned on a regular basis anyway, so you can do the reformulations then. The rest of the changes are cosmetic (eyes, hair), and can be done by substituting different parts bin fills.
LOL
Maybe I should tell her she isn't pink.
Or these babies wearing thongs, fur jackets, and carrying purses? Where exactly are they going?
The above images are from here.
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