Buy Your White Baby a Black Doll
You may never have thought about it that much: you go to the store to buy your white baby a doll, and you reach for the palest version (which is often the only version as well). In fact, chances are good that if your child is white, then the vast majority of his toys will be similar in color to them.
But one woman who is foster and adoptive to children of different races and colors, would you like to stop before you buy your white baby (or other white baby) another fair skin doll. Maralie Bradley writes on her blog A Musing Maralee :
Please buy different dolls for your white children. Buy them a Captain America figurine and a Black Panther. Buy them a white Barbie, a black Ken and a little brown-skinned Chelsea doll with curly hair. White dolls aren’t just for white kids, and black dolls aren’t just for black ones. Let your kids watch you tell them how beautiful this black barbie is, how precious this black child looks, and show them how well your child cares for them.
Bradley wrote his request after witnessing a conversation between two women who were shopping for a birthday present for a child, discussing whether a certain doll represents a colored child and whether the parents of the (supposedly white) birthday boy might mind. As Bradley wanted to advise them: “If someone gets upset about getting a black doll, this is not the house I want my child (white, brown or black) to spend time in. Instead of avoiding this interaction, let’s just go for broke and see what we’re dealing with. ”
I love her style, but when it comes down to it, you have no control over the choice of the other family. However, you are in control of which toys enter your home and how diverse they are – or not.
Children of color often play with white dolls simply because they are the most affordable. Debbie Garrett, author of Black Dolls: A Complete Guide to Celebrating, Collecting, and Experiencing Passion, told USA Today that she grew up in the South playing exclusively with white dolls. The shopkeepers either did not want to carry black dolls with them, or they were portrayed in a stereotypically racist manner.
In light of the shortage of black dolls, “it is imperative for black children to have dolls that look like them,” Garrett said. Conversely, she argues, since “white standards are promoted as the norm,” it is important for white children to have dolls representing different ethnic groups “to promote cultural diversity and the realization that we are all one race: humans.”
Toy options are becoming more varied, but colored children still need to see themselves presented more. Meanwhile, white children have long been surrounded by an abundance of white role models and white characters from books, movies, and TV shows. But one easy way to make their world a little more diverse is to increase the variety of their toys.