Sabrina Thomassays she has seen them sometimes cost more. With Black dolls less common, and often hand-crafted, Duke University professor ( and doll historian) Dr. This is not the first time shoppers have found pricing discrepancies between white and Black toys. "But one set is $39.97 the other is $25." "There are seven Black babies and there are seven white babies," she said of the two doll sets. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale.Ī version of this story was originally published in February Walmart doll pricing discrepancy (since corrected) Our mission at SheKnows is to empower and inspire women, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Her goal is to represent a new generation of doll makers who are committed to intersectionality: diversity within diversity.Īhead, you’ll find our top picks for dolls that prove Black is beautiful - and that it comes in many forms. We were mocked for years.” Kay’s dolls, on the other hand, reflect the expansive diversity of Black and biracial women - including dolls with albinism, vitiligo and disabilities. “The overall reflection of us from top to bottom, our noses, our lips… Look at some of the historic Black dolls - they’re a mockery that over-exaggerates. “Black women are shapely we’re curvy,” Kay tells SheKnows.
#A BLACK BABY DOLL FULL#
We’re finally seeing Black-owned toy brands popping up and creating dolls and more that represent the kids who’ll be playing with them.įor example, in 2017, Krystal Kay decided to create custom dolls for Black girls and women because most of the dolls she saw in stores didn’t reflect the full body types and natural hair textures of Black and multiracial girls and women. Today, 70 years later, the diversity of dolls available to kids of color has expanded to include dolls that are Black, Brown, multiracial, and more.
#A BLACK BABY DOLL SKIN#
So Hurston and several other Black leaders (including sociologist Charles Johnson and baseball player Jackie Robinson) decided it would be best to market four different dolls - siblings - with varying facial features, hair and skin tones to display the diversity within the Black community. After they settled on a design, they still needed to determine the skin color for the doll. Hurston’s input led to the creation of the Sara Lee doll, one of the first realistic-looking Black dolls in the U.S. Lee even called on anthropologist and writer Zora Neale Hurston (yes, the acclaimed author of Their Eyes Were Watching God and Barracoon) to ensure she got it right. These dolls were in stark contrast with other dolls of the time - whitch were either stereotypical representations or simply darker versions of white dolls. So she decided to create Black baby dolls that truly represented Black girls.
Luckily that all changed thanks to a woman named Sara Lee Creech back in 1951.Ĭreech recognized that something needed to be done about the dearth of realistic dolls for kids of color.
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