My mom came over yesterday to take Noah for a sleepover and she brought a Polly Pocket set for Madison. Both the dolls were white and my mom said she’d look for brown-skinned Pollies and didn’t find any so just got these. I’m kinda rabid about getting Madison brown-skinned toys so I shot off to Target to find a couple of “ethnic” (that catch-all phrase that means “not white” in toy industry language) Pollies to switch out with the white ones.

I was not so successful.

The only not-alabaster Polly I found was this one (this is the best image I could find of her) only the one I found has stick-straight brown hair. (I bought two to switch out both white ones.) Shani, as she is called, is the stand in for all children with a brownish tint to their skin. She is not dark enough to be absolutely not-white (although in looking for her image it looks like in the Polly Pocket straight-to-DVD commercial movie she is clearly supposed to be of color), making it easy for the company to cover their asses in both the Hispanic and African American market without bothering to make dolls to actually reflect their audience. (For the Asian children who adore Polly, they get stuck pretending the white brunette looks like them.) Plus, that versatile Shani could even stand in for an olive-skinned little girl. Talk about convenient! Now that’s smart marketing!

I feel so furious and sad about it.

Someone said to me, “Well, don’t you think she should have all kinds of dolls and not just black ones?” Yes, I do but I think they should be in the minority. She has the white cabbage patch that was Noah’s (along with the African American one that was also his) and the giant Raggedy Ann & Andy pair that were mine (along with the African American Ann) and she has a Mandy because Lucia has one. But most of her dolls have brown skin of varying shades and I make an effort to try to keep it that way, thus the midnight Target run for Pollies.

Sometimes I hear, “Aren’t you making too big of a deal out of this?” Ummm, NO. NO I AM NOT. (The only people who ask this are — surprise surprise — WHITE people. You know, people who never have to say, “Gosh, I feel underrepresented by the world and it feels like I don’t exist sometimes!”)

Madison is a minority in her own home already and any time we turn on the tv, pass a billboard or go to the toy aisle she gets the strong message that people who look like her are a deviation of some corporation’s manufactured “norm”. She gets the not-so-subtle message that she is an after-thought to what’s been deemed typical. According to this site, thirty percent of the US population are not represented by the plethora of white Polly Pocket dolls but you’d never know it to visit the toy aisle.

I mean, look: this is supposed to keep the little black girls feeling good about themselves?

I have to go because my beautiful, adorable, fabulous little girl wants me to play with her. She probably wants to play with the racist Polly Pockets. Great.

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