And no, this is not about hair products.
This is about dolls. Dolls and little girls. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have read some of this story already.
I was in the store letting my son spend his birthday money. I was able to drag him away from the Lego section long enough to look over the dolls, just out of curiosity. My best friend had told me it was hard for her to find African American dolls in the stores she’d gone to. Considering she lives near an area that is almost 60 percent black, I was incredibly surprised.
During my search, I found quite a few more than I’d expected….most of them with straight hair. These beauties caught my eye.
I never had a Cabbage Patch doll when I was a kid but these are fantastic!! Oh my gosh! Granted, I wish they had some AA dolls with differing hair types but to see some that actually have curly fros is a big improvement from what I remember.
Anyway, this was not the disturbing part. My son found something on the opposite side of the aisle that caught his attention (goodness knows what, that aisle was an explosion of pink) when a little AA girl walked up with her mom.
I’d heard the mom tell the little girl that she needed to pick a black doll. The little girl already had a black doll with straight hair in one hand and put it on the floor when she spotted the Cabbage Patch dolls I posted above. She picked up one of the dolls and looked at it for a long time.
Then, as she put it back on the shelf, she said “I don’t want her, her hair is too nappy”. She picked up the straight haired doll and they left.
I know this was not my child and this was not my business, but I was devastated!
A lot of moms are big into picking dolls of color for their children because (I’m assuming) you want the child to have a doll that looks like them. But is it any better when you are picking a doll with skin like an African American but not hair like an African American?
Perhaps I am reading too much into it. Perhaps I should just be happy that the little girl picked a black doll. Perhaps she already has some kinky/curly haired dolls at home and wanted some variety with a straight haired doll.
Perhaps I just need to stay out of the doll aisle until my little girl reaches an age where she cares about dolls at all.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…
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Congrats!
) I have been natural since 1994/95 (can't remember exactly when I BCed, but it was in college) I kept a TWA for about 4-5 years, then started to let it grow out to now. On this day I went with friends of mine to NYC to see Prince in concert. It is definitely not an ultra glam style, but the hair gods aligned just right this day/night and the length fell right, the body was nice and full, and the curls were diamond shiny and poppin'. Best Hair Day!"
