A question asked of the NYT "Social Q's" adviser, Philip Galanes.
The question got my attention because I had a black baby doll back when I was a little girl in the 1950s. But I didn't have it because my mother (or father) chose it for diversity purposes. I had it because I saw it in the store and enthusiastically requested it. I doubt if "diversity," "appropriation," or "virtue signaling" was anything my parents thought about back then, and it certainly had nothing to do with my request. I didn't even understand who this doll was supposed to represent. It was just something amazing because I'd never seen anything like that before. I've always appreciated that my parents never said anything like, "That's not for you" or "Don't you want a little doll who looks more like you?"
But about this girl whose mother chose the doll and composes the letter? She's displaying pride in her own choice and in her success conveying her message of diversity to the little girl, and she wants her husband to bolster her pride, not be embarrassed. But virtue signaling is embarrassing. Let the poor man be embarrassed. And, of course, let the little girl keep her doll. Too late now! You can't take it away. It's her "absolute favorite."
Posts
63 comments:
Well, she's probably picked up on the fact that her mother wants it to be her absolute favorite. So, relatively absolute.
My sister, born in '49, also had a black baby doll, and it was her favorite for a long time. Nobody thought anything of it. It seems to have been a popular thing back when I called my favorite morning cereal - Cream of Rice - my black man cereal.
"Her absolute favorite is a Black baby doll. She carries him everywhere."
Alex, I'll take things that never happened for $1000 please.
This should also get the Stockholm Syndrome tag. The husband's an idiot. Cultural Appropriation is more than just a positive good, it is a necessity for a healthy modern society.
When my daughter was little, she had three dolls--2 white and 1 black. I don't remember the names of the white dolls, but she named the black one "Snow Black." My wife was a little embarrassed, but had enough sense to keep it to herself.
"Absolute". Did everyone see that?
Absolute. Who made that choice?
Why, she did, of course.
Like campaigning for sixth grade class president.
How wise of her. A BA in humanities! Did you SEE that? Wow!
I too had a brown baby doll in the 50s. And I actually have a memory of picking it out in a local supermarket. My mother argued with me in order to take it away but I caused such a scene that she had to let me have my way. Years later in my teens and and off and on throughout my life, my best friend was a very black dude. The crew called us I Spy. years later, my mother told me that every time she saw us together, she would think of that little doll. I love it.
Why wouldn’t you buy the doll the child selected?
"He worries that her doll seems like appropriation or virtue signaling. Your thoughts?"
It's all about each one of us having a secret desire to have a slave.
You know, lots of little white girls in the Old South had black dolls and such. They were called "pickaninny" dolls.
Now, apparently, the primary collectors of such historical kitsch are black women.
Well, that explains Crack.
In today's world, a white child with a black doll is racism. A white child without a black doll is racism. This is a trick question.
Unless an arm were falling off, or something like that, I can't imagine commenting on a little kid's doll. What kind of people live in NYC that someone would worry someone else would do that kind of thing?
She carries a black baby boy everywhere. And she turns up her nose at the white babies, Yellow babbies, and brown babies, doll.
Well, we know what that will lead to.
A UW Law professorship.
How do they know the baby doll is a he?
We bought our kids dolls of different races because that was the only way you could get them to look different. (Every Ken is like every other Ken.) The features and clothes were unique.
Is this baby doll the same as the others except for the skin hue? That's not diversity.
It's a golliwog.
But did your parents refer to your doll as a pickaninny?
"My husband and I are white. I bought our daughter several dolls of different races with skin colors that reflect the diversity of our community. Her absolute favorite is a black baby doll."
"I had a black baby doll back when I was a little girl back in the 1950s."
MSM reports that children can't relate to people who look different and need role models that look like they do. I guess dolls don't count?
I don't remember any girls with dolls of color back when I was a kid. And if someone had given me a black GI joe, I would've been puzzled.
The black family neighbor in our Army housing section didn't have a GI joe. I assume they would've bought a black one. Their father had a zillion music LP records, even though he wasn't a musician. He was a heliocopter flight crewmemeber I always remembered that because my parents had about 20 records.
Next thing you know the Dutch will get upset about black Zwarte Pete celebrations by white people in Northern Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet
Dear Ann (you are the new Ann Landers, btw),
My husband and I are idiots. So we bought black nappy headed dolls for our white kid to take to school and then notified the press beforehand in order to use our kid to get attention we ourselves cannot generate because ... you know ... we're fking idiots.
Can you help us get the attention we so desperately desire, even if it costs us an actual child?
Sincerely,
The Entire White Liberal Woman Democrat Party
Dear Ann Althouse,
I bought our white daughter a bunch of black dolls to take to school. But she's not taking them to school. She has them in them in the backyard, picking the white wisps off of the numerous dandelions we're seeding our neighbors yard with because they're just a little too white if you know what I mean and also the husband isn't black like in all the commercials where they have the black dude obviously banging the white chick he's driving down the road in his new BMW i7 because he's so successful.
She's like 4. Should we abort her? Is that legal yet?
That Mother belongs in the Virtue Signaling Hall of FAME. Perhaps Dad can put on some Blackface too. What a clown show.
As long as she teaches her daughter to stay off the street in places like Bed-Stuy at 4 a.m., the daughter should have a chance at a long life.
Gender transition would fix that problem.
Cognitive Dissonance: Married Couple Edition
JFC. This is what people worry about?
At the risk of virtue-signaling, I have a somewhat similar story. My mother's friend dropped me and another kid off at a classmate's 4th grade Birthday party (whatever age that was, maybe 9?). When Mom and other kid's mom picked us up after the party, I heard my Mother say to the other Mom, "I can't believe T.(me) never mentioned that his friend D.(birthday boy) was black! I guess I should be proud of that!". It bugged me then and I think it still does. This was late 70's, early 80's at latest, and we lived in a comfortable middle class neighborhood. D. and his brother were the only black kids in school, also the only kids that lived in an apartment rather than owning a home. Also among the smartest kids in their respective grades.
Take the doll away while the child is asleep and when she awakens, tell her the doll was kidnapped and murdered by MAGA extremist Trump supporters. This should alleviate the social concerns of both parents and implant a robust case of TDS in the child. With this one simple trick, their daughter be set for life politically speaking...which is nice.
As long as the doll isn't being appointed to a major political office, whatever...
about time for mom and dad to black-face
I think the mother is really beating around the bush here. She is really asking an AITA question, to which the correct answer is: yes, yes you are.
how can manufactured dolls have race assignment
I've always appreciated that my parents never said anything like, "That's not for you" or "Don't you want a little doll who looks more like you?"
Why, exactly?
How precious. Don't these people know they're all suffering from a terminal illness, called "narcissistic overthinking"?
They should have let the kid enjoy the damn doll, but now, how can she? Won't she pick up the awkward vibe from her father, the ambivalently supportive vibe from her mother, and from both of them an overwhelming stink of political correctness?
Buckwheathikes @ 4:21: Brilliant.
Seems like the daughter has aspirations to be a slave owner.
In other words, a Democrat.
I think this calls for...
"Well, Bless Your Heart".
I think this calls for...
"Well, Bless Your Heart".
The doll I had wasn't some sort of exaggeration or mockery. It was exactly like the white dolls, cast in the same mold. Just a standard baby doll, made in a different color.
If you're imagining those black stereotype dolls... that's in your head. I never saw dolls like that in an American toy store. I was living in Delaware, if that helps you imagine. That was far enough south that, I know now, black people regarded it as the south.
Newsom also picked the black doll.
Even though it wasn't his absolute favorite.
Our daughter had a doll --its provenance is unknown-- that was made of cloth and had a double-ended figure (two opposed heads and torsos with arms). The two half-dolls were separated by a dress that could be flipped up and down.
One of the doll-heads was white, the other was black.
Our daughter liked it. It was an honored member of her doll family.
Nobody gave a damn about which end was which, or why.
Owen said: Buckwheathikes @ 4:21: Brilliant.
This is how you know this is MY blog. Not yours, Ann. Or Meades.
I am creating the content people want to read.
Not you.
This NYT feature column is a 21st Century equivalent to the stupid Penthouse letters in the '70's.
Both these parents need to chill out. How can you enjoy life with all this racial angst and worrying about other people's thoughts?
I would have put this down to virtue-signalling, or at least virtue-shopping, but a key element was missing in the woman's story: The precocious, eerily mature and tone-perfect 'Mommy' question from the three year-old, on the state of race relations in the US, with particular attention to the plight of the victims.
So without that, I'll just have to conclude that the kid likes the doll, and so what? Get a grip, lady.
Seems everyone in NYC has some Woody Allen in them.
I was 10, maybe, riding in the right-hand back seat through Delaware on a freeway where I saw a Confederate flag flying high above the state university's tower. I had never seen such an openly displayed allegiance to the Confederacy before. Delaware was a slave state like its neighbor Maryland. Hence the availability of "pick-a-ninny" dolls. As a child, I never saw any similar dolls in Ohio.
"As a child, I never saw any similar dolls in Ohio."
Depending on where in Ohio you lived and how long ago, you may very well have never seen an actual live Black person.
Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) : racism, sexism, etc.
Diversity of individuals, minority of one.
Progress is an unqualified monotonic process: one step forward, two steps backward.
I have an albino (i.e. white or integrated rainbow colored) friend.
A black albino at that, from Africa, where they are hunted by black people for medical progress.
He was ten when he saw the Confederate flag, on an off chance, flying over the Deleware State university.
And then he saw Joe Biden climb up the tower and tear it down. DSU is a historic black college.
Interesting fact is that Delaware banned the importation and exportation of slaves in 1787. They had 2000 slaves in 1861.
With that level of male insecurity the wife should probably just cut to the chase and present her husband with the daughter's DNA test results.
The blacker than black-colored doll is representative of diversity in Southern India and some, select black Indian-American [Lives Matter). The standard racist considers them interchangeable, exchangeable under the principle of congruence (PC).
I almost broke my right hand a couple of days ago, and had a small surgery done on my left foot today, but it was worth it, because the time away allowed you guys enough space to talk "white" amongst yourselves, giving me something revealing to read. Everything about this thread is a fine example of the difference between the idealized version of race in America, that most white people hold, versus the mindfuck reality of American black life with white people. You do remember blacks can see you, right? Only two or three guys mention black friends - knowing actual black people - but all these white girls have black dolls they make their absolute favorite. It's hilarious. And frightening in its implications.
Rabel said...
"Well, that explains Crack."
OUCH. I seriously doubt that, since no one mentioned dolls with a string you pull to hear it swear at you. Lincolntf kinda got race in the US ("It bugged me then and I think it still does") but Wa St Blogger nails it with "a white child with a black doll is racism. A white child without a black doll is racism. This is a trick question." Yes it is, but the "trick" is the question. It's a a pre-Civil War question, about America's racial legacy continuing, even in our transition to a (not quite yet achieved) post-racial era. The question is:
When will black people stop being dynamite?
@Rabel I grew up in Toledo, Ohio. A black woman was frequently my caretaker and I will love her dearly for the rest of my life.
@rcocean I didn't say Delaware State University. It could have been, and probably was, the University of Delaware. Delaware was a slave state even though many slave holders freed their slaves. There were other citizens who would kidnap free blacks and sell them to plantations further south. Wilmington was quite different than Dover.
Your thoughts?
Absolutely a learned behavior. The girl isn't personally expressing herself. She is doing what she was taught and is expected.
My siblings and I had both a Yogi Bear doll and a Boo Boo. Make of that what you will, we didn't grow up to be furries, ursines defecating in the woods, or conniving stealers of pic-a-nic baskets in National Parks.
The imaginations of children encompass universes, and so much attention to the color of a doll's plastic ignores the more important experience of the child - having absolute power over a supposedly human companion. I care more whether Suzi or Johnnie nurtures or tortures their doll than what race it is. And if/when doll torture is started, does the child rescue the doll or rationalize its mistreatment as deserved? Much more interesting than having any care for the doll color.
And what if the doll is Smurf blue? Do the Tauregs have a claim here?
I almost broke my right hand a couple of days ago, and had a small surgery done on my left foot today
Yikes! I hope the recovery is rapid and uncomplicated!
I always thought the use of dolls in the Brown v. Board of Education litigation was questionable. Although of course you can't argue with a 9-0 win!
You could argue that this little white kid is suffering from low self-esteem, and that's why she prefers the black doll to the white doll.
I wonder how many little white kids are getting stressed out by the liberal narrative that white people are bad?
Race is stupid, and racial division is poison. Treat people like individuals, not symbols of a larger group. See the person in front of you.
Mattel should produce a Blackface Barbie. It would be a big seller.
Post a Comment