After father's anger, Target adjusts sales price of black Barbie doll

[TexasTowelie]

CINCINNATI -- Like many little girls, Warren Johnson's daughter wants a Barbie for Christmas.

Specifically, she wants a Barbie Fashion Maker African American doll, one of the hot new toys this holiday season.

"So, we went to the Target website and looked for her Barbie," Johnson said.

What Johnson, who goes by @jayven07 on Twitter, saw after typing in his search Sunday prompted the following tweet:



http://www.caller.com/news/watercooler/barbie-fashion-maker-doll-after-fathers-anger-target-adjusts-sales-price-of-black-barbie-doll

[font color=green]Yes, white Barbie is $23.49 and black Barbie is $49.99. Please commence discussion.[/font]

[951-Riverside]

1. How come the other barbie isnt listed as European-American?

And which part of Africa is the African-American doll supposed to be from?

Just seems like a broad and borderline racist brush to label a doll with darker skin pigmentation as "African-American".

[Warpy]

3. She looks like she's from the Indian subcontinent.

And I agree with you and the OP.

This is offensive.

While it's nice to have a brown skinned fashion doll out there, doubling the price and restricting the ethnicity were both stupid and insulting moves by Mattel.

Phooey.

[pnwmom]

7. Here's one that looks even less African-American.

The AA Ice Skater Barbie.


http://www.amazon.com/Barbie-Careers-Skater-African-American-Doll/dp/B00F14I7VE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418292883&sr=8-1&keywords=barbie+ice+skater+african

What's Mattel's problem. Are they afraid of brown skin?

[brush]

10. Ahhh . . . FYI, for the most part . . .

African Americans aren't from Africa, their ancestors were.

Same as most European Americans or Mexican Americans aren't from Europe or Mexico but are from the US, unless they're first generation.

You must know this, right?

[951-Riverside]

12. Point being the other barbie is just known as "Barbie" not European-American barbie.

It seems everyone with brown skin is labeled as some sort of "Hyphenated American" except for those of European ancestory.

"White"



"African-American"



About a year ago I took to wikipedia and started editing entries of politicians and actors who were labeled as "white" and started relabeling them as "European-American", I got banned within a week.

[brush]

20. Okay, I see your point now

We do hear the terms "Irish American or "Italian American" at times, but that adjective "white" seems to be sacred (read privileged) and to mess with it is deemed sacrilegious.

Be careful with that, make sure you're not being followed.

[KittyWampus]

16. WTF? They obviously wanted to be inclusive and you throw out an asinine attempt

at criticizing them?

Do you know nothing about African American children and their self image when it comes to toys/dolls?

[951-Riverside]

18. Why isnt the other Barbie labeled as "European-American"? n/t

[KittyWampus]

21. Funny how you latch onto "European-American" and not "White". Should the African American doll

be called "Black" and the other one "White"?

Edit- I appreciate the point you were apparently trying to make about the white barbie being unlabeled as to ethnicity making white dolls the "default" setting.

[B2G]

22. My question exactly

I though AA was the accepted, preferred term now.

I can't keep up.

[bravenak]

30. I feel you.

I'm black and can't keep up. I prefer black to distinguish us from the current immigrants from Africa. But I know an Australian aborigine who prefers black too. My uncle prefers colored to distinguish him from a negro. Very difficult.

[B2G]

35. I have a black coworker who constantly corrects people

who refer to him as African American.

He does it in the nicest way but says he has no identity with Africa.

I never know what to say anymore.

[bravenak]

37. Me neither.

I am terrible.
My mother does that too. We are all mixed up, some African, some Irish, some Cherokee. And there are a lot of nigerian immigrants up here, they make fun of me.....
I see black americans as a different style of African.
I just ask people how they prefer to be called. Easier that way.

[nichomachus]

36. On a college radio station a few years ago

The student commentator referred to Nelson Mandela as a "noted African-American."

[bravenak]

38. Really?

We just like to take credit for him, I think. I was calling Idris Elba African American for a while. Then I saw Luther. Oops. The man is British. The finest man Britain has evah produced.

[Fawke Em]

40. I feel you, too.

My husband, who is nearly white as snow, was born in South Africa to American parents and lived there for three years as a child before they moved back to the states. He's REALLY an African-American.

[bravenak]

42. Poor guy..

People probably look at him all kinds of crazy.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

24. Kind of like Archie Bunker's two coworkers, "Black Elmo" and "Regular Elmo"

[Capt. Obvious]

17. The same reason people don't

preference the skin color of a white person while telling a story about them while 100% of the time identifying the skin color of non-whites while telling a story about them.

[Journeyman]

2. The article explains it was an error by the store, a situation they quickly corrected. . .

and in fact reduced both items by another $3, to $20.99 each.

Given the store's rapid and apologetic response, I think I'd give them the benefit of the doubt.

After 40+ years in graphics, I've seen a lot of errors, most nonmalicious.

[Warpy]

4. I'm not annoyed at the store.

Packaging comes from Mattel. That's where the offensive screwups occurred. Or are my eyes screwing up again and is that the store circular?

Management was tone deaf on this one.

[Journeyman]

5. It was Target's website that was in error, not Mattel's packaging. . .

[Hekate]

6. Mattel had them both for $40 online, which makes both versions equally outrageously priced

At least Target, when called on this, made it better

[Skidmore]

19. I went to find the Lammily doll for my little granddaughter and

that is selling at around $64. I'll wait.

[Hekate]

46. The day after Christmas is the best time to get toys, imo.

If it doesn't absolutely have to be under the tree on 12/25, that is.

[Skidmore]

47. I know but because the kids aren't going to be with us at Christmas time,

I wanted to have presents for the grandkids there. I got her Jane Goodall's Mr. H. Jr. monkey instead and a Chimp Guardian certificate. She is such a Jane Goodall fan and wants to be just like her when she grows up, except she has the problem of being "allergic to animal spit".

[TorchTheWitch]

8. they're both normally the same price - the website put only the white doll on sale

and for whatever reason missed putting the black doll on the sale price as well. It's obvious just looking at the photo of the website in the OP. Whoever did the website was probably instructed to put the Barbie on sale for the sale amount not realizing that there was also a black Barbie or Asian Barbie or whatever that was set up on the website as a different product.

What they probably should have done was had a photo of all the races of Barbies on the same page with a check box for people to chose which one they wanted. Websites do this with shoes or clothes that come in different colors, and I think it would have made more sense for the different races of Barbies to be displayed much the same way. It would probably be easier for people that looked for the Barbie product as well... I wouldn't think I'd have to plug in a search for the product specifying the race of the doll seeing as I never have to do that for other products that come in different colors/fabrics/whatever.

[bravenak]

31. I can agree with this.

Use a drop down menu and let people check a box.

With love,

Your non stalker.

[belzabubba333]

9. if it is "one of the hot new toys this holiday " then it's gonna cost more

[treestar]

11. Greater demand for AA Barbie?

my white nieces have some AA dolls - not Barbies, but dolls. Maybe it's white people wanting their kids to have diversity in dolls. At least, that's the optimistic way to look at it.

[B2G]

13. More likely that more white Barbies were manufactured

So they have a surplus compared to the black dolls.

Supply and demand.

[treestar]

14. Looks from above like the person told to put Barbies on sale

Overlooked the existence of AA Barbies. That's white people for ya. (I'm one).

[brush]

23. I like that

I hope that's the case.

[Nye Bevan]

43. My daughter asked for (and received) a black American Girl doll.

I think because her all-time hero is Gabby Douglas (the gymnast).

[B2G]

15. Target has the BOTH listed at $49.99 now

so I guess everyone can relax.

[Brigid]

25. I've seen much better African-American Barbies than that.

I have seen them with not only darker skin tones, but with distinctively African features. I have also seen collectors' Barbies like this that were apparently representing African nations--wearing traditional national dress, that sort of thing. They were lovely. What happened to those?

[kwolf68]

28. Supply and Demand

It's pretty simple. If companies can make money off the barbie you describe they'd be all over it. I figure those barbies just didn't sell. Companies generally don't see black and white...they see GREEN.

[Princess Turandot]

39. Some of those are considered collectible dolls more than toys..

a lot of them seem to be only available on direct order from Mattel:
http://www.barbiecollector.com/shop

They don't sell the very fancy ones in very many toy or department stores. I know this because several years ago, I was buying one of them as a gift for someone. I had to go to a separate Barbie store to buy one, located at FAO Scwarzes, NYC's premiere toy store. IIRC correctly, that store did not stock the toy dolls; those were located in the regular store.

They have a collectible whose inner dominatrix seems to want out:
http://www.barbiecollector.com/shop/doll/herve-leger-by-max-azria-barbie-doll-x8249

[Brigid]

48. I don't think anybody will be buying that one for their 8-year-old daughter for Christmas!

[Nye Bevan]

44. I wouldn't describe certain skin tones as "better" than others (nt)

[kwolf68]

26. Maybe the black barbie

Is more expensive because she is more valuable.

Should the prices be the same? NO, not necessarily.

[shenmue]

27. Duh

[MADem]

29. The video makes it clear that it was a pricing/systems error. Both dolls are on sale now.

It was a bad error, certainly. They couldn't have made a bigger mistake if they tried.

The video also notes that the dolls are priced the same at Toys R Us so it's not an issue coming from the manufacturer.

[kwolf68]

32. So non issue

But Im sure if we turn over another rock somewhere racism can be found.

I think it was great the black doll was more expensive...its like, "i'm not giving away this black beauty unless for a mint...now this white barbie? she's cheap if you are shopping on a bargain." lol

[MADem]

33. The dad was right to make that phone call. He got immediate action, which was good.

Then when the TV station called to get more info, they lowered the price of both dolls even further.

There's racism all over hell. The company responded appropriately though. I wouldn't be surprised if they've instituted their own little internal investigation into how those paired products didn't both get the discount that was only applied initially to the white doll. I'll bet they'll be attuned to those kinds of issues in future.

[Bjorn Against]

41. We don't need to turn over rocks to find racism, it is all over the place

I am glad this problem was fixed and an apology was issued, for that reason I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it was an honest mistake.

That being said your comment about turning over rocks to find racism is pure ignorance, racism is a serious problem and has been a serious problem for centuries. If you believe we have to turn over rocks to find it you are wilfully ignorant.

[Lilyhoney]

34. The Frozen doll is outselling Barbi this year.

Could be the reason for the discounted doll.

Just my thought.

[Jamastiene]

45. It makes no sense that they would sell one at a different price than the other.

I'm glad he brought it up and got the discount.