What Barbie Gets Wrong About Diversity
What one toymaker easily gets right, Mattel hasn't accomplished in 60 years.
Last summer, like so many other parents before me, I begrudgingly began to buy Barbie dolls for my 4-year-old daughter Sophie. For a long time, I vowed against having them in the house at all, but call me a sucker for my daughter’s joy, because once she started noticing--and asking for--those damn dolls, I couldn’t resist when I saw how much they made her smile.
Along the way, I’ve made a point to get a variety of Barbies in different skin tones and body types. But this Christmas, when my sister sent my daughter a few different types of Barbies, I was mortified when Sophie told me that she didn’t like the dark-skinned Barbies, and didn’t want to play with them.
I’m pretty sure the blood drained from my face as I pictured a future where my daughter was that kid. The one who noticed different skin colors and took note of it in a negative way. It’s not just an embarrassing picture--it’s scary. I was raised in the Twin Cities, where diversity is normal and no big deal.
But now that we live in Tennessee, we’re in Trump country. A lot of people down here see diversity as some terrible, horrible, no good, very bad liberal agenda.
