“Nigerian doll created by man who couldn’t find a black toy for his niece is so popular in his country that it’s outselling BARBIE”
“Speaking to ELLE about his dolls out-selling Barbie in his native Nigeria, Okoya said: ‘My mission is to make the Queens of Africa a symbol of hope, trust, and confidence by promoting African history, culture, and fashion.’
One person that Okoya really hopes the dolls will have a positive impact on is his daughter, who, he explains, once wished she was white.
He explained that even though they live in Nigeria, there was a lot of Western influence. He said: ‘[This] might have been responsible for her wishing she was white. It made me aware that I needed to make her proud and happy being a black African girl, and not limit it to her alone as this was a common trend among the younger generation. The Queens of Africa became a platform to achieve this.’
Unfortunately, Okoya has been told that he won’t be able to sell the dolls on the shelves of mainline stories in America and will have to limit his business to specialist stores.”
Thinking about this — I definitely would have really like these when I was little, it probably would have been really helpful in understanding that my skin color wasn’t exotic or decorative. But I wonder how my friends (who were not black) would have played with the dolls when we were that age — If it would have given me accidental lessons about where people with dark skin belonged in our games and stories. I don’t know if we had the tools to involve black people centrally, or avoid trying to give them special tokeny capabilities that would ultimately bound their involvement in play.
