The New Doll In Town: The Next Initiative Of The Natural Hair Movement
In today’s market, it takes more than just having a brown-skinned doll to claim “diversity”, and Yelitsa Jean-Charles went above and beyond!
Dolls: Most of us had them or know of someone who did. And most of us have a love/hate relationship with them. Some continue to view them as a means of wonder and fantasy, while others despise them for the harmful ideologies they often inflict on society.
Dolls can be traced back to 2.5 million years ago, and they vary around the world. Luckily for Generation Z and younger Millennials, it was very common for us to have diverse dolls in our childhood. However, despite the reputation of the United States s a melting pot for all cultures, the range of dolls that we see today was not a reality for older generations.
According to Dominique Jean-Louis, a historian at the New York Historical Society, 19th-century African-American children often played with black dolls that were handmade by caregivers of the same status. Pioneers of this process included Sara Lee Creech, Harriet Jacobs, and Leo Moss. Yet the dolls they produced were not sold on a national market.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many dolls in the media were marketed with exaggerated racist and stereotypical connotations. Examples of this include “mammy dolls” and “dusky dudes.” It wasn’t until Kitty Black Perkins created the first black Barbie in 1980 that diversity gained prominence in the national doll market.
Barbie dolls now: why it does not work
Prior to that year, Mattel employees such as Beulah Mae Mitchell sought more diversity within the line. This led to the introduction of Barbie’s black friend Christie in 1968. But that wasn’t enough. Critics did not want to see black dolls as supporting characters. They wanted these dolls to be equal to Barbie.
The outcry led to the very first black Barbie in the 1980s. Unlike Christie, she had Afrocentric features and reflected black beauty standards. Unfortunately, she was short-lived. By the 1990s, many people called out Mattel for not marketing Black Barbie as much as the original white Barbie and for once again reflecting Eurocentric beauty standards.
Mattel then created The Amazing World of Shaunie line in 1991, the So in Style line by Stacy McBride Irby in 2009, and Brooklyn Barbie in 2021. These lines stemmed from the infamous Dr. Darlene Powell Hudson’s racial experiment on dolls. Brand separation and lack of marketing caused the majority of the lines to fail.
As a result, entrepreneurs such as Yelitsa Jean-Charles want to reinvent black dolls of their own from the ground up. Speaking of Yelitsa Jean-Charles, who is she, and what is she doing to change the game for black dolls?
The brains behind the beauty: Yelitsa Jean-Charles
The consistent re-invention of black dolls continues today, with Charles making a distinct contribution. In an interview for NowThisHer, founder and CEO of Healthy Roots Dolls, Yelitsa Jean-Charles explains how “You have to do more than paint a doll brown to connect with children of color.” In 2022, after almost a decade of development, she decided to create a natural-haired doll that can be washed, styled and braided. This began with her kickstart, Zoe, who has had a recent update.
When asked about the inspiration behind Zoe, Charles expressed how there were not many dolls that looked like her. Hair is one major factor. Many of the dolls of color up until the early 2000s still had hair that reflected Eurocentric beauty standards.
Jean-Charles also shared that she didn’t know how to do her natural hair until she was 21 years old. This experience caused her to emphasize the educational value point for children, specifically around hair care. In another interview with Lynette Nichols, Charles shared that the technology behind the natural hair dolls is a special, unique fiber. The fiber not only reflects authentic natural hair but is also easily styled and washed like one’s own hair. Each doll comes with a set of natural hair products. The products can educate both the child and parent on how to take care of natural hair.
All of this is massive progress, but will it last?
What is the future for these dolls?
Longevity has always been a prevalent issue when it comes to Black Barbie. Skeptics have showed concern about the future of the natural hair movement and the possibility of its dismissal as a mere “trend.” This yields an important question: will Zoe last in the ever-evolving toy market? Yelitsa Jean-Charles believes Zoe can.
Towards the end of her interview with NowThisHer, she stated that over 50% of children in America are of color. The Bureau of Labor has confirmed this statistic: “Almost 1.9 million reported Multiracial and Multiethnic write-in responses alone or in any combination across the country with “Mixed” alone or in any combination (1,660,942), comprising 88.3% of these responses.”
This data supplies valuable evidence for the claim that mixed-race people will comprise the majority of the U.S. population by 2057. Unfortunately, no matter how much society changes, racism will most likely remain in some form. We cannot even simply blame a generational gap for this. In September 2021, white and Latino students of Salinas High School hung, stomped on and used racial slurs toward a black baby doll. The violence caused outrage both online and within the town.
Does the average Joe have a say in this?
Therefore, it is important that the I in DEI is put into initiative in businesses and institutions. Charles highlights the thousands of kickstart companies that fail within the first year, and the majority of them are black and women-owned businesses. One of the main reasons why doll franchises such as American Girl and Bratz have become such household names is because of how they can be a powerful representation of ourselves.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then isn’t society similar to a certain extent? To ensure that diverse groups of people are represented in a positive and equal light, we need a diverse range of people in charge to truly make the inclusivity circle complete.
With that, it is only a matter of time before this either becomes a reality or a play pretend.
This story was first published by Trill Mag.
