several years ago while living in the atlantic city area i took the princess kitty to one of the local discount department stores to do some shopping and told her she could get a toy.
eagerly, she made her way to the toy aisle and picked out a baby doll. i suppose the people who order the toys for the store had a specific clientele in mind because just about all the dolls were black. (this in and of itself should say something... do only black people shop in discount department stores?)
the princess kitty held the doll in her arms and called it "her baby." it didn't look like her and i even asked if she was sure "that" was the one she wanted. "yes, mommy. this is my baby."
i didn't press it; she was still at that wonderful age when children are color-blind and i didn't want her to think that just because the doll didn't look like her that it wasn't the right one for her.
i had forgotten all about that moment until i saw this.
God's peace y'all and some color-blindness too.
5 comments:
Our next door neighbors are from Ethiopia and are Muslim. Jadette is friend with both children, because the boy is a year old than she, and the girl is a year younger. Hadi has some white and some black babydolls. Jadette's are mostly white. When they play together, Hadi always chooses a white baby and Jadette always chooses a black one. I don't know why that is, and I'd never even given it any thought until just now. It's always been just 2 little girls playing with babydolls... just the way it should be, I think.
Helo!
Very nice
Tank you
Since most of my friends are African American, I have often used the term "born color blind" and fortunate to have been raised in a family that remains "color blind".
How sad that we learn hatred and bigotry from our elders......
One of my developmentally disabled clients uses the term "N#####" every time he is corrected by my staff. It wasn't long before I found out that his family is bigoted and use the term quite frequently. Obviously he learned the term at home and it's been a difficult process educating him on acceptable social behavior.
How very sad.
DON~
Reminds me of a favorite button: "No child is born a racist."
I am so grateful for parents like you who don't want to raise a racist, either.
All babies are beautiful whatever their color, aren't they? So why not baby dolls?
Sorry it took me so long to see this wonderful post.
I love the blog that you have. I was wondering if you would link my blog to yours and in return I would do the same for your blog. If you want to, my site name is American Legends and the URL is:
www.americanlegends.blogspot.com
If you want to do this just go to my blog and in one of the comments just write your blog name and the URL and I will add it to my site.
Thanks,
David
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