7 thoughts on “Good Doll, Bad Doll”

  1. Hi Laura, longtime reader, but very sporadic commenter here…
    I just wanted to offer a couple of links to Kiri Davis’ documentary:
    Media that Matters Film Festival (better quality): http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/watch/6/a_girl_like_me
    Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjy9q8VekmE
    I wonder why it is only now that the feminist/academic blogosphere has taken notice (via Bith PhD) of Kiri Davis’ great documentary. The mommy bloggers in my small circle of readership, particularly those that are part of the Anti-Racist Parent Blog had written about it back in November of 07 (when I posted about it too). It was then that Kiri Davis participated of a Cosmo-Girl sponsored contest and actually won (http://www.cosmogirl.com/entertainment/film-contest).
    Anyway… better late than never :-).

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  3. The almost-impossible-to-resolve problem of being a distinct minority in a society whose cultural norms are automatically, unconsciously, reflexively set by another, dominate race–a dominance which is cultural, political and economic–and absorbed over time by the minority as if by osmosis, is one not likely to change given minority status. What blacks seem not to be able to come to grips with is the fact that they indeed ARE a minority, and as such do not have an equal say in setting cultural norms. To have expectations of it being otherwise is as unrealistic as it would be for me, were I to immigrate to Japan, to expect cultural norms in Japan to reflect my own cultural preferences derived from the white, Anglo-Saxon tradition.
    Indeed, it could be argued that blacks have achieved a cultural impact all out of proportion to their numbers if one considers their overwhelming cultural influence in everything from music, media, food and fashion to sports and lifestyles.
    Given such cultural impact on the majority race I would say that Blacks have “punched above their weight” for quite some time now. Indeed, their accomplishments may be seen to be even more remarkable given the extreme racism they have had to face–both de facto and de jure, It’s amazing they have done as well as they have. What IS unrealistic, however, is to expect that somehow the cultural norms of a distinct minority (12-14% of tot pop) should ever hold social equivalence with that of the majority–let alone achieve dominance.
    People that are disappointed with the outcome of either experiment unrealistically ask/expect too much.

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  4. Once, long ago, a family friend gave my sister and me (both brown-haired girls) a brown-haired doll and a blonde doll. There was an immediate scramble for the blonde doll. Neither of us wanted the brown-haired doll.

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  5. I’d like to know more about the five of 21 children who didn’t pick the white doll. Are their parents doing something different?
    I’d really, really want to know that if I were black.
    Also, I wonder what kind of results you get with various other races, colorings (e.g., blond vs. brunette), etc.

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  6. Mary had beautiful blonde curls. Laura’s hair was boring and brown.
    I don’t think it’s just racism–or even mostly racism; I wouldn’t get the sense that Laura and Mary had ever met an African-American.

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  7. SamChevre, you have forgotten the black doctor who cures everyone of malaria in Little House on the Prairie. (Although I guess it is true that Laura and Mary had never met a black person at the time of Little House in the Big Woods, which I think is the source of the quoted sentence.)

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