I’m white. My nearly two-year-old son is white. My husband is white. So is just about everyone in my extended family. Why should I care about multicultural toys?
Because I’ve always been uncomfortable with homogeneity, and I want my son to feel the same way. Even as young children, my sister and I would shift uncomfortably and point out when we were among only white people. For example, at age 10 as my sister scanned the crowd at a local church’s holiday craft fair, she announced, “It’s going to be a very white Christmas.”
When it comes time to open presents, I don’t want all my son’s Christmases to be white. I want him to have a variety of playthings that are fun and educational and sustainable. And I want people of color to be represented on and among these toys because as a Californian that’s the world he lives in.
The Multicultural Toybox also represents my commitment to human and civil rights. I grew up in a household that, while not explicitly antiracist, embraced progressive values. I remember asking my mother in first grade: “What’s a fag?” After ascertaining I had heard this word on the playground, she explained that “fag” is a derogatory term for gays, and that I shouldn’t use it. And I asked her about gays, and she said “It’s when a man loves a man or a woman loves a woman. And that’s okay.”
My interest in cultural differences, in whiteness, and in gender led me to pursue (and finish!) a Ph.D. in cultural studies. Much of what you read on this site is informed by the lessons I learned in graduate school, both in class and, much more informally, as the only white person in my cohort of students. I do not write The Multicultural Toybox to “represent” or to show, in the phrase of one of my classmates, that I am “down with the brown.” Rather, The Multicultural Toybox represents a genuine search for a better world that begins with children’s playthings.
Truth be told, I care as much about ethical toys as I do about multicultural toys. We can’t always afford to keep to the most stringent standards for ethical toys, and friends and family give my son mass-produced toys that are made of plastic (and, as we learned recently from the toy recalls, lead paint) and come only with white dolls and figurines. These days, it’s expensive to have a conscience. But I try anyway, and I invite you to join me on the journey.
If you have any questions or suggestions for improving the site, or if you just want to share with me a link to a relevant toy you’ve found or created, you can always direct them to me at leslie AT multiculturaltoybox DOT com. If you own a toy store or market a line of toys or dolls, I’d be happy to discuss advertising options with you.
Many thanks for your readership.
I just found your site and I love it. I made brown skinned rag dolls for my boys. On my blog I am currently discussing lego’s all one people color policy. Have you any legos in your house?
Dude! This so needed to be done! Thank you!
I just found you, so I haven’t looked hard, but I don’t see a tag for books or music… do you not blog those, or do you know someone who does?
ephelba, I hope to get to those eventually. I’m a bit behind on blogging here, but there is more coming, and I’ll be sure to include some books, and maybe some music (not my area of expertise, I’m afraid!).
I am so digging your blog!! THANK YOU!!! I’ll be visiting often!
Thanks so much. Found you through art sweet. I am white (I cannot stand that term) and my son is half East Indian. I have the same feelings as you about homogeneity. I am a single mom by choice and used AI to have my son. I chose a donor of a different race purposefully. I raise my son knowing about his culture and other cultures. One rule in our home is all books must have different ethnicity characters in it. There are no all white books allowed. It was one small thing I could easily do to ensure he grows up seeing many races as the norm. I also try and find books with lots of different-abled characters.
Thanks so much for this site, it is fantastic.
Just surfed on in Google searched for “multicultural dolls), and I’m very pleased to have found your site! As an African-American woman, it makes me happy to see that people of color aren’t the only ones buying (or looking for) diverse toys and dolls. Thanks for not just promoting these great products and their manufacturers/retailers, but for creating a vehicle for intelligent discussion about it!
I really love what you are doing here. It supports our vision at Multicultural Kids. We are a small company trying to make a difference in the way kids look at the world — appreciating and celebrating differences, while noticing that we’re really all very alike. Peace!!!
While I support your cause and ‘see’ your vision, there is a precautionary note that I would like to add without the desire to be offensive – while multiculturalism is all good, please refrain from being too liberal and like to pick up on stereotypical versions of what they perceive is being open about introducing culture but often misfires.
Shivangi,
I agree with your statement wholeheartedly. It’s very difficult to help people learn about other cultures without saying something offensive (inadvertently) out of ignorance. I see this all the time when nonnative people in the U.S. talk or write about or otherwise depict Native Americans. It’s so frustrating, and the Native American case is one reason why you’ll never see me advocating “trying on” the practices of another culture beyond learning languages, songs, etc. It’s too easy to cross the line–again using the Native American case as an example–from learning about the practices of another culture to embracing a fake, offensive, New Age version that claims to be authentic yet is anything but.
If you see places where this site could do a better job of avoiding stereotypes, please let me know! I don’t claim to be an expert to any culture (even my own), but I do want to help people broaden their children’s understanding of people whose experiences differ from their own. There’s no one-size-fits-all way to do that, so I’m exploring the possibilities. . .