Archives for August 2007

Some interesting and relevant links from around the web regarding ethnic dolls, multicultural toys, multicultural superheroes, ethical toys, and more:

From The Toronto Star, The Trouble with Ethical Toys. An excerpt:

assistant professor Gavin Fridell, who specializes in fair-trade issues, doubts fair trade toys will ever have much of a market presence, since ensuring that all the parts and processes involved are completely ethical would be next to impossible.”Think of all the different sourcing you would have to do to make a toy,” says Fridell, whose book, Fair Trade Coffee: The Prospects and Pitfalls of Market-driven Social Justice, was released this year.

An action figure, for instance, needs rubber, plastic, paint, metal, hair and cloth. Ensuring all that is produced ethically would be prohibitively expensive, Fridell says, adding fair trade works best with simple products such as coffee.

Besides, he says, where fair-trade coffee has the romance of keeping small farmers on the land producing quality coffee on a beautiful mountaintop, fair-trade manufacturing is more about workers’ rights and anti-globalization.

“These are more uncomfortable ideas,” Fridell says. “The best way to buy ethical toys might be to buy locally.”

The Asian Pacific American Toy Chest, from the superheroes page:

For the early part of superhero comic history, Asians tended to be the bad guys in comics, taking roles of either Super WWII Japanese Spy or some kind of Fu Manchu emperor. But, thanks in part to Marvel Comics’ popular X-Men and the influence of anime on American comics, we are seeing more and more APA super heroes exploding onto the scene.

From Young Money, Comic Books Enrich Their Character Mix: “Comic book fantasy is believable, he says, to the extent that it’s grounded in the real world. And the real world is not exclusively white, Anglo-Saxon, male or heterosexual.”

From the librarian at The Gentle Reader, some adorable multicultural dolls: Polly, Tali, Holly, Ali, Jolly, and Molly.

The Sacramento Bee brings us From Barbie to the Bratz dolls: Do media images push girls to go too sexy, too soon?

The Diva asks for readers’ opinions on ethnic Barbies. Personally, I find all Barbies a bit creepy, but I confess to being wowed by some people’s customizations of Barbie’s wardrobe. Case in point, these customized Indian Barbies from Dolls of India.

From the Courier-Mail, A Storm over Golliwog Dolls. Read the story, and then check out the history of Golliwogs at Wikipedia and The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.

UNICEF is running a series of German-language blackface ads:

Click the link above for a gallery of all the ads.

Of the ads, Black Woman in Europe writes,

Besides claiming that every single person in “Africa” isn’t educated, and doing so in an extremely patronising way, it is also disturbing that this organisation thinks blackfacing kids with mud (!) equals “relating to african children”. Also, the kids’ statements ignore the existance of millions of african academics and regular people and one again reduces a whole continent to a village of muddy uneducated uncivilized people who need to be educated (probably by any random westerner). This a really sad regression.Bottom lines of this campaign are: Black = mud = African = uneducated. White = educated. We feel this campaign might do just as much harm as it does any good. You don’t collect money for helping people by humiliating and trivializing them first.

Found on Etsy.com

These two adorable ethnic dolls are available in germandolls’ Etsy shop:

If you purchase these ethnic dolls, please let the artist know you saw them on MulticulturalToyBox.com! Thanks!

I just received the following message from MomsRising.org. It invites us to sign a petition against toxins in toys. Please click on over to the site and sign the petition. Everyday toxins affect us all, but in the U.S. people of color suffer disproportionately from such toxins because toxic plants, refineries, and other pollution-causing infrastructure are built in working-class neighborhoods. If we can keep toxins out of toys, that’s one small step to protecting the next generation.

Dear MomsRising Member,

Is it just me, or are you starting to get freaked out about all these toy recalls too? Just yesterday, I sat down for a peaceful breakfast (well, as peaceful as you can get with a Cheerio food fight going on), and on the front page of the New York Times there was an announcement of yet another massive recall of toys–and in the Business Section there was a story about lead in bibs for babies. What’s next?

This must stop! There are already over 15,000 signatures on our “No Toxics in Toys” petition from last week. Let’s double that number. The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) needs the tools and authority to ensure our children’s safety. We can provide Congress with the political capital they need to pass legislation that stops toxic toys.

SIGN THE PETITION & SEND IT TO 5 FRIENDS: Help us build a massive national movement that can’t be ignored. Sign the petition at: http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/momsrising/signUp.jsp?key=2362

*Once you’ve signed the petition, please forward this email to friends, family, your book group, coworkers, school and sports lists, and favorite Big Bird fan. Let’s make a strong statement together by getting as many signers as possible.

*Please forward this email to friends and family!

THE LOWDOWN: CPSC is an under-funded agency with an outdated regulatory authority. It needs the resources and authority to keep our children safe. It’s time to pass legislation to make sure CPSC can do its job to keep dangerous products out of our homes. Congress can take several steps to keep children safe:
1) Give real teeth and authority to CPSC to keep toxics out of toys and set firm toxic limits (since there are only guidelines now);
2) Create a third-party testing system and increase the fines for those companies who put toxics in toys;
3) Fully fund the CPSC, which has had a stagnant budget since 2005, so it can enforce the laws;
4) Increase staffing at CPSC since their current staffing is at its lowest level since the 1980s;
5) Give authority to quickly release safety warnings about imminent hazards without manufacture approval.

Two recently introduced bills in the Senate propose to do just this. Let’s make sure that Congress hears our strong support for this legislation. Our children need safe products NOW.

PASS IT ON–KEEP TOXICS AWAY FROM KIDS: Can you think of any list you have not yet posted this petition on? Any friends who have been sneaking into their children’s rooms late at night to confiscate that special Big Bird toy? Get them involved and pass the petition on so we can get as many signers as possible!

You can find the petition at http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/momsrising/signUp.jsp?key=2362

Together, we can keep our kids safe from dangerous toxic products and focus on more important things, like protecting them from flying Cheerios.

Best –Donna, Katie, Joan, Mary, Kristin, and the MomsRising Team

P.S. GET THE LATEST RECALL NOTICES VIA EMAIL: CPSC has an easy and handy service that will email recall notices right to your inbox! Just go to their website – www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.aspx – and simply provide them with your e-mail address.

P.P. S. For more information:
* Coverage in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/business/worldbusiness/15imports.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
* Bib Recall information: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/business/15lead.html
* CPSC Info on the Fisher-Price recall: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07257.html
* CBS News story on Fisher-Price recall: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/01/national/main3124623_page2.shtml
* Center for Disease Control web site about lead poisoning: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/faq/about.htm
* List of recalled children’s products: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/category/child.html

Check out these cute handmade multicultural dolls and ethnic dolls I found on Etsy.

Vintage bride and groom dolls from India, $15, available at safsgallery:

Folk-tale Indian princess doll, $90, available from dollydrops:

Hindi girl – Funky Folks ragdoll, $55, available from YourFunkyGrandma:

If you give these dolls a home, you’re not only purchasing some one-of-a-kind dolls, but you’re also supporting artisan doll makers instead of the toy monopolies that recently have exposed our children to lead-based paint and other dangers.

If you do buy the Indian dolls or the Hindi doll, please let the artists know you saw them on MulticulturalToyBox.com! Thanks!

There are historical precedents for the mass production of ethnic dolls. Did you know Marcus Garvey set up a factory to produce black dolls?

In a darker era in U.S. history, companies produced racist caricatures of many ethnic groups, but especially of African Americans. These toys and collectibles are featured at The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. (Click on the link, then scroll down for a menu of categories of caricature.)

Curator David Pilgrim explains why the museum collects racist memorabilia.