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Toys of the Diaspora

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The Christmas holiday stands as a prime example of an event that has strayed drastically from its original intent. The celebration of the birth of a spiritual figure that came forth to atone for the folly of mankind has devolved into an organ for blanket consumerism, especially here in the United States.

The African slaves who came to the Americas were not brought in to partake of the holiday revelry. Their presence was, right from the start, tied into the commercial benefit of the New World. The adoption of the religious customs of their new masters was, at least partially, introduced as a method of social control. As such, they were not equal participants in the yuletide celebration.

None-the-less, it is part and parcel of human nature to find amusements from even the most arduous drudgery. For these indentured transplants, part of the leisure-time activities the slaves developed came from traditions held over from the Motherland.

And these amusements sometimes morphed into toys.

One of these was the mathematical and strategic game of “mancala.” Conceived to be played as a board game, or simply on the ground, it involves a series of depressions or pits, in which stones or other objects are placed or transferred during the course of the contest. Mancala is a generic term for hundreds of variants which have developed over the centuries.

But some toys were not simply to keep people entertained. Slave owners actually encouraged doll play among female slaves, because that activity benefited the plantation economy by nurturing marketable skills such as sewing. Towards that end, materials such as discarded cloth were utilized to create the dolls. Other miniature representations of human images, were made of corn husks and refuse from our then-agrarian society.

The introduction of Harriett Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” set the stage for a radical shift in opinions about slavery and the question of race. As a byproduct, one of the novel’s characters, a disheveled slave named Topsy, possibly inspired the “Topsy-Turvy” doll, in which both a White and Black doll were fused at the hip. According to the book “Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory,” by Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, one possible motive for the distribution of this toy, and a benefit for the slave owner, was to indoctrinate female slaves into their later responsibilities of childcare as the “Mammies” of the plantation.

This curious representation was mass-produced by Montgomery Ward, Sears, and other companies between 1800 and 1850. Some might say this is a tangible manifestation of the later popular presence of covert and overt racism at the root of American culture.

Even before the advent of the formal study of behavior and personality, clergymen and others in positions of leadership had an inkling of the influence self esteem. Prominent minister and ex-slave R.H. Boyd began importing dark-hued dolls from Europe at the dawn of the 20th century, then he started the design and manufacture of his own dolls in 1911, but the company folded a few years later.

The next stage in the distribution of uplifting toys came under the umbrella of Pan Africanist Marcus Garvey’s mantra of Black determinism. In 1919, he enlisted the Berry & Ross Toy Company to manufacture dolls of color.

Unfortunately, the company folded in 1922. Allegedly the firm was a front set up by J. Edgar Hoover to watch Garvey.

Ironically, the next stage in the evolution of positive doll imagery came through the work of two psychologists, a husband and wife team Kenneth and Mamie Clark, who are somewhat similar to the central figures to the T.V. drama, “Masters of Sex” aired on SHOWTIME.

Howard University alums, the Clarks demonstrated in a series of experiments that, given a choice, Black children showed a marked preference for fair complected dolls over dark skinned ones. This landmark finding documented the damage segregation imposed on the psyche of developing children, and was an influence on later legal decisions, especially the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education.

Their work added validity to the notion that playing with dolls that looked like the children was important.

Over the years, the experiment has been repeated, memorably in 1985 and again in 2006, long after the fall of Jim Crow, yet the results remained the same.

So much for an increase in ethnic self-esteem!

Debbie Britt, founder and curator of the National Black Doll Museum in Mansfield, Mass., and a professional daycare provider, conducted her own version of this test in the 1990s with adults. Again, the results were similar.

Just as myths can speak volumes more about the essence of a people than meticulously documented history, the accessories utilized in daily activity can tell us more about the people using them than a direct interview of sustained length.

In the decades that followed the doll tests, isolated individuals recognized the gap in choices of toys available to minority children and moved to correct it. Caucasian businesswoman and activist Sara Lee Creech, used her social prominence and friendships with bigwigs like diplomat Ralph Bunche, educator Mary Bethune Cookman, author Zola Neale Hurston, athlete Jackie Robinson, and Eleanor Roosevelt to support her production with Ideal Toys, of a line of anatomically and ethnically correct dolls dubbed “Saralee,” in the 1950s. Weak sales condemned this project shortly after its inception.

A doll like me

Museum owner Britt’s personal involvement with doll representation began during her impressionable years at a Massachusetts elementary school. Earmarked to help implement the advance of desegregation and the only Black child in her class, she experienced a defining moment in 1968 when “… a teacher told me I was a monkey, and that I wouldn’t aspire to anything.”

Thus began a life-long quest for validation, culminating in the collection of thousands of dolls and the establishment of her own museum devoted to models focused on the ethnic representation of the human figure.

Britt’s 1968 “coming of age” occurred during an especially volatile era in America’s cultural and social development. This period was highlighted by a push to provide toys with an Afrocentric slant as an alternative for children of color.

In Los Angeles about that same time period out of the myriad anti-poverty and community entities the Operation Bootstrap-funded Shindana (from the Swahili word “to compete”) Toy Company emerged from the ashes of the Watts uprising, circa 1965. In a factory on Central Avenue in South Los Angeles, ethnically accurate representations of celebrities Diana Ross, Jimmy “JJ” Walker, Flip Wilson, and others were produced and marketed. Another line distributed by the company was called “Little Friends,” a diverse assortment of pre-adolescents figure representing Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic and other nationalities.

Corporate entities, by their nature, are motivated by profit margins more than the advance of society and that entails recognizing and filling demand. Mattel simultaneously achieved a cultural and economic milestone with the introduction of its Barbie® line of dolls and accessories in 1959.

Like any cultural phenomenon, Barbie® has had more than her share of controversy. Critics have decried her unrealistic body proportions, and suggest it pushes impressionable girls towards anorexia and other unhealthy practices. Islamic countries have smeared her as a symbol of the perverted morals of the West.

Following societal trends, Mattel provided a “colored” Barbie(R) companion named Francie in 1968. Dark complexion not-with-standing, the doll actually utilized the molds of its Caucasian forbearer, and thus boasted decidedly non-Negroid features. This changed a year later in 1968 with the introduction of the first “true” African American Barbie®—Christie.

In spite of these developments, Britt said she remained frustrated in her quest to find a doll with which she could identify, a void that the mass market Barbie® and specialty or ethnic entries into the toy market could not fill.

“I was looking for something that would say I was ‘okay,’” she says.

Her search continued until the ripe old age of 55, when she found a “chunky Black doll with nappy hair and a gap in her teeth,” in an upscale doll shop in Florida. Her “Holy Grail” had a large price tag denoting it as an “art doll,” and her name was Nadine. After decades of collecting, her goal was met.

Her collection now includes some 3,200 figurines (she and her sister collectively have 6,275), prompting her, along with her siblings, to start a museum in 2012 (visit their website at http://nbdmhc.org/).

Another milestone of sorts came when Britt began attending the annual Barbie® Collector’s Convention held in different cities every year. Out of the 1,200 to 1,500 attendees who participate, perhaps 50 are Black, she estimates. As a regular patron with a certain amount of pull, she was able to persuade Mattel to manufacture 50 dolls of color for purchase by minority fans at the convention when it was held in Florida in 2004.

Britt was mildly surprised when a rush to purchase these new offerings occurred, by the Caucasian attendees! The next year, in Chicago, she encouraged Mattel to make 100 Black Barbies available,” and the clamor to buy was repeated.

Britt has never wavered in her passion for positive reinforcement, her commitment periodically motivated by events in her personal life, like the day in the 1990s when her nephew proclaimed he wanted to be White, since Santa Claus would never stop at a Black person’s house (the recent declaration by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly that both Jesus and Santa Claus echoes this sentiment).

Events like this galvanize Britt in vocation to convince children of color that, in her words “… they’re okay in the skin they’re in.”

Freedom of choice

The companies that spearheaded the contemporary market for ethnic dolls have folded with the waning economic tide, but their legacy is carried on by several notable entities and individuals as cited by Britt. Among them is Integrity Dolls of Maryland.

Begun by Afro Latin Percy Newsum, originally from Guyana in South America, it boasts a vast inventory of products including high fashion models clothed by international designer Jason Wu, noted for his clothing produced for First Lady Michelle Obama.

New York-based Ethidolls is the brainchild of two Ethiopian women—Yeworkwoha Ephrem and Salome Yilma. Both worked in, and achieved success in the corporate and culinary industries before embarking on this latest enterprise.

Inspired by the business model of American Girl, a line of ethnically diverse pre-adolescent dolls representing different periods in American history, the entrepreneurs set out to instill a sense of pride and self-empowerment in girls of African descent by giving them, in Yilma’s words, a “sense of what came before,” since Black history started long before the Middle Passage and the slave trade.

Prominent in their product list are 16-inch depictions of Makeda, Queen of Sheba and the first female Ethiopian head of state (featuring fabric woven in Ethiopia); and Yaa Asantewaa, Queen Mother of the Asante tribe, notable for spearheading the drive to push British colonialists out of Ghana.

These products are available on Amazon.com, and can be viewed there, or at the company’s website, www.ethidolls.com.

Next on the agenda, says Yilma, are historical figures from Egypt, Kenya (in a nod to the heritage of President Barack Obama), and South Africa.

Oakland-bred fashion designer Byron Lars, as a freelancer, has also produced eye-catching clothing for Barbie®, going as far as re-designing the doll’s facial features and producing updated hair styles.

Individual artisans who produce handmade dolls also exist. Among them are Goldie Wilson of South Carolina,  (http://www.etsy.com/shop/DollsByGoldie); Jean Henderson (who makes dolls out of gourds) in Maryland, (http://www.expressionsofcolor.net/index.html); Patricia Cole Cobb of Atlanta, Ga., (www.patcobb.com); Greg Ortiz in Florida, (www.greggortiz.com); and Chris Malone of Washington, D.C. (http://cmaloneyart.com).

Advances in the research of child development and psychology in general are reaffirming the importance of play in general, and toys specially, in the maturation process of children. Research has found that this is the way they practice growing up. These endeavors include the pursuits of exploring, pretending, and sharing. More importantly, as we have seen, ethnically responsive toys, particulary dolls, go a long way in the development of positive self-image and emotional well-being. And far from being an apparatus for filling in idle time and instruments to keep youngsters out of mischief, the selection of toys can be as fundamentally important as choosing a school or nutritional selections.

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