Posted on 05/28/2014 8:47:57 AM PDT by armydawg505
When American Girl opted to discontinue two of its historical dolls last week, the brand chose Facebook as its medium of communication: “Soon, we’ll say farewell to Marie-Grace, Cécile, Ruthi and Ivy,” American Girl announced. “Complete your collection while supplies last—quantities are extremely limited.”
It wasn’t so simple, though. What the brand failed to address in its statement, but which very quickly became evident in blog posts, was that Cécile, an African-American doll, and Ivy, an Asian-American doll, were two of the only dolls of color in American Girl’s standard collection.
(Excerpt) Read more at vocativ.com ...
What... no openly lesbian dolls??
No tranny dolls??
It wouldn’t matter if the dolls of color were flying off the shelves or sitting there collecting dust. These “collectibles” companies are always discontinuing various items, secure in the knowledge that the artificial scarcity will jack up the prices. They know that there are plenty of people out there who “have to have” Cecile and Ivy and who-knows what else, so they’ll pay top dollar to get them before they’re “gone forever” (or, more accurately, only available through dealers who will charge a pretty penny for them).
I have no beef with the supply and demand concept, but it annoys me that these companies will deliberately discontinue products, even ones that are selling well (and I have no idea how well or not well those particular dolls are selling) just to create an artificial scarcity. I’m sure there are plenty of suckers, er I mean collectors, who will pay a boatload of money to get their hands on those on-their-way-out dolls; but I’m not one of them.
It just reinforces that old white privilege / slave master mentality in children.
/sarcasm
My niece went through a period of collecting these things. They’re very pretty and well done, but hideously expensive, accessories, outfits, bedroom furniture that are equally expensive. I suspect there was an element of faddishness and sales are now softening. The first to go would be the specialty lines with limited appeal. That would be minority dolls. The market is smaller, the sales decline would be more of a problem. But, the perpetually aggrieved seized upon it as yet another reason to be aggrieved. Is there some doll quota now? If there’s such a need, here’s your opportunity, entrepreneurial people of color. Come out with your own hideously expensive doll.
PMIIDGAS (pardon me if I don’t give a s+++!
The obvious answer is seize the market for dolls of color! Don’t bitch about what someone else is or isn’t doing, fill the niche. Oh, yeah the fact that very very few people want to buy them might mitigate that a bit.
What, no Shaniqua Doll?
Some of our mission team members went into stores in the Dominican Republic, looking for a doll for one of the children sponsored, and could not find a SINGLE black doll - even though the population of that country is primarily of African descent. Even “people of color” do not apparently buy the dolls.
Then should it be spell'd: "Sessile"?
What is the not-to-subtle message here is white people are not ‘’people of color’’ and that infuriates me to no end. The idea behind this form of bigotry is an ugly and pernicious reasoning that since white is not a ‘’color’’ than ‘’white people’’ are not really people. Well to that I say black is the absence of color, ergo blacks are not people.And God help the fool who ever gets in my face with this nonsense because at this point in my life and at my age(I’m just two steps from sixty) I’m likely to take somebody’s head off. I don’t care anymore. I’ve been listening to this neo-Marxist dialectic about race and ‘’whitey is the Devil’’ for some forty years and I’m beyond fed up with it.
“”What no Shaniqua doll?’’>> Shaniqua ain’t come up for parole yet. She be still in da joint.
It’s kind of funny. A guy at work said I am a “renaissance man” because I do so many diverse things (programmer, BA, pseudo-farmer, road ralley driver, play bass and sing in three bands, etc...). So when someone says someone is a “person of color”, I say, “I am too.” It catches them off guard until I explain what I mean. Then when they explain what they mean, I’ll say, “Oh, you are referring to his negro race.”
Then the fun starts. ;-)
You play bass? I’m a drummer. Well, that is I once was many moons ago. Singer too. Still do that sometimes. But mostly in the shower lol!. A friend of mine has a Karaoke bar and a few months ago I did Carly Simons “Anticipation’’. She’s not hard to do. For me anyway. This place has the one bar up front and the stage area bar in the back. Took almost a full minute to convince a good friend of mine who was sitting out front with her husband that really was me signing. She told me she said to her husband, “Who’s the chick?’’. What kind of a bass have you got? Guys I used to play always loved Fenders.
That’s pretty funny. My introduction to the bass was actually from singing in Karaoke bars. I was singing in my church’s small ensemble after that and they said, gosh, we need a bass player...
One time I was singing in a Karaoke bar and looking at my wife (which is what I do when I sing and she’s there) and some woman walked up to my wife, pointed at me and said, and I quote, “Is THAT yours?” At least that is how my wife tells it.
BTW, I used to use “That’s the way I always heard it should be to sell the heck out of ESS speakers back in the mid-1970’s when I was a hi-fi salesman.
If you can do Carly effectively, you got something there.
“THAT””? What’s that supposed to mean? She’s envious of your wife for having a handsome husband who can sing or is it more like ‘’Honey if I had to wake up next to that everyday I’d sooner shoot myself’’? Don’t know where you’re from but in my neck of the woods something like that were to go down it’d be cat fight city in a heartbeat. So what kind of a bass do you play.
My first bass was a Yamaha five string. I had Mike Lull put a bartollini 18 volt active system in it. Then my wife got me a nice Dean Acoustic/electric (looks like a big acoustic guitar). The other six I got off RondoMusic. A five string fretless with black tape wound strings, a six string, a copy of a fender Jazz tobacco sunburst with the big chrome covers over the pickups and bridge. I didn’t pay more than $149 for any of those and they work absolutely great. Workhorses all.
Regarding the “that” comment, I won’t go into detail. It was vain enough to even bring it up. The wording was a crack up, though...
My best buddy swears by his Fender Precision and his older brother is strictly old school and swears by his big acoustic stand up he calls “Bertha D. Blues’’Have a nice week-end.
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