Calling Jesse and Al ...... Black Barbie Sold for Less Than White Barbie

[Big Dog]

Oh boy ................... it is in Louisiana!

Black Barbie Sold for Less Than White Barbie at Walmart Store

Walmart is raising eyebrows after cutting the price of a black Barbie doll to nearly half of that of the doll's white counterpart at one store and possibly others.

A photo first posted to the humor Web site FunnyJunk.com and later to the Latino Web site Guanabee.com shows packages of Mattel's Ballerina Barbie and Ballerina Theresa dolls hanging side by side at an unidentified store. The Theresa dolls, which feature brown skin and dark hair, are marked as being on sale at $3.00. The Barbies to the right of the Theresa dolls, meanwhile, retain their original price of $5.93. The dolls look identical aside from their color.

Editors at Guanabee.com said the person responsible for the photo told the Web site that it was taken at a Louisiana Walmart store. The person did not return e-mails from ABCNews.com.

A Walmart spokeswoman, who could not verify the exact store shown in the photo, said that the price change on the Theresa doll was part of the chain's efforts to clear shelf space for its new spring inventory.

"To prepare for (s)pring inventory, a number of items are marked for clearance, " spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said in an e-mail. "... Both are great dolls. The red price sticker indicates that this particular doll was on clearance when the photo was taken, and though both dolls were priced the same to start, one was marked down due to its lower sales to hopefully increase purchase from customers."

"Pricing like items differently is a part of inventory management in retailing," O'Brien said.

But critics say Walmart should have been more sensitive in its pricing choice.

"The implication of the lowering of the price is that's devaluing the black doll," said Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, a Harlem, N.Y. organization founded by pioneering psychologists and segregation researchers Kenneth B. Clark and Marnie Phipps Clark.

"While it's clear that's not what was intended, sometimes these things have collateral damage," Dye said.

Other experts agree. Walmart could have decided "that it's really important that we as a company don't send a message that we value blackness less than whiteness," said Lisa Wade, an assistant sociology professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles and the founder of the blog Sociological Images.

Last year, Wade posted a blog entry on another case where a black doll was apparently priced less than its white counterpart at an unidentified store. Wade said that when white dolls outsell black dolls, it's usually because black parents are more likely than white parents to buy their children dolls of a different race.

"Most white parents wouldn't think to buy black doll for their child, even if they believe in equality and all those things," she said.

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[mak2]

I think this story is stupid. If there is one thing WalMart knows it is selling stuff. WM dont care diddly what color the doll is, WM cares about selling it. Also making as much profit as possible selling it, so cutting the price in half to demonstrate some form of racism is stupid. Dumb story.

[Big Dog]

Originally Posted by mak2

I think this story is stupid. If there is one thing WalMart knows it is selling stuff. WM dont care diddly what color the doll is, WM cares about selling it. Also making as much profit as possible selling it, so cutting the price in half to demonstrate some form of racism is stupid. Dumb story.

I agree, this only fuels racism so you'd think they would have considered that action. Even if what you say about only caring about selling, I would think that their image would be worth much more than a few $3 dolls!

[mak2]

I was just trying to express how silly the whole concept of the story is. Not to dis WM selling ways, since that is what they are all aobut.

[pirate_girl]

I bought my grandBRAT Kasey a doll when she was 5, and it was a black doll.
All she said to me was "Nana, she's got a suntan."
It was a cuddle ragdoll or something.
She didn't at all think the way an adult would think, and I thank my son for that
Can't say there were black Barbies when I was a kid, in fact, they looked nothing like the Barbie of today.

If items aren't selling for whatever reason, of course the price is going to be cut.

[muleman]

Maybe Obama told them to help the brothers out with unemployment and a stagnant economy cutting into their disposable income.

[Big Dog]

Originally Posted by pirate_girl

I bought my grandBRAT Kasey a doll when she was 5, and it was a black doll.
All she said to me was "Nana, she's got a suntan."
It was a cuddle ragdoll or something.
She didn't at all think the way an adult would think, and I thank my son for that
Can't say there were black Barbies when I was a kid, in fact, they looked nothing like the Barbie of today.

If items aren't selling for whatever reason, of course the price is going to be cut.

One of my Dad's best friends was a black policeman by the name of George. To this day I remember George and his wife playing cards with my parents one evening at our house. Mind you, I wasn't very old (maybe 4 or 5) and I was so curious about George that I walked up to him and ran my finger across his forearm and ask him why his arm didn't come clean.

Everyone laughed but my Mom and she went into trying to cover in explanation. George stopped her and said "I wish everyone spoke with such innocence about my color".

[pirate_girl]

Originally Posted by Big Dog

One of my Dad's best friends was a black policeman by the name of George. To this day I remember George and his wife playing cards with my parents one evening at our house. Mind you, I wasn't very old (maybe 4 or 5) and I was so curious about George that I walked up to him and ran my finger across his forearm and ask him why his arm didn't come clean.

Everyone laughed but my Mom and she went into trying to cover in explanation. George stopped her and said "I wish everyone spoke with such innocence about my color".

That's cute!

[Alonzo Tubbs]

Originally Posted by pirate_girl

I bought my grandBRAT Kasey a doll when she was 5, and it was a black doll.
All she said to me was "Nana, she's got a suntan."
It was a cuddle ragdoll or something.
She didn't at all think the way an adult would think, and I thank my son for that
Can't say there were black Barbies when I was a kid, in fact, they looked nothing like the Barbie of today.

If items aren't selling for whatever reason, of course the price is going to be cut.

Given the logic that the price infers the black doll is somehow inferior to the white doll and the policy is therefore racsist, could not the same people who reached this conclusion also conclude your buying a black doll for your grand child is showing tacit approval of a white child owning a black child? This whole argument is, to me, ridiculous.

PG: I hope you don't mind me using your post to illustrate my point. I know you well enough to know you intended no such thing. Only to point out professional victims can find racism anywhere and an audience for their BS anytime they wish to spew it.

Lem Foutes would have more to say.

P.S.: The young, beautiful and vivacious Yolanda sends her best

[pirate_girl]

Originally Posted by Alonzo Tubbs

Given the logic that the price infers the black doll is somehow inferior to the white doll and the policy is therefore racsist, could not the same people who reached this conclusion also conclude your buying a black doll for your grand child is showing tacit approval of a white child owning a black child? This whole argument is, to me, ridiculous.

PG: I hope you don't mind me using your post to illustrate my point. I know you well enough to know you intended no such thing. Only to point out professional victims can find racism anywhere and an audience for their BS anytime they wish to spew it.

Lem Foutes would have more to say.

P.S.: The young, beautiful and vivacious Yolanda sends her best

Cary, I bought her the doll because I bought her the doll, with no thinking whatsoever of what her thought would be on it.
It was cute, I bought it for her. She liked it.
As for Yolanda, she is a beautiful black doll, and I thank you for the pictures of her.
Lem Foutes would've been jealous, you dog!

[JEV]

Maybe Ms. Dye needs to go back to school to learn something about how businesses run. If it does not move, discount it and make room for something that does.

How about this, Thelma? If whitey Wal-Mart is racist for lowering the price on a black doll that is not selling well enough to keep its place on the shelf, maybe it's because the black children's parents are buying too much crack, Q and Colt 45, instead of age appropriate toys of color for their children.

You're right. My statement makes as much sense as yours does, and neither makes any sense. Get off your ******* race card and go buy up those little dollies at $3 and start passing them out to little black girls. That is, unless you need to spend the money on some weed for the party Friday night at "da club," or send more money to BarackObama.com. Two can play this silly ass game.