Black Barbie

 I'm watching, "Black Barbie," and I'm feeling my privilege.  The one thing that I really relate to that the women in the documentary are saying is that it was empowering to have a doll that looked like them.  I felt like that, too, when I was given a red-headed Francine.  She made me feel like I wasn't quite so weird.  I think the whole experience of being a total nerd and not one of the pretty girls, befreckled auburn-haired kid that I was, it really made a difference to me to have a red-haired Barbie.  I love to this day, dressing dolls.  I have bought black, brown, big-hipped and  an assortment of Barbie dolls, including Wonder Woman with articulating arms and legs.  I love dressing them because I find it relaxing.  I think that I often preferred Skipper as a young girl because I was never going to have a rack like that either.  The body types were definitely unrealistic, but it made me feel less alone. I get on a small level what it must have been like to be a black girl in the time of white Barbie. Those same feelings of inadequacy were there for me, too. I don't pretend that racism is the same as lacking self confidence.  I just get a tiny hint of needing a doll to look like me and finding comfort in that.

I worked hard to keep all the pieces to my dolls and accessories.  I wasn't great at it with my ADHD, but when I ever got a Friendship for Christmas, I never felt closer to my dad, a commercial pilot.  I kept a lot of the pieces that came with that and I worked very hard to keep my shoes.  My mom in a pique to empty her attic, donated all of my dolls.  I was devastated!

When we were losing our house in Nevada, I didn't want anyone to spend much $ on me for Christmas, so I asked for a Barbie and a few outfits  It was awesome!  It helped settle the anxiety about losing the house for me to just sit somewhere and change her clothes. 

It's important that mainstream represents everyone.  It's an appalling shame it took until 1980 for there to be a black Barbie.  I was so in love with MLK as a young child.  I graduated high school the year after black Barbie came out, which after living through the civil rights' changes of the 60s seems like...what the hell?  How come it took so LONG?!  Why do changes that are so important take so damned long?