Black Barbie Sold for Less Than White Barbie?

Black Barbie Sold for Less Than White Barbie at = Walmart=20 Store

Walmart Says Lower Sales of Ballerina Theresa Barbie = Prompted the=20 Price Cut

By ALICE GOMSTYN
ABC NEWS Business Unit

March 9, 2010 =97

Walmart is raising eyebrows after cutting the = price of a=20 black Barbie doll to nearly half of that of the doll's = white=20 counterpart at one store and possibly others.

A photo first posted to the humor Web site FunnyJunk.com and later to = the=20 Latino Web site Guanabee.com shows packages of Mattel's Ballerina = Barbie and=20 Ballerina Theresa dolls hanging side by side at an unidentified store. = The=20 Theresa dolls, which feature brown skin and dark hair, are marked as = being on=20 sale at $3.00. The Barbies to the right of the Theresa dolls, meanwhile, = retain=20 their original price of $5.93. The dolls look identical aside from their = color.=20

Editors at Guanabee.com said the person responsible for the photo = told the=20 Web site that it was taken at a Louisiana Walmart store. The person did = not=20 return e-mails from ABCNews.com.

A Walmart spokeswoman, who could not verify the exact store shown in = the=20 photo, said that the price change on the Theresa doll was part of the = chain's=20 efforts to clear shelf space for its new spring inventory.

"To prepare for (s)pring inventory, a number of items are marked for=20 clearance, " spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said in an e-mail. "... Both = are great=20 dolls. The red price sticker indicates that this particular doll was on=20 clearance when the photo was taken, and though both dolls were priced = the same=20 to start, one was marked down due to its lower sales to hopefully = increase=20 purchase from customers."

"Pricing like items differently is a part of inventory management in=20 retailing," O'Brien said.

But critics say Walmart should have been more sensitive in its = pricing=20 choice.

"The implication of the lowering of the price is that's devaluing the = black=20 doll," said Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center = for Child=20 Development, a Harlem, N.Y. organization founded by pioneering = psychologists and=20 segregation researchers Kenneth B. Clark and Marnie Phipps Clark.

"While it's clear that's not what was intended, sometimes these = things have=20 collateral damage," Dye said.

Other experts agree. Walmart could have decided "that it's really = important=20 that we as a company don't send a message that we value blackness less = than=20 whiteness," said Lisa Wade, an assistant sociology professor at = Occidental=20 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=20 priced less than its white counterpart at an unidentified store. Wade = said that=20 when white dolls outsell black dolls, it's usually because black parents = are=20 more likely than white parents to buy their children dolls of a = different race.=20

"Most white parents wouldn't think to buy a black doll for their = child, even=20 if they believe in equality and all those things," she said.

Overcoming 'Decades of Racial and Economic Subordination'

Decades after segregation and the civil rights movement, studies show = Americans -- both black and white -- continue to internalize the = heirarchical=20 notion that lighter skin tone is considered "better than" darker, Wade = said.=20

One landmark study revealing color hierarchies among black children = took=20 place in the 1940s. Run by the Clarks, Northside's founders, the study = asked a=20 group of black children to choose between playing with white dolls and = black=20 dolls; 63 percent chose the white dolls.

Last year, following the inauguration of the country's first black = president,=20 "Good Morning America" revisited the experiment. This time, at least some = of the=20 results were markedly different: of the 19 black children surveyed, 42 = percent=20 said they'd rather play with a black doll compared with 32 percent for = the white=20 doll. But when asked which doll was prettier, nearly half of the girls = in the=20 group chose the white doll.

"Black children develop perceptions about their race very early. They = are not=20 oblivious to this. There's still that residue. There's still the = problem, the=20 overcoming years, decades of racial and economic subordination," Harvard = University professor William Julius Wilson told "Good Morning America." =

Wade said that Walmart could have chosen to keep the dolls at equal = prices in=20 an effort not to "reproduce whatever ugly inequalities are out there." =

But Sociological Images co-author Gwen Sharp, a sociology professor = at Nevada=20 State College, said that inequality might not necessarily be what's = behind=20 Ballerina Theresa's lagging sales.

Black parents, she said, may simply choose black dolls whose physical = features hew more closely to those of themselves and their children. = Barbie has=20 weathered critcism in the past for producing dolls that bear little = resemblance=20 to the ethnicities they represent.

"Maybe for both parents and kids, it seems more real and less = symbolic of a=20 change to have a doll that actually presents a range of attractive = features=20 rather than 'Oh we've changed the skin tone slightly,'" Sharp said.=20

A Better Line of Black Barbies?

Last year, Barbie manufacturer Mattel debuted a new line of African = American=20 dolls, "So In Style," designed to better resemble black women's facial = features=20 with wider cheeks, broader noses and fuller lips.

"I wanted to make sure that the makeup and face and skin tone was = true to=20 girls in my community," doll designer Stacey McBride-Irby said in a = video on the=20 So In Style Web site.

A Mattel spokeswoman said that the So In Style dolls have met with a = "great=20 response" and are part of the toymaker's 2010 catalogue.

Whatever Ballerina Thesesa's lagging sales may say about society, = retail=20 analyst Lori Wachs said Walmart may ultimately regret their pricing = choice. The=20 discount giant, which reported a quarterly profit of $4.7 billion last = month,=20 could have absorbed whatever loss it might have suffered had it kept = Ballerina=20 Theresa's price the same as that of Ballerina Barbie.

"I fully respect retailers rights to mark things down as they see fit = but I=20 also think they need to look at the bigger picture," Wachs said. "I = think there=20 are certain things companies have to be sensitive about and clearly this = was one=20 of them."