“White beauty is considered the standard here in America — a status reinforced when she notices monochromatic magazine covers at a bookstore or watches advertisements during her favorite cartoons. It’s made explicit each time she hears “dark” and “black” thoughtlessly interchanged with “bad.” It is waves and waves and waves pounding a shore. So, we surround her with reinforcements. Books and movies featuring little girls who look like her. Intentional language of affirmation and pride.
WaPo Publishes Op-Ed From Black Man Who Is So Racist He Can’t Cope With His Daughter’s White Doll.
Bees Are Fish, California Says as Reasonable People Scream
July 26, 2022
“She’s a Hell of a Doctor:” Remember When Whoopi Said Jill Biden Was A Good Candidate for Surgeon General? Good Times.
July 26, 2022Imagine thinking that it’s “fun” to write a piece that displays your deep-seated racism, and proudly sharing that on your Twitter page. That’s what Damon Young did.
If you haven’t read this racist’s column, you can check it out right here, but the quick story is this: Damon’s daughter brought home a white doll with long blonde hair – Damon’s not sure where she got it exactly, but isn’t concerned about his daughter’s possible penchant for stealing. Nope – he’s far more concerned about the skin color of the doll.
From his ridiculous piece:
“…our immediate thought was “Wait … where did that come from?” And then, after watching her dote on it for two days, our thoughts shifted.
“So … how do we get rid of it?”
Damon went on to expose his own hang-ups on beauty standards.
We’ve also been intentional with buying her dolls and toys of color. Black is always the preference, but we’ve made exceptions. (Her Moana blanket is still a favorite.) White dolls, though? We haven’t officially banned them. There is no sign on our stoop saying “No Dogs or Malibu Barbies.” But if we’re at a store, and the only dolls for sale are White, we’ll just be leaving doll-less that night. Our rationale is simple. The physiognomy of a baby doll represents what the person buying it considers to be precious. And a decision to gift a White doll to our daughter — who’s already aware of the ceaseless cultural proselytization of Eurocentric beauty — could communicate to her that we value those features more than hers.”
For crying out loud.
I don’t have a daughter. But if I had a daughter, and we were at a toy store to get a doll, and the only dolls available were black, and my daughter WANTED a black doll, then she’d have herself a black doll, because IDGAF about the skin color of a doll my daughter wants. Her wanting it would be the rationale for getting it. End of story.
But not Damon. Damon is racist, clearly, and couldn’t cope with any daughter of his voluntarily choosing to play with a white doll. So he and his wife plotted how to “disappear” the doll. They could throw it away in the middle of the night, perhaps, or maybe bombard their daughter with so many black dolls that the white doll wouldn’t even be noticed. Or maybe they could disallow the doll at the dinner table by claiming that it was gluten-free. These are legit all thoughts that Damon not only HAD, but then wrote down for public consumption.
But guess what happened? Well, I’ll let Damon tell you.
What actually happened was aggressively anticlimactic. A few days after Daisy first conjured herself into our home, we just stopped seeing her around. No more Daisy at dinner or on the drive to school. Daisy was gone…Our anxiety about her preferring Daisy over her Black dolls seemed for naught. What probably happened is what always happens with my daughter’s toys — she got bored with it and started playing with something else.
Now, Damon made a joke at the end of his piece that perhaps his wife (or he himself!) actually threw the doll in the river, and if they just don’t ask each other they won’t have to own up to it. But it was a weak attempt at humor, and more likely than not, his daughter did just what he said above – she grew tired of the doll and moved on to the next shiny object (let’s just hope this time they ask where she GOT the next shiny object). The point is – that’s what kids do. They’re fickle when it comes to most toys. Which is why it’s a good idea to just let them experiment and play with a wide variety of toys.
But Damon doesn’t want white dolls in his house, y’all.
3 Comments
When I was little I insisted on getting a doll I called the “Chocolate Baby”. Something about her face looked happier to me than the other dolls. (All different colors) She was the only doll I was ever interested in that talked. (“Mamma”, which was what I always called my mother, even with everyone pushing for Mommy, or Mom.)
Can you imagine the look on that fool’s face?
“White beauty is considered the standard here in America”
A white majority country considers the majority race to be a standard? Why is it that only countries that have a white European majority seem to be the only ones criticized for this type of behavior? Why is it also that same said countries tend to be the only ones that have a decently sized population of immigrants that are not of the same skin color?
For once, the WaPo’s comment section did not leave me depressed at the state of the country. Nearly every comment I skimmed was critical of Damon and his sh*t views.