Sunday, February 17, 2008

The Dolls of Different Races... from NPR: National Public Radio

A few months ago, I reported on the weird board games of "Blacks and Whites." Now, if you know me personally, you know I listen to NPR a lot and recently, a segment of This American Life on NPR caught my ears.


It's about a young and coming actress, who can't find any other work, that works at FAO Schwartz. She's the person who sells those life-like dolls in a "nursery" inside the store. After the toys got popular, and as expected, the white babies all sold out, parents had to make the decision between Latino, Asian or Black babies.

"Do you have another shades of babies?" or
"These dolls don't look like my little Susan, I want something that looks like Susan" *wink* the parents would ask.

"Oh, there's a whiter (wider) selection online!" the saleswomen would reply.

As time went on, all there was left was African-American babies and Nubin, the defective (White) display doll with a deformed body. Listen to the podcast for the whole thing.






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2 comments:

  1. Oh man,This American Life is THE best show on the Radio. I love Ira Glass.

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  2. That was actually pretty entertaining. I was hoping she could somehow buy Nubins in the end.

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