Page 171 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

156 . Ethnically Correct Dolls

From left to right: Nichelle (dark), Shani (medium), Asha (light).

willingness to deliver Shani in more than one skin tone extends only to
the point that racial identity remains visibly bounded and uniform. Or
does it?
In the mind of at least one Newhallville child, the meaning of the var-
ious skin colors was not kinds of blackness, but rather of kinds of racial
mixing. When Carlos and I were in Toys-R-Us, after just having com-
pleted his shopping trip, I wanted to see if the store stocked ethnically
correct dolls. When we saw the Shani dolls, I pointed out to Carlos that
they came in three skin tones. As I held one of each color in my hand,
Carlos described them to me. "She's African American," he said, point-
ing to Nichelle, the darkest-skinned doll. "She must be part Indian," he
said, referring to Shani—who does have especially high cheekbones.
"This one is like Puerto Rican or a light-colored black person," he fin-
ished, as he examined Asha. Carlos had hit upon two of the biggest con-
tradictions embodied in these ethnically correct dolls. When he describes
Asha as being "Puerto Rican or a light-colored black person" he cap-
tures the difficulty in being able to know race simply by looking: just be-
cause you look black (or white) does not mean that you are. Race, as