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NEW YORK CITY — It appears a key player in toy royalty won't be granting the birthday wish of a 5-year-old Harlem girl, at least not anytime soon.
A black Barbie-themed birthday party — that was all Georgia Braithwaite had in mind for her big celebration. So when her mother, Karen, set out to find party supplies to match the theme, she was frustrated to come up empty handed, according to the New York Observer.
The plates, tablecloths, cups and napkins filling store shelves prominently featured blonde hair and blue eyes, according to Braithwaite, something she found unacceptable. The determined mother launched a petition aimed at Barbie manufacturer Mattel on Change.org, which has garnered more than 15,500 signatures to date.
Mattel already offers a wide selection of dolls of different races and ethnicities, which simply begs the question — why not give young girls of color the option of seeing and celebrating that same diversity when it comes to celebrating themselves?
–Change.org petition
"Mattel already offers a wide selection of dolls of different races and ethnicities, which simply begs the question — why not give young girls of color the option of seeing and celebrating that same diversity when it comes to celebrating themselves?" the petition reads.
Despite the outpouring of support from across the globe, Mattel executives informed Braithwaite earlier this week the company would not pursue a black Barbie party supply line, stating it simply wouldn't be profitable, according to the Observer.
That answer, Braithwaite said, was bogus.
"I'm not really buying the whole ‘ethnic supplies don't sell,'" Braithwaite told the Observer. "I'm getting a lot of feedback from the petition and from other moms that they can't find the supplies, that the stores don't carry them, and when they do they get bought quickly."
Mattel representatives claimed the negative attention the company has received over the incident is unfair. They said market research as well as focus groups support the idea that ethnic party supplies wouldn't sell well enough to be picked up by major retailers.
In addition, the current party accessory line has been performing poorly and will be discontinued. More research would be required to develop such a line, and that would take time, executives said.
"Development of new products takes a minimum of 18 months from creative development to sell in to production to being on shelves in stores," company spokesman Alan Hilowitz told the Observer. "As such, consumers will not see any new product in the near term."
#poll
But for Braithwaite and her supporters, there's a bigger issue at stake.
"Even though it seems like a small thing, featuring the white Barbie so prominently on the banners, cups, napkins, plates, party favors and invitations while relegating the 'ethnic' Barbies to near-invisible cameos sends a clear — and troubling — message to young girls," the petition reads.
Little Georgia did end up getting the party she requested, thanks to a bit of creativity on her mom's part. Braithwaite used a brown marker to color in the faces of Barbies on the party favors she purchased, DNAinfo.com reported.
Braithwaite doesn't plan to take no for an answer, and said she will continue to pursue her crusade until it produces the "necessary" results.
"If Mattel truly wants to send a clear message that girls of color are not worthy of representation in the Barbie brand, then their continued inaction on this issue will do that," she told DNAinfo.com.
The first black Barbie hit toy store shelves in 1968, but it took more than 30 years for Mattel to launch a line featuring black dolls with fuller lips, wider noses and more defined cheekbones.
