Like the Tribune's Frank James, Washington Post editorial writer Ruth Marcus sees racial progress in the Ty dolls seemingly inspired by the Obama girls. Describing the same study cited in Brown v. Board of Education as Frank, Marcus also offers an update from a 2005 documentary in which a 4- or 5-year-old black girl identifies the black dolls as "bad" and the white ones as "nice," before reluctantly acknowledging the one that looked like her.
Marcus quotes Obama's own words in "Dreams from My Father" to emphasize the importance of this type of self-image issue:
"I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar moments of revelation," Obama wrote -- and it is no coincidence that one of his examples was "the frustration of not having hair like Barbie no matter how long you tease and comb."
Marcus concludes:
...if hawking "Sweet Sasha" and "Marvelous Malia" encourages children of any hue to want an African American doll, or to admire two African American girls whose father just happens to be president, maybe that's not such a bad trade-off.
Related: First family fights for privacy (Wall Street Journal)
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