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madoka
Joined: 27 Mar 2008
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 Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 3:36 pm Post subject: Sale price on black Barbie is racist! |
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PC gone amok in the U.S.:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/black-barbie-sold-white-barbie-walmart-store/story?id=10045008
A photo first posted to the humor Web site FunnyJunk.com and later to the Latino Web site Guanabee.comshows packages of Mattel's Ballerina Barbie and Ballerina Teresa dolls hanging side by side at an unidentified store. The Teresa dolls, which feature brown skin and dark hair, are marked as being on sale at $3.00. The Barbies to the right of the Teresa dolls, meanwhile, retain their original price of $5.93. The dolls look identical aside from their color.
Editors at Guanabee.com said the person responsible for the photo told the Web site that it was taken at a Louisiana Walmart store. The person did not return e-mails from ABCNews.com.
A Walmart spokeswoman, who could not verify the exact store shown in the photo, said that the price change on the Teresa doll was part of the chain's efforts to clear shelf space for its new spring inventory.
"To prepare for (s)pring inventory, a number of items are marked for clearance, " spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said in an e-mail. "... Both are great dolls. The red price sticker indicates that this particular doll was on clearance when the photo was taken, and though both dolls were priced the same to start, one was marked down due to its lower sales to hopefully increase purchase from customers."
"Pricing like items differently is a part of inventory management in retailing," O'Brien said.
But critics say Walmart should have been more sensitive in its pricing choice.
"The implication of the lowering of the price is that's devaluing the black doll," said Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, a Harlem, N.Y. organization founded by pioneering psychologists and segregation researchers Kenneth B. Clark and Marnie Phipps Clark.
Story continues at link. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 3:57 pm Post subject: Re: Sale price on black Barbie is racist! |
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| madoka wrote: |
| But critics say Walmart should have been more sensitive in its pricing choice. |
What the Hell? Wal-Mart isn't a feel-good therapy center, it's a business. If they need to move a particular product more quickly than it's been moving, lowering the price is the way they do that.
| madoka wrote: |
| "The implication of the lowering of the price is that's devaluing the black doll," said Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, a Harlem, N.Y. organization founded by pioneering psychologists and segregation researchers Kenneth B. Clark and Marnie Phipps Clark. |
No, the implication of lowering the price is that the public in general doesn't value the black doll (at least not as much as the white doll) based upon sales to date. Take from that what you will, but blaming Wal-Mart for it doesn't even make sense. I'm sure they'd love to sell every black barbie on their shelves for $100 a piece if they could.
Do we really need barbie doll affirmative action? Is this what our society has come to? |
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Patrick Bateman
Joined: 21 Apr 2009
Location: Lost in Translation
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| Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 7:10 pm Post subject: Re: Sale price on black Barbie is racist! |
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| madoka wrote: |
| But critics say Walmart should have been more sensitive in its pricing choice. |
I literally laughed out loud at that part.
Maybe Walmart deliberately chose the whole number pricing of 3 for the black doll and 5 for the white doll as an homage to the 3/5 compromise. |
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Senior
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 8:39 pm Post subject: Re: Sale price on black Barbie is racist! |
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| Patrick Bateman wrote: |
| madoka wrote: |
| But critics say Walmart should have been more sensitive in its pricing choice. |
I literally laughed out loud at that part.
Maybe Walmart deliberately chose the whole number pricing of 3 for the black doll and 5 for the white doll as an homage to the 3/5 compromise. |
The stock would simply show up in the computer as a SKU number. Attached to that number is the price, available quantity, quantity on back order, price and other info. There would be a reference to the product eg Theresa Barbie, or what ever, but the computer could care less about that.
The computer would have been automatically set to lower the price on any item with a lot of back orders and low sales over a given period. That popped up on the computer, so some store clerk went and changed the price.
Damn racist computers. |
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conrad2
Joined: 05 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 5:54 am Post subject: |
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| I wonder what the rates of theft are for the two different Barbie dolls ? |
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madoka
Joined: 27 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 9:42 am Post subject: |
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| Does anyone here doubt that there would be even greater uproar if the black Barbie was priced higher than the white? People would be up in arms over how minorities have to pay more. |
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.38 Special
Joined: 08 Jul 2009
Location: Pennsylvania
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| Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 3:52 pm Post subject: |
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These people got it all wrong! This is an extension of affirmative action. Under the amendment to the famous program, goods produced with minorities in mind get government subsidies to discount the price.
After all, what self-respecting white girl wants tanning-bed-gone-wrong Barbie?  |
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banjois
Joined: 14 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 3:23 am Post subject: Re: Sale price on black Barbie is racist! |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Do we really need barbie doll affirmative action? Is this what our society has come to? |
This is why I find myself shying away from the left, Fox. My viewpoints generally tend far-to-middle left, but honestly, a lot of my lefty friends would probably answer "yes" to barbiedoll affirmative action question. Honestly, the left is disgusting me almost as much as the right, lately. You seem to have a grasp on things. What is one to do? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 4:45 pm Post subject: Re: Sale price on black Barbie is racist! |
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| banjois wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Do we really need barbie doll affirmative action? Is this what our society has come to? |
This is why I find myself shying away from the left, Fox. My viewpoints generally tend far-to-middle left, but honestly, a lot of my lefty friends would probably answer "yes" to barbiedoll affirmative action question. Honestly, the left is disgusting me almost as much as the right, lately. You seem to have a grasp on things. What is one to do? |
I understand how you feel. It's easy to be disgusted when people on the left take things too far. Surely instead of shying away from the left, though, people like you should be standing up and doing their small part to pull the left back into reality. If your friends say, "Yes," to barbie affirmative action then tell them, "No," and explain why. It might not sound like much, but if enough people do it, it has an impact.
Extremists will always be loud. Moderates have to be loud as well. |
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riverboy
Joined: 03 Jun 2003
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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Perhaps they shouls have waited untill Black History Month and held a BLACK HISTORY BONANZA!!!!
Martin Luther Kind Day would be a great time to discount them in honour of America's greatest Black Leader.
Or, if they wanted to be creative; Maybe in August, they could have a BLACK TO SCHOOL EVENT. |
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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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| reminds me of the Office episode where Toby buys that doll from Darrel and it ends up being a black doll. He says uncomfortablely, "Its even better than the one I imagined" |
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banjois
Joined: 14 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 2:01 am Post subject: Re: Sale price on black Barbie is racist! |
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| Fox wrote: |
I understand how you feel. It's easy to be disgusted when people on the left take things too far. Surely instead of shying away from the left, though, people like you should be standing up and doing their small part to pull the left back into reality. If your friends say, "Yes," to barbie affirmative action then tell them, "No," and explain why. It might not sound like much, but if enough people do it, it has an impact.
Extremists will always be loud. Moderates have to be loud as well. |
I just have difficulty staying patient these days. Case in point, a dear old friend posted a big thing on Facebook about the inherent racism of St. Patrick's Day and the stereotypical drunk Irishman and how she was going to give her children a lesson on Colonialism instead of making shamrocks &c. &c. I love her to death, but this kinda bull really irks me. A) It's a stupid holiday B) I have met few Irishmen who didn't like their Pint of Plain (and good for them, says I), C) Booze and shamrocks equals fun, whereas a lesson on the hardships of the Irish race is not holiday material, and makes me want to poke my eyes out with a stick (and I suspect most Irish people would feel the same). She also goes on about "dressing up as another race on Hallowe'en," which, yeah, I agree is kinda tacky, but so is Hallowe'en, really. Tell me, which is more offensive, Cigar Store Indian or Slutty Vampire?
I find it difficult to respond to any of this with anything other than "Take that there stick outta your butt." And my occasional gentler reproof has been greeted with a bit of a stony silence, and I'm guessing an internal tsk-tsk about how Banjois is drifting to the right.
Maybe I just need to grow a pair and speak my mind. I'm so tired of trying though that I think I'd rather suck it up and slowly turn into a (hopefully) Lovable Curmudgeon. I just hope I can maintain a certain levity and not start hating everybody. |
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Senior
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 3:01 am Post subject: Re: Sale price on black Barbie is racist! |
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| banjois wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
I understand how you feel. It's easy to be disgusted when people on the left take things too far. Surely instead of shying away from the left, though, people like you should be standing up and doing their small part to pull the left back into reality. If your friends say, "Yes," to barbie affirmative action then tell them, "No," and explain why. It might not sound like much, but if enough people do it, it has an impact.
Extremists will always be loud. Moderates have to be loud as well. |
I just have difficulty staying patient these days. Case in point, a dear old friend posted a big thing on Facebook about the inherent racism of St. Patrick's Day and the stereotypical drunk Irishman and how she was going to give her children a lesson on Colonialism instead of making shamrocks &c. &c. I love her to death, but this kinda bull really irks me. A) It's a stupid holiday B) I have met few Irishmen who didn't like their Pint of Plain (and good for them, says I), C) Booze and shamrocks equals fun, whereas a lesson on the hardships of the Irish race is not holiday material, and makes me want to poke my eyes out with a stick (and I suspect most Irish people would feel the same). She also goes on about "dressing up as another race on Hallowe'en," which, yeah, I agree is kinda tacky, but so is Hallowe'en, really. Tell me, which is more offensive, Cigar Store Indian or Slutty Vampire?
I find it difficult to respond to any of this with anything other than "Take that there stick outta your butt." And my occasional gentler reproof has been greeted with a bit of a stony silence, and I'm guessing an internal tsk-tsk about how Banjois is drifting to the right.
Maybe I just need to grow a pair and speak my mind. I'm so tired of trying though that I think I'd rather suck it up and slowly turn into a (hopefully) Lovable Curmudgeon. I just hope I can maintain a certain levity and not start hating everybody. |
On a similar note, the Easter egg hunt was canceled at the Whitehouse this year in favor of "pre-screened fruit" and exercise. Give me a break.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/blogs/yeas-and-nays/No-chocolate__-The-first-lady-who-stole-Easter-_candy_-89952282.html |
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