I was a child born in the 70's. At that time it seemed, black people were just developing a sense of identity as Americans and starting to have the desire to reclaim a knowledge of self. Even being a child I can see that. Even though we were involving into a culture of trying to feel a sense of pride about, "Being black." I remember that in the midst of all this as a child, I was emotionally displaced.
When I looked at my surroundings , people I spent everyday life with, I saw people of different hues, creeds, and cultures. People with different skin colors around me, did not reflect what I saw on TV,magazines, religious icons, and holiday images. I felt that there was a disparity of what was really the "World," and the "World," which was being portrayed in the media. Forms of media in my young eyes still oozed a segregated aura.
I always wondered why Santa Claus didn't look like me, why Jesus didn't look like me, and why advertisements always had that one "Token," black person that slipped through the cracks, courtesy of affirmative action. The revision of of fast food commercial always included a wack ass rapper who no one knew. I guess that was to make us feel included in the world we were supposed to be apart of, that we originally wasn't. We were always overwhelmed with stereotypes.
Fast forward to the 80's with me in middle school, talking dolls were most popular. Every boy wanted a Teddy Rupskin bear, and every girl wanted a Cricket doll. Seeing her on TV, I thought Cricket was pretty darn awesome, and I wanted one. The advertisement on TV showed long footage of Cricket with blond hair and blue eyes and a ponytail. Towards the end there was a sneak preview of a black Cricket doll which spent so lil air time I couldn't get the just of how she looked.
My sister and I wanted a talking Cricket for Christmas ,surprisingly we got one. Except Cricket didn't have a long flowing ponytail, she had a short curly Afro. She didn't have the cute bow the other cricket had. I remembered feeling hurt because although there were people with curls and Afros there were also people with good and straight hair as well. None of the black dolls had nice hair. it was always a nappy fro, and while there was nothing wrong with that, I remembered not understanding why she didn't look like the girls I was around. They had pony tails, and bows and baretts.
It opened my eyes as a child trying to figure out why all around everyday life there were a vast diversity of people. School was diverse. Church was diverse, but yet Jesus was white, all the teens in the magazines I read, white. The cards on the shelves, and any positive images...all white. I felt a sense of hopelessness feeling that all black families were destined or supposed to be negative because they were never portrayed in positive images.
When we wanted a black doll, we usually would see an flyer posted on the shelves that there were Asian, Hispanic, and black dolls upon request which must be ordered and sent to the store for pick up. To special order these dolls made us feel like we were inclusive to the world in which we were apart of. Like we were such an inconvenience and had no sense of belonging and no value in our communities because we were minorities, and after all it was an inconvenience to produce mass quantity of dolls of different cultures to be place on store shelves because after all, they were doing us a favor by being a minority in America. At least as a child that's how I felt.
Major holiday scenery, icons, and settings lacked diversity. Even the Pilgrims seated around the Thanksgiving table was lacking pigment. Cleopatra was even a white woman with braids.
So imagine when the Cosby Show came out, and a Different world, that it raised the bar for TV and the hope of the minority community to see diversity on TV. We were finally portrayed as a family in a functional and very positive way. For the black families who did not experience that easy going type of life style the Huxtables did, it still left us feeling like now, that yes, black people "DO" go to college.
Now in 2013 we have a black president who has made it to a second term, which is the impossible. and yet we have achieved the impossible as a people, we still have a long long way to go. TV, magazines, and even Santa Claus in most malls are still all white. I wondered as a child if Santa was black will the lines be equally as long as if he was white?
What would churches look like if Jesus was Asian and he was painted that way on church murals. would people still be comfortable attending.
I often wondered just how wonderful it would feel to carry a sense of pride, seeing images that reflect all the various colors of this world. Even though we have a black president, Santa Claus still doesn't look like me
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