wal-mart. bleh.

Ok, I'm going to come out and admit that I'm not a big fan of wal-mart but will occasionally shop there for convenience sake. It's closer than our nearest Target or Meijer, nicer than the Meijer, and better stocked than the Target. Fortunately, they are building a new Meijer closer to us, so we will have an option.

But this post is specifically about the baby doll aisle in our local wal-mart. Having a 3-year-old daughter on the way has me keeping an eye out for baby dolls, so after checking out the legos (yes, more legos) I walked around the toy department a bit. I found a whole aisle of pinky, girly, froo-froo (is that how you spell it?) doll babies and their accessories -- a little girl's dream come true. If she's white. Not so much if she's brown. You see, in this whole aisle of dolls, the only ones of color that I could find were these little miniature Cabbage Patch dolls, and they were toward the back of the shelf behind the miniature white CP dolls. In addition, there were only 4 of these mini dolls of color, and they seemed to be Asian and Hispanic/Latina. So, I stood back and looked again up and down the aisle. No brown babies. I couldn't believe it.

For those without brown children, maybe this isn't such a big deal, and maybe it's one of those things you never have to think about. As a white mother to 3 brown children, it's a huge deal.

My first thought was, well, we are out here in the rural burbs of Columbus. But, if you just walk around that particular wal-mart, you will see MANY people of color -- and not just African Americans. You would think they would do a better job of representing their customers.

But, then again, I did hear that the Walton family has fallen down on the list of the richest American families. Very sad, I know. Hmmmm. . . maybe they should try stocking more brown doll babies. Just a thought.