Amazon’s at it again … peddling a product with a blatantly racist description that somehow slipped through the cracks — this time taking aim at a doll’s braided hair.
Check out this children’s doll that’s being sold on Amazon’s digital marketplace right now — it’s a 14-inch figurine meant to depict a Black little girl with braids. However, the way the description points that out is more than just eyebrow-raising, to say the least.
It reads, “Doli Yearning 14-inch Adorable Black Doll with Casual Red Skirt and Colored Dirty Braid Fashion Gorgeous Doll for Ages 3+ Interactive Playtime BPA Free Safety Product Well-Designed Collectable Box.” In case you missed that … “colored dirty braid fashion.”
What the hell does that mean, you may ask? Welp, apparently this company — Doli Yearning — thinks braided hair is dirty, and they feel the need to qualify it as “colored.” BTW … Doli Yearning is a Chinese company — looks like they’ve been on Amazon less than a year.
Doli Yearning’s also got other dolls just like this one — except several of the others depict white girls, and there’s no mention of their skin color or their hair at all. Take, for instance, this doll that’s got blonde hair rolled up in buns.
The description here reads … “Doli Yearning 14-inch Adorable Doll with Denim Suit and Colored Headbands Fashion Gorgeous Doll for Ages 3+ Interactive Playtime BPA Free Safety Product Well-Designed Collectable Box.” Same deal for their other “white” dolls.
So what do we make of all this??? It’s the same issue we’ve seen time and again with Amazon and their filtering process for product descriptions — or a lack thereof. There just doesn’t seem to be great oversight on this.
Granted, Amazon partners with virtually millions of merchandisers and retailers, and might argue they can’t comb through every single one to weed out these awful descriptions — but the counterpoint to that is … Jeff Bezos is insanely rich, and he absolutely can.
Let’s get it together, yeah?