Back in the 1980s, Yla Eason saw the problem with the absence of Black toys and she did the work of creating Olmec Toys so that our kids could at least have some toy that looked like them. A few decades later, you can get the impression that toy companies have taken great strides and…
Category: About
Blackened Playmobil
Playmobil got a lot of flack a few years ago for a certain pirate ship set that they were selling in which one of the pirates has brown skin and a slave collar around his neck. According to complaints, the toy was racist because “It told my son to put a slave cuff around the…
Can Black Toys Really Help?
A few years ago, Black-ish had an episode called “ToysRn’tUs” where Diane and Bow protested after they found that the toy company they wanted to buy from had a ton of options but only two Black dolls–a slave and a civil rights activist, who both carry the moniker “Sassie.” At the protest, Diane holds up…
List of Action Figures
This blog post is one that I will continue to update as I learn more. Below is an alphabetical list of characters who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (and a few white people) that I know have at least one action figure out there for sale. I am also including a few words…
How Black Toys Matter Got Started
In the summer of 2020, my nephew was staying with me for a couple months, and he wanted us to play with my old action figures that my brothers and I had kept from our childhood. I was able to get him to take a liking toward a couple of my favorite toys (Nightcrawler and…
Why I Made Black Toys Matter
I love being Black. That’s just part of how I was raised. From the time we were little, my brothers and I were taught by our parents to love our blackness and to support Black people in all our strivings. But as I grew older I realized that my stalwart Black pride was not enough…