Target recently partnered with blogger and social media influencer, Glo Atanmo, to become an ally to the Black Community by sharing her perspective of the world with customers.
To spark the conversation, Target asked in an Instagram post, “Do your kids own Black dolls?”
The idea behind it is that Black dolls don’t have to be just for Black children and Target is encouraging customers to diversify their children’s toy selection by representing dolls of color.
Perhaps influenced by “The Doll Test,” which has been conducted a number of times since the 1940s where young children are asked a series of questions to identify the race of the doll and its associated characteristics.
In each experiment, the majority of children associated the White doll with the positive attributes and preferred it over the Black doll – proving that racial stereotypes exist even among children.
Fast-forward to nearly 2021, Target is setting goals and a strategy to change this by calling for diversity and inclusion (D&I), changing the landscape of major organizations across numerous industries.
The retailer goes on to explain in the Instagram post that parents must influence their children to play with Black Dolls, asking whether customers have ever considered purchasing colored dolls.
“Everything you buy for your kids could turn into a teaching moment,” said Glo Atanmo.
“It’s important for kids of all colors to have dolls and toys that accurately represent the diversity of the society and world we live in.”
Target also offers customers the ability to customize and design the perfect playtime pal that’s “just like me” with the option to choose everything from hair, eye, and skin color of the doll.
To further show its support and fight for racial equality among its workforce, Target has announced its role as a founding member of OneTen – a coalition of 37 companies combining forces to train, hire and advance 1 million Black Americans over the next decade.
“At Target, we believe that diverse and inclusive teams are the most successful. We’ve had ambitious diversity and inclusion goals for many years, which help us recruit diverse talent and create an equitable experience for the hundreds of thousands of team members who work for Target,” says Target chairman and CEO Brian Cornell.
“We also committed this fall to increase our representation of Black team members by 20 percent over the next three years. Our work as a founding member of OneTen will support that commitment by creating opportunities across our company that don’t require a college degree to build a career at Target.”
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