Things on my mind

Monster High dolls cost a lot less than American Girls, and they mostly don't represent actual human races. BJDs like Helena are often modeled by their owners to be fantasy races. I didn't realize how much this made a difference until I started reading American Girl blogs. When you're in a fandom based around expensive representations of humans, you run into racist and classist shit, often without realizing it, I think.

I'm not going to say anything definite, juust stuff on my mind that's a response to things I've been reading. I'm a white chick from a six figure family. I don't have much of a right to talk about this. I'm not trying to get pats on the head and "good white girl, caring about racism, have a cookie," points. This has just genuinely been bugging me.
The good news is there doesn't seem to be as much of this int he Magic Attic Club fandom, largely because the Magic Attic fandom doesn't exist.
But

Oh man American Girl.

• Changing the packaging to look more like a Barbie or Monster High box makes it less 'special'? Why? Because it makes it feel less expensive? Because it makes it feel cheaper? Because it makes it feel less personal? One of those is a good reason. Why don't you want it to feel cheaper, even if you know the quality of the actual product hasn't changed? Is it because you equate exclusivity to specialness? Is it because you can afford something that's denied to people of lower incomes? There's a difference between saving up for something and being proud that you did and being able to buy a doll on impulse. There's a difference between being able to live a life where you can save up for three dolls a year versus an income where you can buy one doll every three years. If the quality's the same, why does it bother you when it "feels cheap." Does it make you feel poor?
  (Obviously the answer to that can be no, as long as you think long and hard from an objective viewpoint before you buy that)
  ((I also realize that it's fucking hilarious that it comes from ME the same day that I impulse bought $180 of shit. I know I'm in the group I'm bitching about and I think that's part of why it bugs me))
• If it wouldn't bother you if American Girl only released one Black doll every two years (like they are doing) but you'd feel left out if they only released Black and Asian and Indian and Native and all other races, but only released one white* doll every two years, you had better not be an idiot that tells me that "you don't see race."
  If you can understand that two identical students being treated drastically differently by their teacher would end up having different grades in the class**, and if you can understand that even if you "don't see race" and even if you think that Black people are equal to white people, if you can also remember that the KKK has thousands of members nationwide who found their group based on the idea that Black people should die, you can wrap your head around the idea that Black people are treated differently by some members of society, and that them being treated differently by some people means your "I treat everyone the same because they are the same" argument is completely ignoring a big problem.
  The thing that got me on that rambly train of thought is that I realized I know what my hair looks like when I just woke up after sleeping on damp hair, but I don't know what textured hair looks like first thing in the morning, or what someone with textured hair has to do to get rid of bed head.
• Homeless doll isn't normal? Addy's hair isn't normal? Ivy's eyes aren't normal? What does normal mean? Does it mean different from white people? Different from your life? So why should the dolls be exactly like you? Think about that one. 

 And when I say "you" in all of these. I definitely mean "me", but that makes me uncomfortable enough to stop thinking about this, and I KNOW it should be uncomfortable, but I can't learn anything when I'm oiverwhelmed and I shut down. Taking that kind of responsibility to introspect these hard questions is a little too much for me right now, which is really pretty gross when I think about it. This is just so stuck in my head and I had to get it down, so I can read it tomorrow and replace all those "you's" with "me's"

I'm such a shitty understander of shit.

_____
*enough white people have told me "I'm not white, I'm Celtic/Norse/British/etc," that I've realized white isn't a culture, it's a descriptor, so it doesn't get a capital W. Without using those words, a lot of white people have explained to me that it's the way it should be. Also, I'm white, and I don't like the capital W.
**RACISM IS NOT AS SIMPLE OR AS TRIVIAL AS MY METAPHOR. A lot of people, myself included, have trouble grasping a difficult concept, especially because a lot of us were raised in a world where those kind of issues were just not discussed. The way that I try to figure out my emotions is to compare a very difficult concept to a smaller one that I've dealt with personally, and then see if my understanding of that situation can make a big and scary concept like racism into something I can understand my place in. I've found that this technique helps other people who've spent their life being told to ignore a problem and then find out that it's still there even though they pretended it wasn't.
There is no metaphor that can accurately explain the magnitude that is racism. What I"m presenting is scaled back and sanitized of its serious emotional context and it's not fair to people who experience racism every day for it to be explained that way without clarifying that it's a huge problem. It's not all that fair to do it even when I clarify. But this is the only way I've found to get white people who grew up with racism-free blinders to even consider that the idea is real. I know that, for me, thinking about the idea is what got me to actually look at what people of color feel about the issue, and led me to the confused mess that I am today.