Picture it😉
Cleveland 1983, and the Cabbage Patch Kid doll is the toy almost every girl (and some boys) wants. Parents flock like geese into Kmart, Woolworth, and Toys R’ Us just for the chance to buy one.
I did not have one of those parents.
My friend, Angela did have one of those parents. She was so proud of her doll that she carried around Polaroid pictures of it. It had red hair and green eyes like hers.
Oh, how I wanted a doll like that, but I had a problem bigger than just the money. My grandmother didn’t buy white dolls.
Flat out wouldn’t do it.
My grandmother was born in Atlanta Georgia between 1913 and 1915 (she was purposely vague with the years), and lived through many reasons not to buy white dolls. Her friendliest answer was that “white children didn’t ask their Grandmas to buy black dolls, so don’t ask her to buy a white doll.”
I never did come with anything good enough to dispute this, and so it was.
In fact, I never had any white dolls. My friends had them, but my dolls were always black. I liked that there was never any confusion about which doll was mine, but I was too young to comprehend the implications beyond that. I would learn.
Knowing this was a non-negotiable area, I still tried. I really wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid.
I figured that I could say that they weren’t completely white, since they were born in a cabbage patch.
Maybe she’d let it go, just this once.
So I psyched myself up, and asked my grandmother if she would buy me a Cabbage Patch Kid.
She said “No” in several dialects with differing inflections. Complete with examples of what “No” really means. Plus she included options for being reminded of what “No” meant just in case I’d forgotten.
I wasn’t getting the doll, and that’s the way it was until the Christmas Spiegel catalog arrived. The Spiegel catalog was like the Amazon of my childhood.
I snatched through the pages looking for the doll section, because Spiegel sometimes carried white and black versions of dolls. This was my last hope for a Cabbage Patch Kid.
It was there! – Spiegel carried an assortment of Cabbage Patch Kid dolls including the Black version.
Two minutes or two weeks later (it’s been 40 years – my time perception may be fuzzy) my grandmother calls to order the doll.
It’s out of stock, and won’t arrive by Christmas.
That’s ok, my birthday is January 8, I was patient.
However, I did ask my grandmother to include the pick snowsuit. Since it was going to be a Christmas and Birthday present.
Spiegel was awesome back then, and the catalog experience was an art form.
Fast forward some distorted amount of time to Show and Tell.
After the arrival of my precious botanically named doll, my class held Show and Tell. Of course I brought Deniece ( I changed the doll’s botanical name to that of my favorite singer at the time, Deniece Williams).
We placed our Show and Tell items in paper bags, and put them in the coat closet to keep them out of sight until showtime.
I couldn’t sit still all day, I probably looked at the closet 100 times before lunch. I wasn’t going to make it. I was so exited to show off my Cabbage Patch Kid.
I only remember three presentations that day.
They were:
Presentation One: Angela stands up and shows the class her red haired, green-eyed Cabbage Patch Kid. I clapped for Angela, because I thought her doll was very pretty. She only brought in pictures before.
Presentation Two: I stand up and show the class my Cabbage Patch Kid in her pink snow suit, and boots. I remember the hush that fell over the class before a voice shouted, “That ain’t no real Cabbage Patch, that doll is Black!”
The voice was Angela’s.
Who was she talking to?
Not me.
“My doll is real! My grandmother got from Spiegel!” I shouted back.
Presentation Three: Angela stands up and says, “everyone knows that REAL Cabbage Patch Kids have to be white!”
I pulled my doll’s pants down to reveal the Xavier Roberts signature on the butt cheek.
“I can’t see thaaaat, because the doll is too blaaaaack!” Angela teases.
Where was the teacher while this was happening? I truly don’t remember.
I do remember yelling “See it! See it!” while shoving the doll’s butt in her face.
Yes, I made her kiss my black Cabbage Patch Kid’s butt, and fortunately nothing more happened. This was early 1984 when teachers told kids to sit down, and they just sat down.
But the situation changed me.
While we made up, I lost trust in Angela, and people like her. People who think only the white version is the right version, and then hurt people for not being that version.
I learned that the color of my skin may/will be used to against me. It feels like weaponizing a person to self destruct by causing them to hate that part of themselves that can’t be changed.
This could’ve happened to me, but I knew Angela was never really my friend, and pretended so she could copy my homework.
I was only 10 years old, but at that moment I understood all the reasons why my grandmother wouldn’t buy white dolls.
After Angela disrespected my Cabbage Patch Kid doll, I stopped letting her copy my answers.
I know I said that we made up, but enough for me to share my answers with her.
Busing in Cleveland was such a bad idea.
Next Page: Where was my mother? The Prequel