A Playmobil pirate ship set has sparked a media firestorm over a toy that resembles an African American slave wearing a neck shackle.
It was when her 5-year-old son asked her to help assemble his new birthday present that Ida Lockett from Sacramento in California found the dark skinned figurine – and the instructions telling her to put a play shackle around its neck.
The toy’s instruction manual shows a dark-skinned doll wearing no shoes, ripped pants and a tattered yellow shirt and directs the assembler to pop the silver piece around its neck. The ship appears to include a dungeon.
“It’s definitely racist,” Lockett told CBS Sacramento about the toy.
“It told my son to put a slave cuff around the black character’s neck, and then to play with the toy.”
To the mother-of-one, there was no denying what the object was.
“You cannot have this specific accessory and call it anything else. The fact that you can Google it, look it up, say what it is — it’s a slave collar.”
“If you look at the box, you can see that the pirate figure is clearly a crew member on the pirate ship and not a captive,” according to the statement. “The figure was meant to represent a pirate who was a former slave in a historical context. It was not our intention to offend anyone in anyway.”
Aimee Norman, the aunt who gave the set to the Sacramento 5-year-old, wrote the following on Playmobil USA’s Facebook page following the discovery:
“WOW, would it be too much to ask for you to just create a regular old black pirate? Newsflash, Playmobil: this is the 21st century. People of African descent have contributed to mankind in a myriad of ways that existed outside of the disgusting institution of the slave trade. Selling children’s toys that are suggestive of slavery in play is obscene, even moreso given the marked absence of diversity in your entire toy line.”
Not everyone thinks the toy was worthy of all the uproar, however.
“You do realize that pirates took slaves & prisoners of all races right?” one woman wrote on the Playmobil USA Facebook page. “If you don’t like the idea of pirates and slaves/prisoners then a pirate ship toy is not for you. Also a child has imaginative play and can easily make said character anything he/she wants them to be. Throw away the offending pieces.”
What do YOU think about this? Was Playmobil our of order including this toy in the pack? Let me know at [email protected]
