How These Dolls Encourage Little Black Girls To Embrace Their Natural Hair

Yelitsa Jean-Charles said she cried when a relative gave her a black Barbie when she was a little girl. “This isn’t the real Barbie,” she remembers thinking, upset that the doll wasn’t white. “This isn’t the pretty one.” She didn't truly embrace her beautiful features until she went to college at a predominantly white school, ironically. After heat-damaging her hair and getting advice from a friend, she said she "felt crazy that [she] didn't know [her] own hair texture." Understan...