When Jeanetta Williams went looking to buy a porcelain collector doll for her granddaughter this Christmas, she was dismayed to discover that all the collector dolls at Rite Aid were white.
Williams, president of the Salt Lake branch of the NAACP, calls this "subtle discrimination" and has contacted the drug store chain's headquarters in Harrisburg, Pa., to complain.
"The Rite Aid stores stocked all white collector dolls for Christmas without any sensitivity toward other ethnic groups," she says.
"I think the folks here in Utah need to be more sensitized in diversity," Williams says. "All shoppers are not seeking white dolls and all white persons are not seeking white dolls." She said she wanted this particular doll — part of the Christina Verdi limited-edition collection — because it is "elegant and old-fashioned."
The dolls do come in African-American, Hispanic and other ethnicities, said Rite Aid spokeswoman Jody Cook, but the chain did not stock these in the Salt Lake area. Rite Aid uses an outside firm that analyzes demographics for each store location and then purchases products to fit those demographics, she said. "We try to have the right merchandise mix for each store.
"We do take into consideration feedback from our customers, so we will re-evaluate," she says. "We want to have what our customers want and need." She added, however, that its purchasing "needs to be a good business decision." The chain will start buying for next Christmas this February, she said.
Cook stressed that Rite Aid carries "a lot of ethnicity toys," including other dolls, wrestler and action figurines, Dora the Explorer and "the Hispanic version of Betty Spaghetti."
Williams said she investigated all of the Rite Aid stores in the Salt Lake Valley and plans to target other stores in the future. She says her intent is "to have all stores in Salt Lake more diversity sensitized."
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com