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We have a break in the rain so I’m sitting out here in my backyard listening to my 10-year-old son and his buddy setting up GI Joes in preparation for war. That Jason even has such a vast army is somewhat startling to this middle-aged hippie who refused to buy him a single toy gun until a few years ago, when I broke down in the middle of an unusually hot summer and bought water pistols for both my son and daughter. Since then, I have been needled, harassed and otherwise tricked into purchasing numerous toy soldiers and their gear, all of which Jason insisted were just for display but I now see are being readied for serious battle. 

“I get the bazooka!” “Then I get the AK-47!” “Check out this camouflage!” 

“This is so cool!” 

Then, the pre-war bickering begins: “I get the black soldier!” “No, I get the black soldier!” “I called it first!” “No you didn’t!” 

And I recall how difficult it was to find black and brown soldiers in both the small, local independent toy stores and the huge chains. This, despite the fact that the military is composed of disproportionately high numbers of black and Latino soldiers—not in the front offices but on the frontlines, out there dodging bullets with all the other GI Joe’s. About 23 percent of our active Army soldiers are black. Of course, this figure can’t compare with the numbers of black men incarcerated in U.S. prisons but, even so...seems a bit high, don’t you think? 

I had similar difficulties locating black Barbie dolls for my daughter nine years ago when her godmother—over my strenuous objections centered on sexism and conformity—gave her a blonde Barbie doll for her sixth birthday, opening the floodgates to a trim pink and perfect population with matching accessories. I felt compelled to seek out a darker hued Barbie that might approach resembling my daughter. As with the darker GI Joe, it was difficult to find. Even fair skinned brunettes had trouble at one North Berkeley drugstore—they stocked only blonde Barbies. On a recent visit to this very same store I looked up to find that this particular section of Berkeley was still lacking in skin tone diversity, some nine years later. The surrounding neighborhood hadn’t diversified much either, so perhaps the segregation was merely reflective of the environment. It was more of a class thing, really. 

Anyway, the boys surmised that another mercenary-looking action guy sporting a blue hood and matching gloves could be black underneath. They declared him so and the fighting began. 

“I’ve got you surrounded!” “No you don’t! I have a secret escape route!” “No you don’t. I bombed it!” “Did not!” “Did too!” 

Aah. The sweet sounds of children at play. I decide to get out of the range of fire and prepare an early dinner. Perhaps I can entice these soldier-boy-wanna-be’s-who-have-no-clue-what-war-is-really-like young recruits away from the grassy battlefield by offering a plate full of steaming hot dogs and ketchupy fries. As I head inside I hear my innocent young son declare:  

“Hey! You know what? I bet Bush has a lot of these!” 

Perhaps so. But, that’s another story. 

(Names have been changed to prevent me from embarrassing and being therewith scorned by my otherwise adoring children.)