In instances of inappropriate touching, the parents must separate the dolls and teach them to say: “No! You do not have permission to touch me! My body is sacred.”
The dolls have little patience for this exercise. Most can say “No!” and “You do not” but not the rest of the sentence. They repeat “body body body” ad nauseum so it sounds like a pop song.
Frida wants to know if anyone has been kissing Harriet, what Gust and Susanna do about these kisses, if Harriet has a playground boyfriend the way Emmanuelle has Jeremy.
It’s becoming harder to ignore Tucker. She would like to tell him about the house of her mind, the house of her heart, the house of her body. Isn’t the school teaching them that what they really need is a partner who earns the money? Aren’t they being trained to be stay-at-home mothers? Where else is the money supposed to come from? The instructors have never mentioned jobs outside the home or day care or babysitters. She once heard Ms. Khoury say “babysitter” in the same tone as some people say “socialist.”
What job can she find that would be worth the time lost? In grade school, she envied the classmates whose mothers baked and volunteered for field trips and threw them elaborate birthday parties. Having her grandmother there was lovely, but not the same. If she and Tucker were together, she might only have to work part-time. He’d provide them with health insurance. Harriet would go to preschool only on Gust’s days. During her half of the week, she’d spend every minute with Harriet. They’d make up for their missing year.
* * *
Emmanuelle believes she’s blue. “I’m blue” is her response to Frida’s explanations about being biracial, how Mommy is Chinese and Emmanuelle is half Chinese.
“No, blue,” she says. “Half blue I am.”
They’re three days into teaching racial difference, part of a subset of lessons on racism and sexism prevention. They’ve been using picture books to facilitate conversations about skin color, telling their dolls about the difference between inside and outside, how inside everyone is the same, how outside differences should be celebrated. However, harmony isn’t the focus. Within a few days, the dolls are programmed to hate.
“Adversity,” the instructors say, “is the most effective teaching tool.”
The dolls take turns playing oppressor. They’ve been programmed to understand and speak derogatory language. White dolls have been programmed to hate dolls of color. Boy dolls have been programmed to hate girls. White parents of white boy dolls spend the week apologizing, ashamed. Some are cited for excessive reprimands. In classes with older dolls, there have been fistfights. The technical department has seen an influx of dolls with facial bruising and chunks of missing hair.
The parents practice comforting their dolls after they’ve experienced prejudice. Some parents of color are triggered. Some get emotional and scold the racist dolls. Some yell. Even Linda seems shaken. Stories of bullying and violence and microaggressions and police harassment are shared during meals.
Black parents don’t appreciate having the entire issue framed in Black and white terms. Latinx parents don’t appreciate having their dolls bullied in terrible singsong Spanish or being called “illegals.” White parents don’t appreciate having their dolls play the racists. Frida doesn’t appreciate having Black, white, and Latinx dolls harass Emmanuelle.
At lunch, Tucker tells Frida that he’s tired of playing the white devil. He’s tired of hearing his doll use the N-word. His real son would never use that word. Silas’s mother buys picture books depicting children from different backgrounds. They rotate these every few weeks, so Silas is never only looking at white faces.
“Studies have shown that even eighteen-month-olds can express racial bias,” Tucker says.
“Don’t let them catch you complaining.” Frida resists asking if Silas has any Black friends. She’s been over this with Gust and Susanna. What did playing with Black dolls matter if Harriet has no Black friends? When is Harriet ever going to meet another Chinese kid?
The dolls call Emmanuelle a chink. They pull their eyes into slits. Frida recalls people laughing when her parents spoke Mandarin, mimicking their accents. A long-buried memory. Two teenage Black girls laughing as her parents gossiped with the Chinese owner of the local ice cream shop. She was six or seven. She glared so hard at those girls, wanted to scream at them, but they didn’t notice her and wouldn’t stop snickering. The girls worked there, but they were making fun of their boss. That woman allowed them to laugh.