Printakid: classifying children’s ethnicity by skintone
CVK
The Canadian Press has an article about a new childrens book publishing company called Printakid, which offers parents the ability to personalize books, so that the protagonist of the book has the same name and physical characteristics of their child. The child’s family members’ names can also be inserted into the book. And of course, mixed children were one of the inspirations to create these books:
The books are the brainchild of Noemi Berlus and her husband Christian Roy. Berlus hit on the idea when she was trying to find something for her goddaughter but didn’t see anything in stores that particularly addressed mixed-race children.
“I couldn’t find anything that was culturally interesting, was educational, that would help raise her self-esteem,” said Berlus at the family company’s east-end office…
“They’re really able to identify themselves with the character because it’s them,” said Berlus. “There’s still space for the imagination, though, because they look at the character and the character has the same colour hair, the same colour eyes but it’s not a portrait of the child.
“It’s just a child that looks like them, that has the same name and same family members and friends.”
Sounds like a company that really gets it, right? Wrong. I checked out their Web site and went through the personalization process, and these are the options they give for skintone:
What is the child’s skin tone?
THEY EVEN ASK WHETHER OR NOT YOUR CHILD HAS “ASIAN EYES”!!!!!
First of all, obviously, it’s a BIG no-no to use the term “mulatto,” which is derived from a Latin word for “mule.” But even apart from that, it’s absurd that they suggest specific ethnicities next to specific skin colors. The whole point of these books should be to allow parents to create a character that somewhat resembles their mixed child, without having to succumb to people’s assumptions of what a child of X and X heritage should look like. There are countless variations in skin tone, hair color, and eye color. There are “Caucasian” people who are much darker-skinned than “black” people, there are plenty of “Asian” people who have big round eyes, and so on. Printakid has a good concept, but if they don’t change these racial assignations, they’re going to offend their target audience and lose potential customers.
Ruchi wrote:
Love that once again South Asians don’t get a skin tone. And who’s the throwback that still uses the term mulatto?? It’s just wrong on so many levels. Asian eyes? Define Asian eyes– Asia’s a big region, and contrary to popular believe we don’t all look like anime characters.
-Hey, y’all look like Hispanics pretty much, just pick that skin tone… Arabs, Indians (both kinds), Hispanics… y’all look the same…what’s the big deal.
Sounds really great in concept, but fails miserably in execution.
Posted 04 Feb 2005 at 9:55 am ¶
Noemi Berlus wrote:
A word from Noemi Berlus, President and founder of Printakid.
As a woman of mixed race heritage (my father is Haitian with a dark brown skin tone and my mother is French Canadian with a fair white skin tone), I have pale brown skin which gets paler in the winter and darker in the summer.
My family raised me to understand how my differences should be cherished and enjoyed. Unfortunately, I have also had to deal with situations of discrimination and sexism. I understand the importance of the words and illustrations we use on our website, documents and in our books, especially when it comes to products that educate children.
This is why my team and I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking through every aspect of our products and website.
We have read articles, looked-up terms and most importantly, we have involved members of different ethnic groups in every step of our development. We have tried to find terms and to develop illustrations that are respectful. We have had to make some hard decisions and we understand that not everyone will agree with these decisions.
We are aware that the use of terms such as “Asian eyes”, “mulatto skin tone” and other terms may displease some. This is definetly not my intention.
Our first attempts at making the “almond-shaped” eyes characteristic of people of Asian decent, were described as “not Asian enough” by the members of our team from the Vietnamese community. Other members of our team (again, of Asian decent) thought that “almond-shaped” was too confusing a term to describe this facial characteristic. They selected “Asian eyes” as the clearest term.
We tried to simply describe the skin’s hue by using descriptions such as light brown, lighter brown, bronze and other colours. However, these were also unclear. People asked “How light is light brown?”
As you can see, we really struggled with this issue. I agree that we should not have to describe people based on their heritage. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a common consensus for other terms.
Some more politically correct words such as mutli-racial, mixed race or métis were too ambiguous to be used. As for the use of the term mulatto, I use it to describe myself and have been inspired to do so by the article: “The meaning of mulatto - multiracial identity - Back Talk - Editorial”, published in Esssence magazine, by Erin Bannister
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1264/is_n4_v29/ai_21003422
Ms. Bannister describes the same stuggle that have faced to describe myself.
Whether you agree with the use of the terms or not, most people asked were able to accurately predict which illustration went with each term. We tried to balance both respect and clarity in order to provide the best possible product. After all, we want to send our customers books with the personalization options they have in mind. These terms are never mentionned in the books. The children never see them. They are simply there to help an aware parent select the approrpriate physical characteristic that best represents their child.
I started my company because I wanted children to have a positive image of themselves. I would be very grateful for any suggestions or comments that might help me do this better. Please e-mail me at noemiberlus@printakid.com. I look forward to hearing from you.
Posted 06 Feb 2005 at 2:28 pm ¶
Michele Bendon wrote:
I am Mulatto myself and I’ve come to cherish the term Mulatto enormously.
Terms like bi-racial etc. are all to vague and to politically correct for me.
Ever since I use the term mulatto I feel whole.
It is not exactly clear were the term comes from (it might be of arab origin mwuallad) . Most people are not aware that mules are actually more intelligent than horses or donkeys. Anyway, I couldn’t care less about the ethymological origin. Words change their meaning with time. Most of the people who are busy discrediting the term are also the ones who want mulattoes to “identify as black”. THAT is definetly racist.
Posted 21 Feb 2005 at 11:01 pm ¶
Nora Moore wrote:
Hello,
My name is Nora after my German great grandmother. My mother is mixed through american indian german and polish, my father is mixed all the way back to a German slave owner named Bosch who fathered a child with a black slave and has intermixed since until my fathers father was french and his mother is heavily mixed black and white. My skin tone ranges from fair in winter to a tan brown in summer but i tend to be different tones all over my body. In high school i neither identified with the black community as they chastised me for being mixed but actually ended up spending most my time in a basically nondenominational church avoiding social contact in school at all. I know my situation has effected my thinking, i hold no prejudice at all, i dont think it is possible for those like me. When it comes to this printakid book idea I am not so sure it is a good idea to have ethnicitys next to color descriptions at all. Perhaps just an accurate color swatch should be all that is needed with a large amount of shades to choose from and same for eyes, pictures of eye shapes should be explanatory enough for a parent who has probably gazed in their childs eyes since birth. Words I find are a great inhibitor when it comes to racial description, pictures are wordless.
Posted 22 Mar 2005 at 1:33 pm ¶
Ela wrote:
The whole series of skin color option fails to apply even with Africans. Heh and what of the “swarthy” Europeans? Also I have no idea how “hispanic” can be considered a race when one knows that hispanic simply means spanish-speaker.
Why reaffirm racial stereotypes for a future generation? I’m not saying go all P.C. on our kids (that may be even worse), sure acknowledge differences, but acknowledge that there’s no one main stereotype or skin color for any one “racial” group. As I said before, look at the “original” South Africans: there are “hispanic”-colored Africans who’ve persisted in S. Africa before white people and the Zulu (”significantly” darker Africans from equitorial Africa).
Posted 22 Apr 2005 at 2:46 am ¶
Beverly wrote:
This idea of indentifying people’s ethnic background by skin color and hair texture is not only common it is outright racist. Here’s my story…
One day I was having lunch with a white women, a Jewish man and a Black South African. As a point of commonality I mentioned to the Jewish man that my grandfather was also Jewish. The response from those people at that table was absolutely insulting. They basically accused me of lying. I was drilled with a bunch of questions intended to out me with my lie. Finally the Black South African came right out and told me…”I don’t believe you! You look like a pure African with your features and kinky hair. I don’t see any white in you.” The Jewish man agreed. I basically found myself in an argument with these people on this subject. When I look back I realize that I was actually having lunch with a table full of racists. They were obviously uncomfortable with who I am and felt even more uncomfortable when they felt that I was trying to co-opt the white race. LOL I have so many experiences like this. It is absolutely tiring.
Posted 22 Jul 2005 at 11:16 am ¶
Jessica wrote:
That’s all pretty dumb. First of all the majority of white people don’t have pink skin, they have yellow skin. Also it doesn’t help those of us who ARE multiracial. I am Greek, Jewish, English, Scottish, Irish. My skin is no ‘known’ tone.
Posted 19 Nov 2005 at 2:36 am ¶
I agree 2345 wrote:
I agree that the “mulatto skin” identifier is ridiculous. Both Mariah Carey and Halle Berry are mulattos, yet they have different skin tones. So who exactly has mulatto skin? What does “mulatto skin” look like? You’re trying to control genetics and that simply can’t be done. A child that is born of a dark skinned parent and a white/lightskinned parent can come out looking like anything under the sun.
Posted 14 Dec 2005 at 3:39 pm ¶
I didn't realize... wrote:
I didn’t realize that Greeks, Jews, English, Scottish, and Irish were different races!?!?
Can somewone really consider themselves multiracial if they are misked with Scottish and English. I think you are confusing nationality/ethnicity with “race.”
Posted 14 Dec 2005 at 3:44 pm ¶
Karen Challender wrote:
I think Printakid is a wonderful idea.. It was obviously developed out of love and a desire to give kids a book designed to look like them, their race, their family. The idea is wonderful and for all those who find fault with this book, please!! Stop finding a reason to cry racism, find insult where there isn’t any or to look for hidden agenda’s.. Very obviously, Noemi Berlus came up with the whole idea so that every child could have a book to help them have a positive image of themselfs..I say thumbs up to you Noemi! It is impossible to capture exact skin tones, no matter what race you are, and the skin tone’s Noemi has listed are just a way for customers to decide for themself’s which choice is best for their particular book.. I make handmade doll’s of every race, and I encounter the same problems Noemi does. No matter what I do, no matter how much research I do on skin tones, no matter how hard I try to dye my fabric to represent skin tones as close as possible, there are people who will accuse me of racism, tell me my skin tones are “insulting”, tell me to remove certain words from my website… It seems some people spend most of their time looking for something that just isn’t there. The truth of the matter is, when anyone try’s very hard to include each and every race into their world, they do it out of love and racism is never an issue.. I wish all people, no matter what race, would try harder to remember that!
Posted 30 Dec 2005 at 4:15 pm ¶
Tia wrote:
klok i’m half white and hafe black and my skin shade isnt up there, what is mulatto skin any way. my complextion is lighter then the light brown hispanic, and darker then the white/asian, i dont know i think you got the color thing all wrong you need to have a lighter shade up there that is inbetween the white/asain ???? light brown/hispanic catogory. and to how ever said that mariah and halley are both mulattos that may be true if you consider 1/4 black 1/4 venezualan and 1/2 white, i thought mulatto was one white parent one black parent, mariah’s dad isnt fully black he is half, that is why halle berry is much darker then mariah. halle is half black mariah is 1/4 , stands a chance that mariah is going to be lighter (not always, but most time lighter then darker , with mariah’s mixture)
Posted 18 Jul 2006 at 5:31 am ¶