Why aren't non-white people depicted on birthday cards?

[whatever117]

I just bought my (black) mate a card and everything was hilarious and funny and really looked like her.

Apart from the colour. I have just got off the phone and we always joke (each year) that the cards would be spot on - and should we colour the figure in.

We actually had a serious chat than all humourous cards etc do not depict people of colour.

I lived in a very mixed part of North London until last year. (lots of African/Caribbean/Eastern European/white British people, so black people and white people, basically.) In the local card shops/party shop/newsagents it was hard to find cards that didn't have black faces on. Tesco round the corner still had ones with white faces, though. Both groups catered for.

I live in London which I think is 50/50 now. But another thing that annoys me is that my Dad doesnt drink - all father's day cards - as well as being white also have beer stuff on them!

What a crazy, crazy thing to get upset about! I have never considered trying to get a card that looks like the person!!!
One of my DD's cards depicted a teddy bear that was grey. Should I be outraged? [Grin]

I've never noticed. My DH is Asian and I would have never thought of not getting him a 'white' card. It would have never occured to me to match the 'card person' to his actual skin colour. Ignorant? Moi?

What about this place or are they just in the US?

Nope they are UK.

I actually think that it IS an issue - I was also astonished by the toy ads in this year's Argos catalogue. Only a very small minority of non-white kids in the photos - and those tended to be advertising sport or music themed toys - all the "princesses" were white, for example.

I am white myself but I think it's a bit daft that we live in such a mixed country and only a few of us see our looks reflected in products, adverts etc.

No it's not, in the grand scheme of things, a huge massive problem. I don't think the OP was saying it is! It's just a small, insidious part of a problem that would be very easy to address.

I have never thought of trying to get a card to look like the person then again the only non white person i normally buy cards for is my stepmother who is chinese and now im sort of worried that i have been unwittingly offending her all these years by sending her cards without chinese people on!
i have vaguely noticed that here are very few red haired people on cards or adverts unless they are being ridiculed in some way but as a red haired person it doesnt upset me in fact i have had some wonderful red haired joke carsa frm my sister in my time.

trois

I can honestly say I have never thought about it but I do take exception to the example quoted by the poster who said I want a card to be personal, ie, "Karen liked shopping" - i would only send that to someone called Karen and therefore the card has limited appeal. I also live in London and am not sure that London is 50/50 either.

What I do recall though when our ds was born 17 years ago are the ante and post natal books. I think they were blue and beige. I don't recall feeling they had anything to do with me or with my life as a white, married, middle class woman because they didn't seem to depict a white, married, middle class couple anywhere within their pages .

I've spent many a dc's birthday colouring the figures in. Difficult though as they're usually - what's the word? glossed (can't think of the word, late!) - so wax crayon was usually the best.

if anybody thinks it doesn't matter what is depicted, my dd burst into tears when she saw the first dove ad on a billboard - "someone like me!"

Totally agree. Also tried to buy a male doll for my friend's mixed race daughter as she was gaining a brother, needn't have bothered even looking.

People know that i much prefer home made cards from family and friends etc.
Why people pay expensive prices for cards is beyond me.

I'm bisexual, but you can never find a birthday card depicting bi people... I feel so left out.

My friend is in a wheelchair and I can never find any birthday cards depicting that either.

For the same reason that when you buy personalised mugs or pens you can never find the more unusual names - they follow trends because they want to sell more mugs and pens. They need to appeal to the masses, not the minority.

It's all to do with market forces and supply and demand - people want to choose books/cards with people on/in them that they can relate to, and there (up until the last ten years) just wasn't a sufficient slice of the market to justify producing many ethnic minority cards or books. Although I think two things:

a) books used in education have an over-abundance proportionally speaking of EM characters and examples in text books using of EM people, for example

'if Jamal had nine sweets and gave Karim three, then gave half to John how many would John have?'

b) it is changing rapidly in line with the changing face (colour) of Britain. I have definitely seen cards in Clinton cards depicting black and Asian ladies, although the point of the cards was that they were obviously designed to appeal to a minority market, featuring close up portrait paintings of attractive black and Asian women, as opposed to all-purpose general cards that may have been humorous or whatever, that just happened to feature a non-white person.

I raised the subject with our local (lovely) card shop owner. Not so much the colour issue as they have a great range - I agree with the posters who say that independent shops tend to have cards which better reflect the local needs.

But I was trying to find a silver wedding card that didn't assume there had been 25 years of bliss. I'm not asking for 'well done, you got over your husband having that affair and are now celebrating your silver wedding' on a card but a simple card without the flowery verses would have been good.

And I struggled to find a largish card that a lot of people could sign for a friend who was in hospital. There were plenty of 'get well soon' cards but that's totally inappropriate for someone with a terminal condition. 'thinking of you' or even blank would have been better.

Finding a card for a young boy who doesnt like football is a challenge and as for fathers day cards... Not all dads like football, or beer and mine definitely wasn't a 'lovely dad who was always there for me' etc etc.

Bit puzzled about the problem in finding a boy doll though blonderedhead my nephew has had one for years, could buy in different skin tones too. I got it for him from Elc but it was for sale in other shops too.

I think perhaps people's views are heavily skewed by whereabouts they live.

One poster said 'in such a mixed country...'. Well, Britain is 85% white British, and 90% white. I wouldn't say that was particularly diverse.

Obviously places like London and Birmingham will have a much higher proportion of EMs, but it's not true of every city. My city is 89% white, reflecting the UK overall.

Of course efforts should be made to represent what diversity there is, but is having 90% of people represented as white in cards/the media/etc really so unreasonable?

I find it extremely har to find nice cards for mother's day or for my mum's birthday that do not have overly sentimental sappy poems inside.

oH ffs cant people just buy cars that dont have whiteys on them? a nice picture of a beach maybe?

how fucking patronising: happy birthday black friend, here is a photo of some BLACK PEOPLE

lots of whiteys getting fussed over a complete NON ISSUE

whiteys???? are you south african?

no!!!! just find the idea of a black greeting card preposterous, get a fucking thomas the tank engine one, jesus

Clintons used to do a range of cards with asian characters on them.

he has a blue face

I am rather pinky-beige than white. With freckles. They are slightly khaki if you look very very closely.