Am I being overly annoyed - company only has white girls to chose an image from

[ScrantonTheElectricCity]

Happy to be told iambu. Also happy to be told I'm not!! Hope the images load, not sure if they are in the correct order, from the preview it looks like you should read them 2,3,1

KickAssAngel

I feel like you're almost too right on with this. Almost trolling tbh.

if a shop in a mall was selling something with such obvious racial bias, I would expect both the shop and the mall to respond well to concerns about that.

Then you better get writing because such "obvious racial bias" is present in every store and market in the UK and the entire world. There isn't one store in the UK that doesn't sell more products with white people on than black.

And deliberately excluding people based on their race is an act of racism, and illegal. The product is meant to be personalized to reflect the person who will be using it. Basically, this product is intended for white people only.

What's the point of stating things that are clearly untrue and ludicrously exaggerated? Does it make you feel important? This product is not illegal and where is the evidence that the manufacturer only wants whites to use it?

It's doing you no harm for OP to ask these questions, so why would you try to shut her down?

Because posters like you refuse to have a conversation without engaging in such hyperbole and exaggeration that it ends up putting people off and creating backlash to things.

Zazzle are not going to enforced every designer to show or produce every skin tone.

Your issue is with the designer.

You have been asked to contact the designer. Your issue is with them. Ask them why a black child has to be a special request.

Not zazzle

The person making the bags is closing off their product to quite a percentage of the population

Only 3% according to an earlier poster.

Mind you, I wonder if that was just black, rather than mixed race or Asian?

@KickAssAngel - no doubt it’s bad morally, but I don’t think this is illegal. The bag isn’t hateful and wouldn’t constitute a hate crime. It’s a huge oversight by the designer but this is not a criminal offence, anymore than it would be if they didn’t have the option to have a girl in a wheelchair or one who’s an amputee.

3% of the UK population are black or black British

I very much doubt it. A huge number of non-white people tick the 'prefer not to say' box on those ethnicity forms.

YANBU. At all.

Those saying that Zazzle shouldn't be part of this: someone has just given an example of an Etsy product where Etsy received the complaints.

People/businesses shouldn't create racist products. Platforms shouldn't allow them to be sold.

*Blimey I had no idea it was so low.

Another one living in London here. Some days I'm the only white person on a crowded bus*

I imagine Africans and Carribean (sp) settled in cities where they settled after being invited to live here after the war.

I couldn’t find a way to customise any of the colours on that girl - not her skin tone, or the football strip she is wearing. I can see that you can change the text, or the size and positioning of the complete cartoon image - but not elements of it.

The same artist has a collection which she calls African American themed:

www.zazzle.co.uk/collections/african_american_themed_gifts_for_the_kitchen-119829016808578402

So I doubt this is a seller who wants to exclude people of colour.

I daresay this would be resolved by contacting the seller and saying “hey, I like your other pieces - can you do a graphic with the football girl, but that skin tone please?”

I expect that zazzle charge for every listed item, so the seller isn’t going to list every possible permutation of her artwork. She’ll list the ones that she thinks will sell best.

She clearly has no issue with creating artwork with other skin tones.

Couldn’t it just be an oversight in the part of the designer?

It’s not racism. The designer is just catering to the largest market. If you contact them I’m sure they’ll be happy to accommodate you and might thank you for bringing it to their attention.

I imagine Africans and Carribean (sp) settled in cities where they settled after being invited to live here after the war.

Yes that's true and also not all the non white people here are black. There are lots of Indian/Asian people etc.

I'm surprised the % is that low but that said I'm in the Westcountry and in my children's primary school of 350 pupils there are two mixed race girls, and about five Asian children. Everyone else is white. It wouldnt make economic sense to produce a bag with anything other than a white child on it round here.

People/businesses shouldn't create racist products. Platforms shouldn't allow them to be sold.

It's not a racist product. Please stop trying to be woker than though. It's silly and annoying. The H&M monkey was playing off a racist stereotype. The Prada blackface stuff is a racist product.

@ScrantonTheElectricCity Try this place:

www.toxicfox.co.uk/

From what I understood, there are ballet designs for girls with different skin tones but not football designs. So they’ve clearly reduced selection to the most likely customer for a less popular design - a little sexist too but it’s business and sadly true girls are given/choose ballet designs over football.

Contact the designer and see what they say. Hopefully they have no problem adding this option for you. If not, and no good reason why not, then you’ve got a complaint.

Another one shocked by 3%, living in London and always lived in big cities.

Yes that's true and also not all the non white people here are black. There are lots of Indian/Asian people etc
There is more Asisn people where i live than black people but your city has the same amount of people as my country we are a bit more spread out..

OP, can you link me to where this seller has loaded designs for ballet dancers in multiple skin tones?

Because I’ve looked on “all designs by this seller” and I can’t see any.

So it’s not really fair to compare someone else’s availability of black skin tones to this designer.

This specific designer appears to be offering African American (but not Latino, South East Asian... etc...) options on some products. Just not this one.

She doesn’t have to make every single product in every single skin tone - even common ones. As I said before, I’m sure she would be charged to upload more. Why should she personally pay the price of equal representation - especially when she already offers some artwork in darker tones?

You are treated Zazzle as a single entity, not a market place.

I think you’re barking up the wrong tree both with the marketplace and the seller.

I also don’t think it’s an accident that she has produced a brown hair / brown eye combo, as it would be passable for some dual heritage friends of mine tbh - though only the ones who straighten their hair!

YABVU to direct your anger at Zazzle when it is not their fault. The company has absolutely nothing to do with this.

If you have an issue with the product, contact the designer. Zazzle are just a platform; they don’t make or commission the products.

The message that said they 'only allow pictures of white girls' is ridiculous and I'd be really offended if I were on the receiving end of that message!

And specifically on your issue with Zazzle...

2 minutes on the site and I can see that the models of your seller’s products are Zazzle models - there are other seller’s designs on the same models.

I’m not in a position to say how representative those models are, but I can see immediately that there is no lack of people of colour.

So Zazzle appears to promote diversity in models available.

I think in this instance, YABU - the seller has no responsibility to produce in all racial variation, and she has not left skin tone out from a customisable list. There is no colour list for that image.

As an aside, obviously the seller is trying to SELL. I googled African American female soccer players in the US (where the seller is) and surprise surprise - first article was about the lack of players. Ballet at least has Misty Copeland as a very well known ballet dancer in the US. So given that soccer is not the biggest US sport, then will have a tiny proportion of its players who are female, and then a lack of participation from Africa American females... I’m not going to blame this one seller for deciding she wasn’t going to pay Zazzle fees for an African American girl soccer player 🤷🏻‍♀️

@JudasPrudy where did they OP so they had a message that they only allow pictures of white girls? I don’t see that in the OP 3 screenshots.

I’m with you op.
If you can personalise other aspects, like the colour of her kit then why not her skin tone?

I’ve contacted designers on places like zazzle and Etsy before and asked for changes. I’ve yet to be turned down.

Yabvu,
Either contact the designer and ask for a one off change or just add your own Clip art image, its very easy. You cant be mad at the designer for only designing one image ffs, if it offends you so much dont buy it.