So my girlfriend and I decided to take a trip to the LEGO Store on Fifth Avenue in NY and the events that unfolded after were epic enough and relevant enough to this blog that I had to share. The following are emails that I sent to the LEGO Corporation and their responses. Read through and make your own judgements. I will comment at the end.
July 27, 2012
My girlfriend and I were making Lego characters of ourselves at the lego store in NY near Rockefellar Center. We were in the build a character section and I'm African American and the only options in were yellow legos. My girlfriend was pretty upset because she wanted to build a Lego that looked like me and we felt like we had to settle. I asked a store associate and he said we could just color them in (which is not possible unless I want my Lego to have no face). So my question is in the build your own section why are there no available alternate choices for skin tone? And is there something that can be done? I loveLegos and it was our first visit to the Lego store and we were really excited but disappointed at that aspect.
Sincerely,
Lianna
~~5:00pm~~
Dear LEGO® friend,
Thank you for e-mailing the LEGO Group. We are happy to know that your family enjoys building with LEGO toys. Your comment and/or question is important to us and we will answer you as quickly as possible. If you need immediate assistance, please call us at 1-800-835-4386.
FOR YOUR SECURITY, PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE CREDIT CARD INFORMATION. CONTACT US AT 1 800 835-4386 WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION. WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO COLLECT THIS INFORMATION IN GENERAL EMAILS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
Best Wishes,
LEGO Customer Service
PS. This email has been sent from an auto-notification system that cannot accept incoming email. Please do not respond to this message.
~~5:17pm~~
Dear Lianna,
Thanks for getting in touch with us.
LEGO® sets are sold in 130 countries, so we try really hard to make sure there are all sorts of LEGO toys suitable for all children (both girls and boys) of every age and from every culture. Actually we have a team of experts in Denmark whose job it is to invent LEGO sets. I know they spend countless hours checking that every toy they dream up is:
Creative - so LEGO fans can do or make anything
Imaginative - so any idea can be brought to life
Challenging - for real hands-on (and "minds-on"!) play
..And fun!
We believe skin color is not important so we've given most of our mini-figures a neutral (yellow) skin. We sometimes change this when trying to make a figure look just like the real person. We then also copy the person's hair-style, face and clothes. That's why the LEGO NBA Basketball mini-figures and some of the film stars don't have the neutral skin color. I hope this letter helps explain why some LEGO mini-figures are yellow, and some aren't!
Thank you again for contacting us. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reply to this email or call one of our friendly Customer Care Advisors at 1-800-835-4386 (from within the US or Canada) or 1-860-749-0706 (from outside the US or Canada). We are available Monday through Friday from 8AM - 10PM EST and Saturday through Sunday from 10AM to 6PM EST. Please have your reference number handy if you need to get in touch with us: 031393822A
Happy building!
Jessica
LEGO Direct Consumer Services
If you wish to reply to this message, use the "Reply" button on your e-mail program. Please do not make any changes to the subject line, as this may lead to a long delay in responding to you. Please note that we cannot accept email attachments at this time.
We know we're lucky to have many loyal fans around the world, and we're always pleased to get comments back. Please click the link below and answer a quick 4 question survey to help us provide the best customer service to LEGO fans and their families.
http://www.econsumeraffairs.
com/lsi/ensurvey.html?F1=
Join the LEGO Club! Sign up now to receive the FREE LEGO Club Magazine
http://club1.lego.com/en-US/
legomagazine/default.aspx
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July 30, 2012
~~4:17pm~~
Hello LEGO Direct Consumer Services!
Thank you for getting back to me. I have a question is it possible to request a replacement Lego with brown color skin and black hair? I wanted to give it as a gift and surprise my girlfriend I don't mind waiting for the piece to come in and here is a the Legos face and hands I'd like in brown. I'd appreciate any assistance with this. We have an anniversary coming up and it'd be an ideal gift. I also included a photo of myself, that we tried to make the legolook like.
Thank you again,
Lianna
~~5:18pm~~
Dear Lianna,
Thanks for getting in touch with us about replacement parts for your minifigure creation.
I apologize, Lianna, but we're unsure which parts you're looking for specifically. We cannot accept attachments at this time. If you're looking for an African American skin tone on a minifigure, I would recommend that you check out our Friends line. We've recently created a new line, called LEGO Friends, that contains this type of minifigure. Her name is Andrea and she may be exactly what you're looking for! You can customize her to look how you would like, however, you would need to purchase different hair through our Pick A Brick system. You can purchase different hair for her by searching PAB in the search box of the LEGO website!
If you would like to view the products that Andrea is currently in, please use the following link:http://search2.lego.com/?q=
Andrea&lang=2057&cc=US
We hope that this helps with your creation!
Thank you again for contacting us. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reply to this email or call one of our friendly Customer Care Advisors at 1-800-835-4386 (from within the US or Canada) or 1-860-749-0706(from outside the US or Canada). We are available Monday through Friday from 8AM - 10PM EST and Saturday through Sunday from 10AM to 6PM EST. Please have your reference number handy if you need to get in touch with us: 031393822B
Happy building!
Taylor
LEGO Direct Consumer Services
If you wish to reply to this message, use the "Reply" button on your e-mail program. Please do not make any changes to the subject line, as this may lead to a long delay in responding to you. Please note that we cannot accept email attachments at this time.
We know we're lucky to have many loyal fans around the world, and we're always pleased to get comments back. Please click the link below and answer a quick 4 question survey to help us provide the best customer service toLEGO fans and their families.
http://www.econsumeraffairs.
com/lsi/ensurvey.html?F1=
Join the LEGO Club! Sign up now to receive the FREE LEGO Club Magazine
http://club1.lego.com/en-US/
legomagazine/default.aspx
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July 31, 2012
~~9:55am~~
Dear LEGO Direct Consumer Services,
Thank you to getting back to me. I know of the Lego Friends collection, however I am an avid fan of the originalLego. Also since my girlfriend and I were trying to recreate ourselves from the Lego characters the Andrea character would look silly next to the original Lego character. I also feel slightly uncomfortable with the way theLego Friends characters portray a sort of hyper femininity.
I've played with legos for years and I think the original Legos have always been great for all adults and children of all genders. I'd also like to express that I feel like my concerns aren't really being addressed in our email cimmunication. I was excited that I was directed, in your last email, to an online pick-a-brick system to recreate myself and I didn't even mined paying again to do so. But I went through all the Lego heads and once again even though there were more choices all of the Lego heads were yellow. You stated yellow is supposed to be a neutral color but if the Legos were neutral they'd be purple or some color not close to skin color. In the cartoon series The Simpsons, the characters are yellow but characters of other races are brown, etc. So coming from a media studies background, I recognize that there's this clear sense to the viewer that the Simpsons are Caucasian. But I'm going off target here. I'm not trying to start some crusade or cause trouble I just want a replacement Lego head with a smiley face and glasses and hands that are brown color to give my girlfriend for our anniversary. I don't feel like I'm asking a lot and I'm still confused about why this option doesn't exist at the very least online.
In your first email to me you said skin color didn't matter. In my opinion the only people to whom skin color doesn't matter are those who it doesn't affect. To people of color, being anything other than Caucasian makes it somewhat difficult to live in this world. There's a lot of discrimination we face everyday. And I feel like by Lego not addressing my issue makes me feel like as a person of color my thoughts and opinions don't matter. Like your toys aren't inclusive unless they are portraying a stereotype. I'm not a basketball player, or hyper-feminine. I'm just a person trying to get the correct product so I can give a wonderful gift to a special person in my life. So please stop writing me off and try to see my side of this and work with me, please.
Thank you and have a great day!
Lianna
--
Lianna Newman
Email | liannanewman@gmail.com
Cell | 570-234-6341
Online Portfolio | http://liannanewman.weebly.
com/index.html
"Be the change you want to see in the world."
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August 2, 2012
~~11:03am~~
Dear Lianna,
Thanks for getting back in touch with us.
Lianna, we are sorry for the disappointment you felt because you were unable to build a replica figure of yourself.LEGO® sets are sold in 130 countries, so we try really hard to make sure there are all sorts of LEGO toys suitable for all children (both girls and boys) of every age and from every culture. As one of the world's leading brands for families with children, The LEGO Company prides itself on consistently delivering quality products to encourage creativity, fun, imagination and playful learning among children. Incorporating themes of constructive play, storytelling and role-play, LEGO products offer children the power to explore their thoughts and curiosities on their terms, allowing them to create whatever they imagine.
I'd like to expand upon the earlier explanation provided to you about why the color yellow is used for the majority of our mini figures. It was chosen specifically for the color of LEGO mini-figures, not to represent the white or Caucasian race, but to be a universal or international color that would appeal to all LEGO builders in the 120 different countries where LEGO products are sold. Part of the "magic" of LEGO toys is that a child can decide what a mini-figure represents; in fact, LEGO sets marketed in Africa, Japan, Denmark or elsewhere in the world are exactly the same as those marketed in the United States. While we currently do not target or market to any specific ethnic group, we are constantly working on new products along with evaluating consumer comments about our existing assortment. Thus, it is always a possibility that someday we may introduce figures that represent different multi-cultural groups.
To reiterate, Lianna, most LEGO figures have a yellow skin color. We have chosen this neutral color in the past to avoid assigning a specific ethnicity in sets in which there were no characters represented. In this way, LEGOfigures would be universally acceptable all over the world and fans could assign their own individual roles. However, in conjunction with some licensed products, in which we want figures to be as authentic as possible, such as NBA characters, Harry Potter™, Star wars™, and others we plan in the future, some figures included will now be represented in different ethnic roles to stay true to their characterization reflective of their storyline.
You also expressed feedback about the hyper-femininity of the figures in our new LEGO Friends line. One thing that was very clear from over four years of research for our new LEGO Friends product assortment is that girls are very interested in the interior details, accessories and role play situations of the models that they create so that is why we, through LEGO Friends, have given careful attention to this area. Further, the girls found it difficult to identify with the minifigure’s unrealistic appearance and requested a figure that was more relatable and detailed. As role play is central to the LEGO Friends experience, we invested significant research and resources into creating the mini-doll figure which features similar constructability as the traditional minifigures.
Thank you again for contacting us. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reply to this email or call one of our friendly Customer Care Advisors at 1-800-835-4386 (from within the US or Canada) or 1-860-749-0706(from outside the US or Canada). We are available Monday through Friday from 8AM - 10PM EST and Saturday through Sunday from 10AM to 6PM EST. Please have your reference number handy if you need to get in touch with us: 031393822
Again, we are happy you shared your thoughts with us and want to assure that we are in agreement with you--all builders should be proud of their heritage. We certainly hope that you and your girlfriend will continue to spend many happy hours of creative building with our products.
Kind regards,
Moira
LEGO Direct Consumer Services
If you wish to reply to this message, use the "Reply" button on your e-mail program. Please do not make any changes to the subject line, as this may lead to a long delay in responding to you. Please note that we cannot accept email attachments at this time.
We know we're lucky to have many loyal fans around the world, and we're always pleased to get comments back. Please click the link below and answer a quick 4 question survey to help us provide the best customer service toLEGO fans and their families.
http://www.econsumeraffairs.
com/lsi/ensurvey.html?F1=
Join the LEGO Club! Sign up now to receive the FREE LEGO Club Magazine
http://club1.lego.com/en-US/
legomagazine/default.aspx
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I even went to their website hoping for a larger selection in the "Pick-A-Brick" section and all the heads were yellow. I researched and found they had sent the first email to some one else:
http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/lego-criticised-over-toy-pieces
And! There was this random site with a Rosa Park Lego:
http://www.littlecolouredbricks.com/2010/04/02/black-lego-minifigs.html
Either way I know I can't necessarily change the world but it sure as hell won't be because of a lack of trying. I still like LEGO just want them to get more inclusive.
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