The video went viral and inflamed nerves almost instantly: a little white girl who screamed and flung away her Black doll Christmas gift while her family recorded and chuckled at her. Now the girl’s older sister has gone on social media to try to explain that the reaction, from everyone involved, was not racist.
The British newspaper The Scottish Sun, first reported Sunday on the unnamed sister’s explanation on Twitter, although according to another U.K. paper, that Twitter account has since been deactivated, and no links to the tweet can be found. The gist of it: the little sister doesn’t like dolls, and she was upset at that, not at the doll’s color.
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“My intentions of posting this video wasn’t to be ‘racist’ at all, my sister & family are 100% not racist and it wasn’t meant to come across that way,’’ the girl’s sister reportedly posted.
“The doll was a Christmas present from a family member which obviously didn’t know my sister isn’t a fan of dolls full stop. Obviously she wasn’t best pleased with a doll she’s only 7-years-old and definitely didn’t mean it in a malicious way. She just doesn’t like any dolls at all she was just scared as it looked scary, she’s now happy with it!”
There didn’t seem to be any further explanation of what made the girl “scared” and the doll “scary.’’ What was clear on the video is that the family – including the sister who was clarifying things on Twitter – got a real laugh out of the reaction and did an excellent impression of a group of relatives teasing someone.
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The video had been viewed more than 10 million times by Monday. Much of the internet didn’t find it as amusing as the family seemed to have, with several agreeing with one tweet that said, “how is this even funny?”
Others pointed out that while recording the reaction of kids opening presents is routine everywhere, this had the look of a set-up. “WTF… the fact that the parents filmed this, expecting this reaction says a lot…” one post read.
However, the family’s story is that it wasn’t meant to be a joke and it wasn’t meant to be racist…and they’re sticking to it.