Friday, September 30, 2011

Multiculturalism is Expensive





Color me... disappointed.



Flesh Crayons by Nathan Gibbs
"The Flesh Crayola crayon became Peach in 1962. I bought these on ebay. The life of this crayon inspired the video Crayola Monologues."






So Les Comtesses were discussing a number of different hideous aspects of the assumptions people make about race, skin tone and we somehow arrived at the dreaded "Flesh" color Crayola Crayon issue. Since I work with a lot of children of children of color, at least one of whom has complained that she is "not pink" and that her foster siblings "aren't pink" and "why don't they make crayons for them", I decided to check out Crayola's Multicultural Skin Tones Crayons. On Amazon, the Amazon Prime box of 8 crayons is $7.35. Yes, that's right, $7.35 for free Amazon shipping. (For comparison a box of 64 crayons with the same Prime shipping is $5.99 and the Prime 8-count regular color set that is comparable to that shown below is only $4.35) The cheapest box of the 8 Crayola multicultural colors that I could find was $2.09 but would take several days extra "processing" time, but that's still a third of the cost of a box of 64 crayons and I'm still stunned. Of course, there's the Prang brand set, a seeming bargain at only $0.70 until I count in the $4.58 in shipping costs. (Hey one listing for the Crayola's has the price of the pack at $3.19 and $5.49 in shipping) One of the Comtesses found Sargent brand, but in the US I could only find them for $1.99 with $7+ shipping on GoogleShopping. All in all, I have to say that multiculturalism is rather pricey, mais non?






Be sure to check out Nathan's Crayola Monologues about how (and why) crayon colors have changed over the past 50-60 years. 





Edited to clarify, since one person has already complained about lack of clarity. This is the Crayola regular color set of which I am speaking:



© Bright Nepenthe, 2011

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