Barbie, a fashion doll manufactured by the American toy company Mattel, has taken it upon herself to sit down and have real talk about racism with her friend Nikki in the Dreamhouse in the latest episode of YouTube’s “Barbie Vlogs”.

After George Floyd’s horrific death on May 25 this year, there started an upsurge surrounding racism and racial violence that systematically plagues our society. 

What everyone reiterated in unison was that it is only education and awareness that can help us to fight the pre-existing evil.

In almost a three-minute-long video, Nikki talked about her struggles of facing racial bias on regular occasions and Barbie poured all her heart into attentively listening to those incidents, proving the importance of validating others’ experiences. 

“Barbie and I had a sticker-selling contest on the beach last month. We split up and went our separate directions to see who could sell the most. While I was on the boardwalk, beach security stopped me three times,” Nikki shared. “The security officer thought I was doing something bad, even though I was doing exactly the same thing that you [Barbie] were doing.”

On another occasion, Nikki narrated how she was belittled by a teacher who remarked that she only aced a French club quiz because she “got lucky.”

When a pensive Barbie asked her friend why she didn’t “prove him wrong”, Nikki remarked that she is exhausted.

“I don’t want to constantly prove and re-prove myself,” Nikki said. “He supported you right from the beginning and didn’t support me.”

“Usually when I talk about these things, people make excuses…People did these things to me because I was Black and they made the wrong assumptions about me.”

Over the years, Mattel have used their ever-growing platform to empower girls by building conversations around gender equality and mental health.  

“Barbie is championing gender equality to help close the racial injustice barrier girls face through the Dream Gap and this is one way the brand is addressing it,” Mattel said in a statement to CNN.

“The goal of the episode is to help girls to understand that there is a huge movement going on in the fight against racism, why people are marching together and the importance of reading and learning more about Black history,” Mattel adding.

Priorly, Mattel and Barbie had often faced criticism for their inappropriate representation, however, with more than 9.6 million subscribers, the official Youtube page of Barbie has been cultivating a new generation on how to engage with social issues with consideration and kindness.