Social commentators, business analysts and ethicists are tying themselves into logical and philosophical knots trying to explain exactly what is so wrong in 2010 with Walmart cutting the price of its black Barbie doll, which has not been selling well at its current price, while leaving the price of its white Barbie, which has been selling, almost twice as high.

“I fully respect retailers rights to mark things down as they see fit but I also think they need to look at the bigger picture,” retail analyst Lori Wachs told ABC News. “I think there are certain things companies have to be sensitive about and clearly this was one of them.”  Harvard University professor William Julius Wilson told “Good Morning America” that Walmart should have kept the dolls at equal prices in an effort not to “reproduce whatever ugly inequalities are out there.”  Echoing the same theme, Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, a Harlem, N.Y. organization, said, “The implication of the lowering of the price is that’s devaluing the black doll.”  Walmart should have recognized that it’s really important that the company doesn’t “send a message that [society values] blackness less than whiteness,” chimed in Lisa Wade, an assistant sociology professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles and the founder of the blog Sociological Images.

An old Chinese saying reminds us that when the only tool we have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The critics, who, like so many who don’t have to shop there, are always looking for ways to nail Walmart, are now apparently arguing that the stores should pioneer affirmative action pricing. They think the sensitive thing is to charge black families more for a doll because they will appreciate the psychic message of the higher price more than the dollar benefits of the lower. This theory, argument or brain cramp fails any rational analysis.

It would follow from these comments that African Americans would enjoy even higher self-esteem if the black Barbies were priced higher than the white dolls. Well, no, that would be discrimination…and probably illegal. See, it’s ethical to double the price for black dolls if the final price equals that of its white counterpart, but offensive and wrong to raise it any higher.

Oh!

Huh???

Of course, all Walmart cares about is selling dolls, not wandering in the mazes of social science navel-gazing. So once it makes the price so high that the dolls don’t sell at all, won’t children who see Walmart shelves stuffed with unsold black Barbies while the white versions are selling like hotcakes conclude that their African American avatars are less desirable? Well, yes that would be bad..Hmmmmm…Okay! Just keep pulling the black dolls off the shelves so it looks like they are popular….more popular, in fact Walmart should understand the social benefit of doing that. But wait—then black parents would be forced to buy white Barbies, because the black ones would be unavailable. That doesn’t work…

Let’s start again! One reason black Barbies aren’t selling as well might be because black families have a lower average income than white families, so perhaps more white families can afford the white dolls while black families choose not to buy the black dolls. So it’s obvious that lowering the price of the black dolls doesn’t address the real…wait a minute. Why can’t we lower those prices again?

Oh, I remember…because we want to encourage black children to identify with commodities sold by…now that just can’t be right! That’s how we got in this mess in the first place!

What’s going on here?

Here’s what: Walmart has a product that isn’t selling at its current price, and is cutting the price, making a better deal for consumers while clearing its inventory. This is called retail. Children never have to know the comparative price of the dolls, and almost certainly don’t care. They just want a doll. Any parents who are insulted by the lower price—and I have a hard time imagining that—are free to go elsewhere and buy the same doll for twice as much, then make an appointment with a psychiatrist, because this conduct is what specialists call bt the technical term  “nutsy-coo-coo.”

What is happening here is a lot of so-called experts who are looking to find a racial controversy where none exists  are finding ethical fault with conduct that has no wrongful intent and actually benefits the very market the experts say they want to protect.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, a doll is just a doll, and a price is just a price. Walmart is doing nothing that retailers haven’t done for centuries, and it is the only way to run a business. Businesses don’t set prices to send subliminal social messages, and it is unfair for anyone to criticize Walmart when it is conducting business fairly, traditionally, and within its expertise. Do these experts really want Walmart management conducting social experiments on minorities? That is asking for something beyond either the store’s competence or responsibility—sort of like the way retail pricing is outside the expertise of sociology professors and child development specialists. Walmart’s job is to sell stuff, including black Barbies, as best they can, at the price that will sell the most.

There is just nothing unethical about that.