American supermarket chain Walmart has received flak for selling black Barbie dolls at a lesser price than white Barbies.

A new pic on the website FunnyJunk.com shows Mattel's darker-skinned Ballerina Theresa dolls priced 3 dollars alongside a row of white-skinned dolls on sale for 5.93dollars.

The picture has a caption "I Love my Wal-Mart".

It is assumed that the pic was taken in a Louisiana branch of the store.

A spokeswoman for the chain said that the dolls were marked for clearance before new stocks arrived.

"To prepare for spring inventory, a number of items are marked for clearance," the Telegraph quoted her as saying.

She said: "Both are great dolls. The red price sticker indicates that this particular doll was on clearance when the photo was taken."

However, Theresa Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, disagrees.

She said: "The implication of lowering the price is that it's devaluing the black doll.

"While it's clear that's not what was intended, sometimes these things have collateral damage."

Lisa Wade, an assistant sociology professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles added: "It's really important that we as a company don't send a message that we value blackness less than whiteness". (ANI)