Yesterday, ABC’s Good Morning America decided to bring back the famous doll test by asking a group of Black children questions like “Which one would you prefer?” and “Which on is prettiest?”
What a Doll Tells Us About Race
“GMA” recreated a famous doll experiment, which gave insight into race relations and the self-esteem of children.
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Sixty years and one biracial president later, “GMA” gathered 19 black children, ranging in age from 5 to 9 years old, in Norfolk, Va.
Some of our results differed vastly from those of the original experiment. For example, 88 percent of our children happily identified with the dark-skinned doll.
Forty-two percent of the children wanted to play with the black doll compared to 32 percent for the white doll.
“GMA” then moved on to that question about which doll is nice and which is not. Sixty years ago, 56 percent of the children chose the white doll. The majority of our kids chose black or both and 32 percent chose the white doll.
The GMA story later admits that all the Black boys surveyed felt that both dolls were alike–one not prettier than the other.
Despite the improvement of results since the initial doll test conducted by sociologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, not surprising to me ABC chose to focus on the smaller percentage of kids who preferred the White doll over the Black one.
To me, the “doll test” of today is bogus because it indirectly makes it less of a family structure issue and more of a problem that society must fix. Self-esteem is primarily constructed in the home. More often than not, if stability isn’t there then the child is going to have a hard time building self-confidence throughout most of their life. This applies to all children. As it pertains to Black children, we can start with the seemingly never-ending cycle of children who are born in single-parented homes. Next, we can deal with the issue of colorism in the Black community. This issue showed up again towards the end of Barack Obama’s run for the Presidency. Black women all over the net and beyond were praising Pres. Barack for choosing a “authentic Black woman” as his wife (pertaining to her dark skin complexion).
We can deal with the dolls later.
But have you noticed? Where is the doll test between White dolls with freckles vs. dolls without them? How about dolls with red hair vs. dolls with blonde hair? Tall dolls vs. short? Fat vs. skinny? Blue eyes vs. brown eyes? Why only conduct these preference test with Black children? I’ve had it with both the media constant portrayal of Black children as genetically damaged and Black folks who peddle these stories believing that they are actually doing the rest of us a favor.
For years White women in this country have been tanning themselves to get darker skin and going to plastic surgeons to enhance butt size, breast size and lip size. And ABC is doing a doll test on us?????
How about Asian women who bleach their skin?
But as soon as a Black woman straps on a weave, she is the one with issues that go all the way back to slavery.
Think about that.
Related
According to this professor, the lack of self-confidence is a major reason why girls shy away from math and science. Here is a quick excerpt of her conclusions.
New research by a team that includes vocational psychologists at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) indicates that the self-confidence instilled by parents and teachers is more important for young girls learning math and science than their initial interest.
Black Women Students Far Outnumber Black Men at the Nation’s Highest-Ranked Universities
They’ve got the power: women entrepreneurs are a powerful economic force, having grown nearly 8 million strong in numbers (1996)
Black Women Business Owners Gain Market
A few years ago, I conducted a “doll test” on my little girl.
Affirmation Deficit
What the doll test DOESN’T reflect
by Duane on April 2nd, 2009 at 11:22 amThe GMA story later admits that all the Black boys surveyed felt that both dolls were alike–one not prettier than the other.
Despite the improvement of results since the initial doll test conducted by sociologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, not surprising to me ABC chose to focus on the smaller percentage of kids who preferred the White doll over the Black one.
To me, the “doll test” of today is bogus because it indirectly makes it less of a family structure issue and more of a problem that society must fix. Self-esteem is primarily constructed in the home. More often than not, if stability isn’t there then the child is going to have a hard time building self-confidence throughout most of their life. This applies to all children. As it pertains to Black children, we can start with the seemingly never-ending cycle of children who are born in single-parented homes. Next, we can deal with the issue of colorism in the Black community. This issue showed up again towards the end of Barack Obama’s run for the Presidency. Black women all over the net and beyond were praising Pres. Barack for choosing a “authentic Black woman” as his wife (pertaining to her dark skin complexion).
We can deal with the dolls later.
But have you noticed? Where is the doll test between White dolls with freckles vs. dolls without them? How about dolls with red hair vs. dolls with blonde hair? Tall dolls vs. short? Fat vs. skinny? Blue eyes vs. brown eyes? Why only conduct these preference test with Black children? I’ve had it with both the media constant portrayal of Black children as genetically damaged and Black folks who peddle these stories believing that they are actually doing the rest of us a favor.
For years White women in this country have been tanning themselves to get darker skin and going to plastic surgeons to enhance butt size, breast size and lip size. And ABC is doing a doll test on us?????
How about Asian women who bleach their skin?
But as soon as a Black woman straps on a weave, she is the one with issues that go all the way back to slavery.
Think about that.
Related
According to this professor, the lack of self-confidence is a major reason why girls shy away from math and science. Here is a quick excerpt of her conclusions.
Black Women Students Far Outnumber Black Men at the Nation’s Highest-Ranked Universities
They’ve got the power: women entrepreneurs are a powerful economic force, having grown nearly 8 million strong in numbers (1996)
Black Women Business Owners Gain Market
A few years ago, I conducted a “doll test” on my little girl.
Affirmation Deficit