Black Girl / White Doll: It Starts in the Home

Why African Americans Are Partially Responsible for Our Children's Low Self Esteem

A test was conducted in the 1950's by Kenneth B. Clark that helped to make the case for racial desegregation. It showed that black girls thought so little of themselves that they preferred white dolls to black dolls. The test was recently repeated by a 17-year-old film student named Kira Davis. The results of the second test were identical to the first.

Why?

One could say that racism has not changed; it is just not as blatant. One could say that images we see in the media warp black children conception of what is beauty. One could say that black girls are ridiculed when they things like they want to be a Princess because "Princesses are not black". I say this problem of little black girls thinking less than themselves starts in the home.

• When little black girls are told they cannot have white dolls it makes the doll become taboo and sought after.
  
• When little black girls hear their parents say they have 'bad hair', it makes them see the straight hair their white neighbor has as good hair.
  
• When little black girls hear their mothers complain about a black man with a white woman, it suddenly becomes a big deal.
  
• When little black girls hear their parents make fun of someone who is extremely dark, they figure the lighter a person is, the better a person is.
  
• When a little black girl hears family discuss that a black person has to work twice as hard to make it in the world, she begins to wish she were white.

Personally, I do not understand why everyone is so surprised by the result of the new test. While rules that make black people sit at the back of the bus, and black children go to separate schools have been abolished. We as black people, still isolate ourselves by forming black only clicks, and continue to take a back seat on the bus of life.