The story of that video has been all over the news but this is the first time I've seen the actual clip.
I was surprised when, several years ago, I bought the girls black baby dolls as part of their Christmas.
They paid almost no attention to them. I don't know if it was because Elcie is the only one who has ever played much with dolls (the other two are much more into outdoor things) or if there was some other motive.
I was disappointed.
I was even more disappointed when one of the girls needed family photos for a school "family tree". I asked their maternal grandmother for some pictures of her and her husband. She said that she didn't want the girls to have problems because of color and that if they could "pass", it would be better for them. I was blown away and said so.
This woman is a retired teacher with a master's degree. Her husband worked for the same company for 30 years before retiring. Marvelous role models but all she could see was color.
I don't have a solution but it's sad to see that in some ways so little has changed in 50 years.
It is very sad and very disturbing. All we as parents can do is to start to try to change things at home. As you saw the 1st doll I got for Alyssa was brown. Christopher loved the doll. It has to start at this age and if I have to say it everyday, several times a day, to them that they are beautiful children I will.
Strangely my mother never understood why it was so important for me to get a darker skinned doll. She simply had no clue but I knew what I was doing and why. I have to share this with my other message board. I had never seen this clip before.
Right now Alyssa isn't into to dolls period. She's all about a stuffed animal. So even though I bought the dark skinned doll for her and the boy took to it, I feel like I have achieved something regardless of how small it may seem.
That video makes me sad. My child will play with any doll. But my husband once said to me "why did you buy our daughter a white looking doll, we aren't white?" My husband would rather our daughter play with dolls that look more like her I guess.
Wow, I'd never seen or heard about this before. It's interesting. I grew up in a mixed area and my best friend and I played with dolls of both colors. I don't remember ever thinking anything of it, and I doubt she did either.
My daughter's first doll was brown and she played with that doll all the time. And then over time she accumulated more and more, some brown, some white. I actually remember seeing this cool doll at Costco once that looked so lifelike and she really really wanted one and she was bummed because we couldn't find a brown one. So she got the white one instead.
As heartbreaking as the study is, I do wonder if we'd get different results doing the study in different communities. I can't imagine getting those results from the kids in the area I grew up in, but maybe you would. And I guess that doesn't really help anyway. The fact that there are any kids out there that view a different race as "nice" is unfortunate.
I agree with the comment above about doing the study in different communities. I am sure there will be different results.
I would also be curious to know how these kids felt playing with real kids both black & white and if the whole colour issue stemmed over.
Do you think any of those kids would say they preferred to play with a white child as opposed to a black child? Are the black children bad, like the dark skinned dolls?
Well there is a problem with what they see on the TV. All this has contributed to the brainwashing we saw on that video. I am not saying that that is the source of the problem but it doesn't help that the majority of the dolls on the market are white. Only recently have they started to show dark skinned dolls and I must say that even though it's a start I am not impressed. I'm done ranting for now. I may be back later
I am really surprised but at the same time, when I think about it, I am not so surprised by the results of the tests and I think that if they conducted a similar one in Japan using white/Asian dolls, 90% of the kids would pick the white doll and that makes me kind of sad. I wonder what the results would be if the same test was done in the UK?
7 comments:
The story of that video has been all over the news but this is the first time I've seen the actual clip.
I was surprised when, several years ago, I bought the girls black baby dolls as part of their Christmas.
They paid almost no attention to them. I don't know if it was because Elcie is the only one who has ever played much with dolls (the other two are much more into outdoor things) or if there was some other motive.
I was disappointed.
I was even more disappointed when one of the girls needed family photos for a school "family tree". I asked their maternal grandmother for some pictures of her and her husband. She said that she didn't want the girls to have problems because of color and that if they could "pass", it would be better for them. I was blown away and said so.
This woman is a retired teacher with a master's degree. Her husband worked for the same company for 30 years before retiring. Marvelous role models but all she could see was color.
I don't have a solution but it's sad to see that in some ways so little has changed in 50 years.
It is very sad and very disturbing. All we as parents can do is to start to try to change things at home. As you saw the 1st doll I got for Alyssa was brown. Christopher loved the doll. It has to start at this age and if I have to say it everyday, several times a day, to them that they are beautiful children I will.
Strangely my mother never understood why it was so important for me to get a darker skinned doll. She simply had no clue but I knew what I was doing and why. I have to share this with my other message board. I had never seen this clip before.
Right now Alyssa isn't into to dolls period. She's all about a stuffed animal. So even though I bought the dark skinned doll for her and the boy took to it, I feel like I have achieved something regardless of how small it may seem.
That video makes me sad. My child will play with any doll. But my husband once said to me "why did you buy our daughter a white looking doll, we aren't white?"
My husband would rather our daughter play with dolls that look more like her I guess.
Wow, I'd never seen or heard about this before. It's interesting. I grew up in a mixed area and my best friend and I played with dolls of both colors. I don't remember ever thinking anything of it, and I doubt she did either.
My daughter's first doll was brown and she played with that doll all the time. And then over time she accumulated more and more, some brown, some white. I actually remember seeing this cool doll at Costco once that looked so lifelike and she really really wanted one and she was bummed because we couldn't find a brown one. So she got the white one instead.
As heartbreaking as the study is, I do wonder if we'd get different results doing the study in different communities. I can't imagine getting those results from the kids in the area I grew up in, but maybe you would. And I guess that doesn't really help anyway. The fact that there are any kids out there that view a different race as "nice" is unfortunate.
I agree with the comment above about doing the study in different communities. I am sure there will be different results.
I would also be curious to know how these kids felt playing with real kids both black & white and if the whole colour issue stemmed over.
Do you think any of those kids would say they preferred to play with a white child as opposed to a black child? Are the black children bad, like the dark skinned dolls?
Well there is a problem with what they see on the TV. All this has contributed to the brainwashing we saw on that video. I am not saying that that is the source of the problem but it doesn't help that the majority of the dolls on the market are white. Only recently have they started to show dark skinned dolls and I must say that even though it's a start I am not impressed. I'm done ranting for now. I may be back later
I love all the comments!!!! Thank you Ladies :)
I am really surprised but at the same time, when I think about it, I am not so surprised by the results of the tests and I think that if they conducted a similar one in Japan using white/Asian dolls, 90% of the kids would pick the white doll and that makes me kind of sad. I wonder what the results would be if the same test was done in the UK?
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