I must admit that I am often annoyed by the fact that racism is still an issue in our society. I am a firm believer, even after what I am about to tell you, that racism only exists because we allow it to.
However, today I was intrigued by an article (obviously meant to intrigue) on MSNBC.com; it was a picture of a little girl pointing at a black baby doll (as opposed to a white baby doll). The picture was captioned "Which doll is the bad doll?"
I must admit that I rolled my eyes at this picture. What more can society do to create racism and keep its heart beating?
Being the type of person I am, I clicked the link. Mostly because I like to be angry, but also because some deep, dark part of me wanted to see why the black doll was a bad baby.
I've never been so glad that I clicked a link. The link took me to a video: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24076709#24076709.
Children were put in a room with two identical dolls save for their skin color: one was a white doll and one was a black doll. This study has, apparently, been done since the 1930s; black children were asked questions like, "which is the bad doll?" "Which is the ugly doll?" "Which is the mean doll?" and the children they showed pointed to the black doll. Black children were also asked, "which is the nice doll?" "which is the pretty doll?" "which is the good doll?" and, as you can probably guess, the children pointed to the white baby doll.
Every bit of anger and annoyance at the idea of racism was washed from me. I was overwhelmed with sadness and guilt for my feelings towards racism in the past.
I realized that my annoyance stemmed from adults and their racism; I still believe that racism only exists because we allow it to, but now I can really see who is affected by us allowing racism to exist. Children, innocent and blind to the world of racism, are still exposed and affected by that world.
The look on the faces of the children as they pointed to the ugly black doll or the pretty white doll was heart breaking. The children, who at first seemed giggly at the fact they were being questioned, were washed with sadness and shame when they pointed to the dolls.
We, as a society, may not realize what we are doing. We don't understand that the way we educate our children, the cartoons we let them watch, and the books we let them read affect the way they think and are the reason racism still exists.
Yes, I am still a firm believer that racism only exists because we allow it. But now I realize that we allow it without even knowing it.
We are creating racists. We are creating children with low self esteem and a false idea of beauty and superiority. We are the reason the racism exists, and we don't even know it.
If we can help people realize that we really are the problem, that we as blacks, as whites, as Latinos and as Asians and as any other race you can think of, are the problem, then we can begin to change the world of racism.
Only when we realize that we are the problem can we begin to fix it.
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What we teach children is as important as what we DON"T teach them. When kids don't see people who look like them in the curriculum, they make assumptions about the value of people of color. Then couple that with the types of images they DO see on TV and in other media, and it isn't so hard to see how a child of color might come to believe that the black baby will grow up to be bad.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
That's one of the things they touched on in the video.
If kids grow up seeing images of white history, of white beauty, of white success, even though it doesn't directly promote racism, they still see any other race as inferior.
I agree. If I was going to be an elementary school teacher, I'd make some plans to change the curriculum. However I would have to manipulate the mandated curriculum, I would do it, just so my students got a broad perspective. I plan to do that in my high school or middle school classroom... I know there are things I am supposed to teach, but expanding horizons is never a bad thing.
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You are the Voice of the Childwen of the Revowution! [Toulouse, Moulin Rouge]
It's called "culturally responsive teaching." My graduate program has an urban teaching focus, so there is an emphasis on representation. We're learning that any lesson can be taught with an eye toward equal representation. I've found lesson plans for MATH classes that make the subject culturally responsive. Teaching "diversity" as a unit doesn't make kids feel safe, welcome, or valued. Seeing themselves interwoven in the curriculum does. And in fact, there is some evidence that expanding horizons raises test scores.
I wrote a blog along those lines a while back. It's about a school that teaches a social justice curriculum. They're an urban school, low-SES, and they have no achievement gap! It was called Kids and Controversy. Here's a link, if you're interested:
http://progressiveu.org/110619-kids-and-controversy
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
I can't tell you how excited and pleased I am that someone is with me that "diversity" as a subject is nothing but a subject; I am so happy to see that I will soon be learning how to integrate it into the classroom.
I can't wait to read that blog!
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Your Tongue is a Rudder; It Steers the Whole Ship, Sends Your Words Past Your Lips or Keeps Them Safe Behind Your Teeth... [Brand New]
I think you clearly made a good point in your admission. When we take a look at ourselves and come to the realization that we've been raised by the people around us (and television is a great babysitter) with a lot of really negative things that continue to poison society and generations of our children. When we focus on exactly where we got those crazy ideas that somehow the black baby doll is the bad one, or that a white man hurt grandpa really bad and so all white people are hurtful...when we realize that those problems weren't ours, that not one single black person did anything bad to us, and not one single white person ever called us that awful name. Then we stop perpetuating the hate. Sometimes we have to ignore the things the people we love are capable of putting into our heads.
Good post, I'm glad you saw the video. I guess I really don't have anything to say except that what you just said/ experienced is something I wish would happen to everyone.
“I hope the departure is joyful and I hope never to return.” - Frida Kahlo
"I'm the Map, I'm the Map, I'm the Map, I'm the Map" - The Map