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Children 'discriminate' based on anything that makes one different from another.. too tall, too fat, too white, too green, etc. Children (like some adults) need to be taught that the real differences between people are only skin deep.
This is some of those "scientific studies" that make you cough while exclaiming "B.S." behind your hand.
Yes children can tell skin colors and shades, but one of the wonderful things about children is that they have no prejudice whatsoever. That ugliness is something that is learned. I would be amazed to learn that these people ever raised any kids. If they did then I would be convinced that they are really dumb or possibly just unobservant.
I think that it is funny when "scientific studies" attempt to convince of of something that is so obviously untrue. Just wait a couple of years. Another "scientific study will come along to prove the opposite is true.
I already posted about this "study" in another thread.
I got to page 5 and was very interested in the findings when this:
"After the two-week history class, the children were surveyed on their racial attitudes. White children who got the full story about historical discrimination had significantly better attitudes toward blacks than those who got the neutered version. Explicitness works. "It also made them feel some guilt," Bigler adds.
"It knocked down their glorified view of white people." They couldn't justify in-group superiority."
These are CHILDREN of which they were writing and they used no examples to demonstrate that these children had a "glorified" view of white people or a sense of superiority. Completely unwarranted and no place for "THAT" view in a scientific study.
I mean to point out that every study in the article the children both black and white reacted the same with slight variance. This piece seemed out of left field and didn't really belong in the article. Again, why would they say the white children had a glorified sense of self when they reacted the same as the black children? The people conducting these studies were looking for racism and were had some preconcieved notions about the white children as well. Shame on them and I wouldn't let them around my children for any amount of money in the world.
There is a famous psychological experiment where children are asked to choose between a brown skin baby doll and an identical but peach skinned baby doll and the children whether white or black choose the white doll. They are also asked questions like which doll is nice, which doll is well behaved and the children always choose the white doll. The study has been repeated many times in a variety of forms on American children.
It's not that they are "racist". No one argues that's the case. It's just if you are raised in a society where the predominant depiction of normalcy and beauty is Caucasian, an internalization of that "lesson" is observed time and time again.
In the African American community, we have been aware of this for a looong time. Toni Morrison's book "The Bluest Eye" discoursed on the subject decades ago. Our women straighten their hair. Hair that is more wavy as opposed to tightly curled is often called "good hair". Chris Rock is releasing a movie called "Good Hair" this fall, it addresses the issue.
Black folks in the Caribbean and in Africa have markedly higher levels of self esteem than African Americans. I visited Ghana earlier this year. The difference is striking and noticed in the way that that carry themselves and interact with one another. Compared to AAs, they exuberate confidence.
People often note that every minority group that immigrates to America leaps over African Americans in terms of educational and economic achievement. This is also true about African immigrants to the States. African immigrants to America attain higher levels of education and professional career status than AAs and every other group for that matter including Asians, who are colloquially believed to be the Model Minority. (Wikipedia: Model Minority)
Evidence of other communities attempting to adopt a European standard of beauty is also noted in Asian societies, where eye lid widening is a common medical procedure.
Our media teaches us a lot of negative stereotypes about black people. They are over-represented as criminals and clowns. The hip hop does not help. A lot of us are trying to work with our community to address our issues, I'm offended when people put us down because we have less money and test lower in school et cetera. I mean c'mon. We've been here since the founding of the nation, unable to own property, for hundreds of years, then the Jim Crow and the segregation and the racism, we're starting the race hundreds of years after the gun. We need some time. It's a disrupted culture. The whole culture (AA) is probably suffering from post traumatic oppression syndrome.
Look at the Native Americans, the Maori, the Aborigines, the First Nations. You go to New Zealand and them Kiwis are like, "we don't know what's wrong with the Maori, we give them all this welfare and everything and all they want to do is be impoverished and commit crimes" and in Australia, they act like the Aborigines are sorry sacks. When your culture is disrupted it takes time to rebuild, but darn it we are rebuilding, it's just going to take some time, folks have to develop a brand new culture, deal with issues of how much to assimilate. It's complicated.
I know this became a bit of a rant, but anyone out there reading this, if you tend to be hard on us marginalized groups of people, just chill okay, we will build and we will be strong and beautiful and healthy: mentally, spiritually, and emotionally again, but it takes time. I live in Georgia, I met some older gentlemen the other day; they were like in their 50s or something, dude, they grew up on a white man's farm, as SHARECROPPERS. Their momma had like 10 kids cuz it helped with work. Our past is not so far back. Okay, and I'm not racist so yo, no mean comments, please. I no likee the drama.
My kids like everyone now. They are 16mo and nearly 3. My son has never been one to like strangers to hold him though, and when he was a baby, he did seem to gravitate towards people with darker skin. (he is pale, blond, and blue eyes) I wouldn't call it discrimination, I'd call it attraction.
Yeah, I too, posted in the other thread. I am not sure that those kids would have felt guilt and frankly, why the hell would that be the goal? Having said that, the author of that article did not conduct those studies he went and "talked" to the people that did the research.
There were things that I did agree with but if the ultimate goal of some of those studies were precisely what he defined them as, a lot of people should be beaten with really heavy textbooks on sociological methods and research.
I agree, study is BS. Racism is something that can only be taught or learned through first hand experience.
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