Split between heartbreak and rage

[sylvar]

This video, "A Girl Like Me", is probably only news to white people. But I wish everyone would watch it (it's a little over 7 minutes).

Comments

[dragonbane]

You're going to have to sell it a bit better than that. :P

[sylvar]

OK, it's about an experiment performed as part of the Brown v. Board of Education case in which young black children were asked to choose between a black doll and a white doll, and asked "Which doll is nice?" "Which doll is bad?" "Why?" "Which one looks like you?"

The filmmaker re-ran the experiment and also talked to her peers (around 17 years old) about blackness, identity, and beauty.

[whispersessions]

It is news to me that there are dark-skinned girls that try to lighten thier skin, considering all my life every light-skinned person I've known has usually made an effort to darken thier complexion. They go out to tanning booths or the beach for hours.

The "doll test" was a surprise to me. I have to admit, that was a little sad, but what explains these children's decisions? They cannot understand thier decisions, and they have no idea or context by which to fudge thier choices. You can't fault them for what they think or how they feel.

Can it be that they've been treated nicer by white people all thier lives? Maybe by white children? It's a disturbing question, I know, but if that's not the answer, then what is?

[segnbora]

For a deeper look, I recommend Marita Golden's book Don't Play in the Sun, which I read a few years ago. The thing that creeped me out the most is that apparently even women in Africa have been known to use the skin-bleaching stuff. Also, Toni Morrison's 1970 novel The Bluest Eye gets its title from a little black girl's wish to be blonde and blue-eyed.