ABC News has a segment where they recreated the famous 1940s experiment by Mamie and Kenneth Clark, in which African American children overwhelmingly preferred to play with a lighter-skinned doll than a darker-skinned one, saying the white doll was prettier. The ABC News experiment results were very different, with the vast majority of African American kids preferring the darker-skinned doll.
On the other hand, in Kiri Davis’s 2006 documentary “A Girl Like Me,” Black teen girls indicate that they still feel that “White” features (such as straight hair) are seen as more attractive and that even other African Americans reinforce the idea that lighter skin and straight hair are preferable (notice the girl talking about her mom’s comments about her hair starting at about a minute in):
[youtube]https://youtu.be/YWyI77Yh1Gg[/youtube]
This might lead to an interesting discussion about beauty standards and the idea of internalized racism–that is, that minority groups in the U.S. (as well as many other nations) are socialized into a set of cultural beauty standards that often depict their physical features as unattractive, or at least less attractive, than Whites, and that non-Whites may apply those beauty standards among themselves (for example, see this post about an African American club promoter who planned a party to which light-skinned girls would get in free).
Of course, there is also evidence that beauty standards among some U.S. racial and ethnic groups may differ from the general standard seen in fashion magazines, on TV, etc. So that brings up an interesting inconsistency: how do we explain the existence of different beauty standards (such as less emphasis on women being very thin) and internal racism? It would be a great topic to open up for discussion–how can both co-exist at the same time? Is it that different sub-groups hold each of those positions, with some groups having more varied beauty standards and others upholding mainstream standards? Or do individuals often express both positions at various times, perhaps finding a wider range of body sizes attractive but also preferring “White” hair and facial features? If you know of scholars that have specifically tried to explain this, I’d love to know about them.
UPDATE: Commenter Dubi adds,
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.In addition, it should be noted that the two dolls in the experiment were identical in all but skin colour, so things like hairstyle or facial features don’t get factored it. It is wholly possible that people do not judge people anymore by the colour of their skin, but things that are more “changeable” like hair colour and style are still seen as indicative of other qualities. This, of course, requires further study.
Comments 29
Anonymous — April 13, 2009
the most depressing part had to be where the little girl realized she looked like the "bad" doll even though she knew she was a good kid.
Victor — April 13, 2009
Anon, that's just about what I was going to say. I think the girls on the video have pretty much said it all: you can be beautiful being black, but it's just so much easier doing so by being white--and many of the characteristics of being beautiful as black person are actually importing them from white people's "natural" look. That's insane. And should be awful having to deal with this messed up conscience.
Susanne — April 13, 2009
It seems like a lot of the beauty standards discussed are not just segregating race, but body types in general. The beauty standard is a skinny, blonde, straight-haired white girl. But not all white people are blonde, and not all white people have straight hair, and not all white people are skinny. It seems to be a big mix of a variety of features (including skin color, which is the touchiest subject because that's not something a little hair dye, straighter, or exercise could change) that are scrutinized. I know I'm guilty of straightening my hair after a shower, because I think it's unattractive in its natural state, but I'm Irish. It seems a lot of people from any ethnicity try to conform to these beauty standards.
Dubi — April 13, 2009
Well, the answer can be in that one was a scientific(?) experiment while the other one is a documentary. I.e., one had randomly picked girls who displayed the behaviour as it is distributed in the population, while the other one hand-picked those girls who said what the documentarist wanted to show. This is not to say that either shows a false depiction of reality - both groups surely exist, and the documentary does an important service in focusing on those girls who do experience these things, but this is a situation in flux, and it is obviously slowly moving from the extremes of the classical experiment towards the opposite end.
In addition, it should be noted that the two dolls in the experiment were identical in all but skin colour, so things like hairstyle or facial features don't get factored it. It is wholly possible that people do not judge people anymore by the colour of their skin, but things that are more "changeable" like hair colour and style are still seen as indicative of other qualities. This, of course, requires further study.
Gwen Sharp, PhD — April 13, 2009
Dubi--
Great points. I wasn't thinking about the contradictions between these two specific items so much as that while I was writing the post I realized I've read peer-reviewed articles providing evidence for both claims, and I can't remember ever seeing anything that reviews the literature and tries to explain what's going on there.
I added the second part of your comment to the original post.
mike. — April 13, 2009
don't forget too that kids all too often just want to be different-- kids with brown eyes want to have blue eyes, girls with straight hair want it to be curly and vice versa. oftentimes i think, the idea of a black girl wanting straight hair is less "wanting-to-be-white" than simply "wanting-to-be-different". that's not to say that there isn't some sort of racism going on here, of course. but white girls often want to be tan (i.e. darker) in much the same way black girls want to be lighter, too..
chuk — April 13, 2009
Bummer you guys took down the Amazon fiasco post. Following the link provided by Tommy, and some of the links associated with it, seemed to open up this whole other side of the internet.
Of course it makes sense. Like the infrastructure of the city, people design and build all of it, and people are perpetually writing the code that the internet runs on. That politics and egos are involved, probably shouldn't surprise me.
Gwen Sharp, PhD — April 13, 2009
Chuk--
Do you meant this post? http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/10/27/obama-mask-listed-as-terrorist-costume-by-amazon/
eternal-llama — April 13, 2009
>>but white girls often want to be tan (i.e. darker) in much the same way black girls want to be lighter, too<<
People often look at these situations as interchangeable, but they aren't. A white person who tans is still white. They are not trying to emulate people of colour when they tan, but light skin may be more valued for a black person because it is closer to that white ideal and hence more attractive then someone who is naturally darker. This isn't new. For many blacks the appeal of lighter skin can be traced back to colonialism.
I think the tanning craze is fairly recent in comparison though I may be wrong.
Some of you might enjoy this shakesville post on the subject. I don't know if they OP might want to link to it:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/04/lighter-is-better.html
chuk — April 13, 2009
Nope. The post reported on this:
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/04/amazon-sales-ra.html
And the comment, this:
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/04/hacker-claims-c.html
Echo — April 13, 2009
I think Chuk was talking about the Amazon post you folks had about how books on the gay and lesbian community had been de-rated. It was posted by (I think?) jeremy. It also had a link to this blog: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-deranks-gayfriendly-books-the-twitterverse-notices.html
macon d — April 13, 2009
Thanks for the link to the "Good Morning America" piece. I thought it was a horrific effort to put a good spin on things.
I gather you couldn't embed it? I poked around at the site and tried to figure out how to do so--if anyone can figure that out, I'd appreciate hearing how to do it, as I'd like to post that segment on my blog.
Bagelsan — April 13, 2009
don’t forget too that kids all too often just want to be different– kids with brown eyes want to have blue eyes, girls with straight hair want it to be curly and vice versa.
Yeah, but I'm white and somehow my desire to look different *never* took the form of darker skin/darker eyes/wider nose/curlier hair... Anything but. I wanted straighter hair. I was proud of my bright blue eyes. I was praised for my very smooth light skin. Sometimes I wanted to be blond. No one ever suggested that I'd look prettier if I tried to look blacker (I'm sure it never even occurred to them as a goal at all!); the pressure to conform is definitely not a 2-way street, with girls of different races swapping in equal numbers.
mike — April 14, 2009
it's not that it's a two-way street, but the desire to look different and unique from one's race is hardly limited to black girls.
Dubi — April 14, 2009
mike - wanting to look different, yes, but in which direction? If black girls want to be whiter with straight hair, and brunettes want blond hair, and if girls with wavy hair want straight hair - we can see a pattern. Now, the question is, what do blonds with straight hair want to be like?
Cedar — April 14, 2009
I know this is only one kid, and therefore not indicative of a larger societal change, but I just want to share this study. I work at an after school program, and was helping a black second grade girl fill out a survey for the program including a question about race. She was confused by it, because one of her grandparents was white, and didn't know whether she should put white and black. And here's the thing: she REALLY wanted to put black; she liked being black, she identified as black, she thought being black was really cool. But she also liked her grandma. After much hemming and hewing, she finally decided that she thought of herself as black, and she was really happy with that. I had watched this video for the first time not too long before this interaction, and I found it heartening.
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