The Doll Test

In 1954, psychologist Kenneth B. Clark used the "doll test" t help make his case for the desegregation of public schools. Last year, the test was duplicated in Harlem, N.Y. by Kiri Davis, a 17-year-old student of Manhattan's Urban Academy who was participating in the Reel Works Teen Fimmaking program. One reason the film has made it out of the competition and into the news is because of the results of the doll test being so disappointingly the same as those found by Clark. The more some things change, dear god, the more they remain the same.

These results shouldn't be viewed with any superiority/complacency by Canadians, however. I know from firsthand experience that the test would not come out well here, either.

In the late 90's I was teaching in a school in an upscale area of Toronto, and it was there that I had my own sad little intro to the doll phenomenon. A girl in my grade four class had shared her Christmas wish with her mother. She came to me to tell about that wish, and to ask me for help. It seems the mother had asked her daughter if she would like to get a Black Barbie for Christmas. The girl had answered with an emphatic "No!" When asked for an explanation, she told her mother she didn't want an "ugly doll". She wanted a white one, a pretty one that looked just the same as the girl wanted to look when she grew up. The mother was aghast at her daughter's voicing of such a feeling. She felt that the girl might listen more to someone she perceived as a "voice of authority" than to something coming from a home source.

I swung into action immediately, feeling good that the mother thought I could help, and feeling so bad that she even felt the need to come to me. The rest of that school year was spent by my class doing a lot more than just learning the difference between a noun and a verb. We spent a whole lot of time involved in activities meant to nurture the idea of taking pride in yourself, and helping others to do the same. It became a busy, busy year and the rest of it flew by, until the last day arrived and the mother returned.

She brought me a small gift and gave it to me with tears in her eyes. Then she told me what she had come to say and tears came to my eyes, too. She hugged me and told me that her daughter had just asked her for a new doll. Could she have another Barbie, she had asked. Could she have a beautiful Black Barbie, one as special as she was? I will always remember that scene in the classroom that day and the feeling that swept through me with that mother's words.

I feel tears in my eyes again when I watch the video "A Girl Like Me". There is so much left to be done, so much still that needs to be changed. We just can't let it stay the same.