Najma Adam, a social work professor at Northeastern, lamented that “Those of us in society who don’t fit a specific mold, i.e. those who don’t visibly look like the majority, either have to conform or we will continue being “otherized” and marginalized.”
Adam’s quote was in response to a new seven-minute film sweeping the YouTube nation. The documentary by high school student Kiri Davis, entitled A Girl Like Me, won the Diversity Award in the 6th annual Media That Matters Film Festival.
The film is a modern take on the sociological studies done by Kenneth Bancroft Clark and Maimie Phipps Clark in the 1940s. It offers a perspective of what beauty is perceived to be in American culture through the eyes of black children and teenaged black females. It does not offer a definitive solution, but simply tells a story.
In an interview, Davis stated, “For my high-school literature class I was constructing an anthology with a wide range of different stories that I believed reflected the black girl’s experience. ? I also decided to re-conduct the “doll test” initially conducted by Dr. Kenneth Clark, which was used in the historic desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education [1954].”
The original doll test, as explained on finalcall.com in an article titled “New ‘doll test’ produces ugly results,” involved “16 Black children, ages 6 to 9. [The Clarks] asked the children their perception of a White doll and a Black doll. Eleven of the students said the Black doll looked “bad” and nine said the White doll looked “nice.”
The study about children’s attitudes about race grew out of Maimie Clark’s master’s degree thesis. The husband-and-wife team of psychologists studied the attitudes and self-esteem of black children at length , and eventually they were called as expert witnesses in cases such as Briggs v. Elliott (1952) and the more well-known Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Prejudice and Your Child, a book on the studies and the Clarks’ conclusions, was first published in 1955 and is currently available in Northeastern’s library. Although some of the material is outdated, such as legally segregated schools, much of what Clark writes is still true today.
The study contained a lot more than just placing dolls on a table. That was only one aspect of all the research the Clarks compiled.
A collection of essays written by women of diverse backgrounds is also available at Northeastern’s library. Titled Under Her Skin: How Girls Experience Race in America, it offers a similar concept found in A Girl Like Me. It attempts to attain a perceived standard of beauty or acceptance. This collection illustrates that this is not a simple black and white issue; rather cultural differences set all children at odds with each other.
Kenneth Clark once said, “I think that whites and blacks should be taught to respect their fellow human beings as an integral part of being educated.”
Education takes on many forms: cultural, media, institutional, etc. Cultural education at all levels is important. Despite strong messages against racism and segregation, it still has a hold on American life.
An essay called Black Women and the Politics of Skin and Hair, published in 1987, and the 2006 A Girl Like Me broadcast the evidence that “colorism” continues to be a prevalent issue.
Maryn Mishler, a University of Michigan student stated, “It’s strange to think that the prejudices and stereotypes are still around when everyone is so aware of the problem. I mean, I’ve been hearing about this kind of thing and how wrong it is for my entire life and so have the majority of the population, yet here they are still. Makes me wonder if these stereotypes will ever go away.”
A Girl Like Me can be viewed at either http://youtube.com or http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org. There is information about the filmmaker, Kiri Davis, and an online discussion about the film available at the latter.