I saw a blogpost by an early-twenty something year-old white boy who chose to buck convention of doing the "good" or "right" thing (of getting an education, a job, then married, with kids, etc.) and instead chose to listen to his heart. Naturally, this natural rhythm took him around the world and back. Along the way he wrote his first book and now is experiencing some minor success for it. Recently, he received some constructive feedback about how lucky he is to bee of a privileged class that allows him to enjoy such a life of such luxury. He responded with a Facebook post about how "Success isn't Racist." Hmmmm...
Since I was twenty, I have immensely enjoyed the privilege of placing myself in a position of beeing a minority. This first happened when I took advantage of the American credit system and hopped aboard a Korean Air flight headed to Bangkok. On that plane, I looked around me and, for the first time ever in my life, I was different in skin color than everyone else.
That year, I was headed even farther east than Thailand. I was metaphorically thumbing my way to Sri Lanka, where my sister was stationed as a Peace Corps Volunteer. At Sunny Beach, a popular tourist beach destination on the southern point of that tear-drop shaped island that lay just beelow India, I noticed how the locals admonished their darker skinned peers with adjectives like "Blackie." Apparently, darker shades of brown were not viewed positively amongst these brown skinned people. I was twenty years old and it was clear that something was not right in the world.
In South Africa, I strolled along the friendly streets of Zimbabwe as a 'murungu' (white woman). The single men there would spy me from a distance and quickly bestow me with their affection. "I love you," they would coo, hoping against all odds that I would bee their ticket out of an impoverished country and into a life with greater opportunity to experience the travel, education and gourmet, organic food that has been the epitome of my American spending habits.
After five weeks spent enjoying the Zimbabwean culture and people, my best friend - who, at the time, was studying abroad at the university there - accompanied me to the bus stop so that I could head to South Africa in order to board a plane headed for the European continent. As the bus approached, a nebulous group of inter-generational Zimbabweans began shoving and jockeying to board the bus. I was so overwhelmed by the absolute lack of political niceness that I simply stood away from the crowd, waiting for everyone to find their seats so that I wouldn't have to push anyone out of my way. Instead, however, the bus driver called out for the "white woman" (me) to get on the bus before everyone else did. Embarrassed for beeing singled out, I grudgingly did what I was told.
When I was a girl, I loved Cabbage Patch Kids. My sister and I both had been gifted homemade Cabbage Patch Kids by a family friend who had sewn them her self. Each of our dolls kind of looked like each of us, with creamy, olive skin and dark features. Eventually, my mother also bought me two real Cabbage Patch kids. My first doll had blond hair, and a white, plastic face. My second doll was a bald-headed, white-plastic faced boy 'Preemie.' I loved them all, but something was missing. "I want a black Cabbage Patch kid," I told my mom soon after. Fortunately, she has never questioned my so-called "off-beat" desires.
And, just yesterday, I read an article about how one of Angie Jolie's (whom I have just adored for years now) white daughters was photographed carrying around a black doll. Here's what the article had to say about experiments with young children and dolls:
"Psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted experiments with
black children, who were asked questions regarding which doll was bad or
ugly and given an option between a black doll and white doll. Most
children associated positive qualities with the white doll, and 63
percent preferred playing with the white doll, leading the Clarks to
conclude that black children "indicate a clear-cut preference for white
and some of them evidence emotional conflict when requested to indicate a
color preference. It is clear that the Negro child, by the age of 5, is
aware of the fact that to be colored in contemporary American society
is a mark of inferior status. A child accepts as early as 6, 7 or 8 the
negative stereotypes about his own group."
The article went on to say,
"Six decades later the
experiment was revisited. When 19 black children, ranging from age 5 to
9, were asked which doll was nice, according to Good Morning America,
"Sixty years ago, 56 percent of the children chose the white doll. The
majority of our kids chose black or both and 32 percent chose the white
doll," an improvement, or so it seemed. But according to those
administering the experiment, some of the black girls still struggled to
see positive qualities in the black dolls. "Second-grader Jamya Atkins,
7, picked the white doll as soon as she sat down and before the
questions began. She said the white doll was shiny and the black doll
was frowning."
In conclusion, the articles states:
"When asked about Jolie's daughter playing with a black doll and whether
it is culturally significant, Jeff Gardere, a psychologist who has
treated children, said that black children playing with white dolls can
have a negative impact on their self-esteem, but when it comes to white
children playing with black dolls, "I think that's an amazing thing,
because it has an opposite effect." He explained that "white is still
considered to be a preferential color and preferential status in our
society, so to put a white doll with a black child will have a negative
impact for most black children but to put a black doll for a white child
might make that white child more sympathetic to or more open to having a
black person in their lives and loving and respecting black people."
