I think kids can be seen as the ultimate test of how far our society has come, and judging by this video, it's not very far. After Shawna spoke about the documentary she watched on a doll test, I remembered an Anderson Cooper special I watched on CNN last year. It chronicles several children of different races responding to the same questions, with the same images in front of them, with the same interviewer. I think the results are quite shocking and demonstrate that many Black children see the color of their skin as something a teacher or adult wouldn't like. One little Black girl specifically demonstrated that she wasn't detached from the illustration of the girl on the page. I think this is a really eye-opening documentary and it proves that not only are kids aware of the differences in skin color, but also the negative prejudices and racist attitudes attributed to them. Where do kids pick up these kids of thoughts and how do we stop them?
One of the cornerstones of the Black Panther Party's Free Breakfast program was to get kids to come together and learn acceptance, both of self and of each other. I saw a clip of the documentary "Eyes On the Prize" filming kids at this program (which allowed both White and Black kids to have a free breakfast) and I was really moved by the part in which the Black children are standing together being lead in a sort of "Black is beautiful" mantra. These kids were being taught to see that they were beautiful, disregarding the negative attitude an ugly society pushed on them.
This study included kids of all different skin color. Here's a link to just one of the segments from the Anderson Cooper report:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQACkg5i4AY
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