Racial Bias Among Children

[cienaños]

CNN recently conducted a pilot study on how kids see race:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/13/doll.study/index.html

Generally, the results show that dark skin is more often than not associated with negative judgments, such as "bad" or "dumb." Shocking.

Also implied is that these are but reflections of how their parents see race, and perhaps to a lesser extent, how they [the kids] interpret society's attitudes toward race. So I pose this question:

If we agree that racial tolerance is more beneficial to a melting pot society than say, racial prejudice...

...and if we also agree that to unlearn racial prejudice [in adults] is less realistic than to learn racial tolerance [in children], should we not, as a society [taxpayers], demand that public education bend toward the latter?

 

[Tiktaalik]

Public education can bend towards teaching racial tolerance all it wants, but unless TV and other media sources with which children are saturated and the child's parents, church, and other social contacts reinforce that message, it won't work.

I grew up in a small rural area with no TV or radio. About 30% of my elementary school was American Indians, which I know now & can see when I look back at my school pictures, but had no idea about then. All our parents worked at the same place, we were all the same economic class, and we all lived in the same neighborhood in houses that were the same or very similar. Some kids had black hair, some were blond, some had lighter skin, some had darker. I don't recall ever hearing any racial statements of any kind from anybody, child or adult, I grew up around. We moved when I was 14 and it was a real shock to come face-to-face with racial bias.

But, particularly today (this was in the 60s & early 70s) it's not possible for most kids to grow up in such an insular environment (and probably not desirable). Kids are going to be exposed to attitudes from a wide variety of sources. Therefore, while I agree that schools should be pinnacles of racial tolerance (and other types of tolerance), that's just not going to do it.

 

[cienaños]

Public education can bend towards teaching racial tolerance all it wants, but unless TV and other media sources with which children are saturated and the child's parents, church, and other social contacts reinforce that message, it won't work.

[...]

But, particularly today (this was in the 60s & early 70s) it's not possible for most kids to grow up in such an insular environment (and probably not desirable). Kids are going to be exposed to attitudes from a wide variety of sources. Therefore, while I agree that schools should be pinnacles of racial tolerance (and other types of tolerance), that's just not going to do it.

Right. And it's the children who [by definition] grow up and work in "TV or other media." So, in essence, public education remains the only feasible impetus for relatively peaceful change. IMHO.

 

[MikeMangum]

CNN recently conducted a pilot study on how kids see race:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/13/doll.study/index.html

Generally, the results show that dark skin is more often than not associated with negative judgments, such as "bad" or "dumb." Shocking.

Also implied is that these are but reflections of how their parents see race, and perhaps to a lesser extent, how they [the kids] interpret society's attitudes toward race. So I pose this question:

If we agree that racial tolerance is more beneficial to a melting pot society than say, racial prejudice...

...and if we also agree that to unlearn racial prejudice [in adults] is less realistic than to learn racial tolerance [in children], should we not, as a society [taxpayers], demand that public education bend toward the latter?

I'm a fan of a colorblind society, but I have a hard time not feeling creeped out by the enforced thought control implied here. Let the schools teach reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic. I guess you could replace the propaganda that currently permeates schools about "recycle, reduce, reuse" with your favored propoganda on what people should think.

Brainwashing: the application of coercive techniques to change the values and beliefs, perceptions and judgments, and subsequent mindsets and behaviors of one or more people, usually for political, financial, personal, or religious purposes.

 

[alfaniner]

I think the biggest flaw in that study is that the objects didn't look like children, but like cookies. Who wants a burned cookie?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

How do you teach racial equality without implying there is a difference ?

The minute you say ( in effect ) ' skin color makes no difference ', you have just enforced the idea that it does..

We will have a color-blind society when you don't have to bring it ( skin color ) up ..

 

[The_Animus]

I think there are problems with the study that might have influenced the results and the interpretation of those results.

First off they ask "show me the mean child" which implies that one MUST be mean rather than the possibility that all could be good. So the child is forced to pick one of the options and the only difference between them is color. So when the next question is asked, "Why is that the mean child?" what else can they possibly say except color as a reason?

I suppose they could still have picked the whiter options and said it was because they are whiter. But then again this could just be because aside from skin color, white and black generally have good/evil connotations in many religions, myths, and fantasy scenarios.

 

[The_Animus]

How do you teach racial equality without implying there is a difference ?

The minute you say ( in effect ) ' skin color makes no difference ', you have just enforced the idea that it does..

We will have a color-blind society when you don't have to bring it ( skin color ) up ..

Thank you. I've been saying this for years and every time I do people look at me like I'm racist or ignorant. Schools have been cranking up awareness and teaching of diversity and diversity issues and it seems to me that this just reinforces differences rather than similarities.

 

[Dunstan]

I have some misgivings about this study, at least as I've heard its methodology described.

They're showing five dolls (of varying skin colors) to children and asking questions like "which is the bad child?" "who is the smart child?"

Let me ask you, what's the "right" answer to those questions? Which doll would you point to? Us adults would probably complain that we don't have any basis on which to answer, and that it's wrong to prejudge people based on their color, but how many young children can articulate something like that, and would be willing to say it to an adult researcher with whom they've been asked to cooperate? Were the children told that they could answer with "I don't know," or "I can't tell"?

Now, I get that if children were completely and utterly color-blind, they would presumably pick a child at random, and so there would be no statistically significant difference in the answers. So I guess this study tells us something, but does it tell us much?

 

[Bikewer]

Much to be said for that. I watched snippets from the CNN study (they've been showing it all day) and on the face of it it's rather shocking.
But as Dunstan says...The child is expected to give an answer, and it's not likely to be "I have insufficient evidence for such a conclusion."
They want to please the adult tester, after all. I wonder about the race of the interviewer?
Would a black interviewer elicit a more balanced result than a white one?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think the biggest flaw in that study is that the objects didn't look like children, but like cookies. Who wants a burned cookie?

That may be but this is not something new. The same bias has shown up again and again in different studies from looking at what kids say about faces to which dolls they prefer.

 

[slingblade]

We will have a color-blind society when you don't have to bring it ( skin color ) up ..

Why would you want a color-blind society? Everyone has a color. You can't be blind to it; it exists.

I notice that the phrase "person of color" doesn't apply to whites. Ever. So whites are, in essence, rendered colorless by that phrase. To then be "blind" to a person's color is an effort to also make them colorless. If one really gives this serious thought, it's an attempt to make everyone white, or assign to them the same value as whiteness.

That's racism. Whiteness should have no greater or lesser value than any other melanin content.

Being color-blind doesn't solve racism. It isn't even the end result of non-racism. It's totally ignoring a key factor in a person's identity as if there's something wrong with that identity. And, of course, there is: they aren't white. This, apparently, is bad for them.

Racism doesn't end when everyone is colorless.

Racism ends when everyone has a color, but suffers no negative impact because of it.

 

[Delvo]

...should we not, as a society [taxpayers], demand that public education bend toward the latter?

One of the kids being interviewed picked the darkest picture as carrying the most negativity, explicitly BECAUSE he had been educated about how things used to be before. Another said teachers don't care about skin color and treat them all the same, which means the kids didn't get their answers about differences from the teachers and equality is already being "taught" by example.

If the kids have a bias about this stuff, their equality-driven education didn't prevent it.

* * *

The video showed two black kids being asked "What color do you want?" "Want" generally refers to something you don't have, so the question prompts for an answer that's different from what the person being asked already has. No white children were shown being asked that question. Even if they were asked, a difference in their answers could have been due to linguistics rather than attitudes about skin colors.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe there's a real issue in children's perceptions of races, including minorities having negative views of their own. But this video was pretty bad at showing it, and the article didn't do much better.

To me, the case is already established well enough that it doesn't need to just be shown again. It's time to move past that point to more interesting details. For example, if we hypothesize that the skin-color preference is simply optical rather than personal/racial, we should find similar preferences for the colors of other objects (and the coloring of young children's toys suggests that manufacturers believe there are indeed such preferences). Or if we hypothesize that experience interacting with people of other races either causes this, or makes an existing prejudice worse, or reduces/eliminates an existing prejudice, then we should see changes in the results with age as they gain more experience with each other (and studies below preschool age might be able to show what happens with essentially zero experience). Or if we hypothesize that it has to do with difficulty in reading facial expressions, then studies using other variables to make faces easier or harder to read should yield comparable results.

But I don't see studies like that, trying to take this to the next step and look into it any deeper. I only see more studies repeating what's already known, often rather shallowly and sloppily, and presented for just emotional effect rather than to really increase knowledge.

 

[cienaños]

I'm a fan of a colorblind society, but I have a hard time not feeling creeped out by the enforced thought control implied here. Let the schools teach reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic. I guess you could replace the propaganda that currently permeates schools about "recycle, reduce, reuse" with your favored propoganda on what people should think.

Brainwashing: the application of coercive techniques to change the values and beliefs, perceptions and judgments, and subsequent mindsets and behaviors of one or more people, usually for political, financial, personal, or religious purposes.

Not a colorblind society. That's impossible. The goal would be a racially tolerant society, where cultural differences are addressed and taught to be understood and respected. Specifically, in the realm of this definition:

tol·er·ance noun
2 a : sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own b : the act of allowing something

Not brainwashing either. Just some science-based education: Anthropology, historical climate change and its relation to migration/melanin - things of that nature. This should be approached and taught with the same matter-of-factness that is found in "the earth is round" and "the planets revolve around the sun" teachings. It seems to me that this can create a sturdy foundation for the "later lessons" having to do with slavery/civil rights/etc.

The Animus:I think there are problems with the study that might have influenced the results and the interpretation of those results. [...] But then again this could just be because aside from skin color, white and black generally have good/evil connotations in many religions, myths, and fantasy scenarios.

Dunstan: I have some misgivings about this study [...] let me ask you, what's the "right" answer to those questions? Which doll would you point to? Us adults would probably complain that we don't have any basis on which to answer, and that it's wrong to prejudge people based on their color, but how many young children can articulate something like that, and would be willing to say it to an adult researcher with whom they've been asked to cooperate? Were the children told that they could answer with "I don't know," or "I can't tell"?

Now, I get that if children were completely and utterly color-blind, they would presumably pick a child at random, and so there would be no statistically significant difference in the answers. So I guess this study tells us something, but does it tell us much?

Although I agree that the study is flawed, in their defense, CNN does note it's a pilot study. What's really interesting about this, is that the study was created and administered by these "adults" who lack that very education that I'm proposing in this thread. That is, as children - these adults probably experienced that same faulty education that that I'm arguing against. So on some level, there is a residue at play.

The good/evil myth aspect I won't touch just yet as it can go in a hundred different directions - and really it has more to do with the content of the lesson, rather than the argument for the lesson. Also, I believe the content aspect was addressed briefly in my response to Mike (top).

 

[cienaños]

[...]

To me, the case is already established well enough that it doesn't need to just be shown again. It's time to move past that point to more interesting details. For example, if we hypothesize that the skin-color preference is simply optical rather than personal/racial, we should find similar preferences for the colors of other objects (and the coloring of young children's toys suggests that manufacturers believe there are indeed such preferences). Or if we hypothesize that experience interacting with people of other races either causes this, or makes an existing prejudice worse, or reduces/eliminates an existing prejudice, then we should see changes in the results with age as they gain more experience with each other (and studies below preschool age might be able to show what happens with essentially zero experience). Or if we hypothesize that it has to do with difficulty in reading facial expressions, then studies using other variables to make faces easier or harder to read should yield comparable results.

But I don't see studies like that, trying to take this to the next step and look into it any deeper. I only see more studies repeating what's already known, often rather shallowly and sloppily, and presented for just emotional effect rather than to really increase knowledge.

And to sort of loosely tie this together some - it is in examining this ouroboros nature [which you mention] - that we find youth to be the most feasible option for accelerated progress. Developmental stages and all that jazz.

sidenote: could you point me to those any children's toys studies if possible?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Why would you want a color-blind society? Everyone has a color. You can't be blind to it; it exists.
........................

Racism ends when everyone has a color, but suffers no negative impact because of it.

Fixed it ..

" Color blind " with regard to racism and bigotry doesn't mean you don't see color, it means you don't behave or think differently because of it.
You don't have to teach children that people have different shades of skin color; they can see it for themselves.
When you have diversity and cultural awareness education for young children, it has the effect of teaching them that color does matter .. The same, aimed at adults, merely enforces existing stereotypes.

 

[cienaños]

Fixed it ..

" Color blind " with regard to racism and bigotry doesn't mean you don't see color, it means you don't behave or think differently because of it.
You don't have to teach children that people have different shades of skin color; they can see it for themselves.
When you have diversity and cultural awareness education for young children, it has the effect of teaching them that color does matter .. The same, aimed at adults, merely enforces existing stereotypes.

So it does what again to kids?

And what to adults?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I assume you are being rhetorical ..
What about my comments, that you highlighted, do you disagree with ?

 

[cienaños]

I assume you are being rhetorical ..
What about my comments, that you highlighted, do you disagree with ?

Not at all. I can't disagree with what I don't understand. Can you elaborate some?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

You don't understand that children have to be taught that skin color is a measure of the quality of a person, or that racist adults are unlikely to change their way of thinking because someone else points out the error in their thinking ?

I'm also saying, that once children have been taught that color matters, it is difficult to un-teach them ..