Saturday, November 19, 2011
What Skin is In ?
First video: Black Or White Something To Think about
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqSFqnUFOns
Second video: Skin Colour- The Way Kids See It
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcAuO0PNnrs&feature=related
In the first video a 17 year old girl named Kari Davis decided to recreate a short social experiment to record if there had been any changes since the experiment was conducted 50 years ago. Kari gathered nearly 2 dozen African- American children from New York City and asked them a series of questions to see which doll they would choose the white one or the black one. The questions, Kari asked the children were:
“Can you show me the doll you like best?”
“Can you show me the doll that’s the nice doll?”
“Can you show me the doll that looks bad”?
“Can you give me the doll that looks like you”?
After conducting this experiment 15 out of 20 children preferred the white doll, which had similar results when the experiment was held 50 years ago.
In the second video, successful news reporter Anderson Cooper interviews kids trying to understand their perspective on skin colour. When asked a question by Mr. Cooper each child points to the drawing that has the most suitable skin colour to answer the question. There are 5 shades of skin colour from the lightest shade of white and the darkest shade of black. This video demonstrated race is a factor even at a young age.
These video’s display how young children associate skin colour with terms like “good” and “bad”. Many individuals are familiar with the expression light is good, darkness is evil, white is pure and black is dirty which appears to be the method used in the media. In the media, white people are portrayed as intelligent, powerful, kind, loveable, and attractive. While African-American’s are portrayed negatively, they’re often perceived as uneducated, stupid, bad, and unattractive. These common stereotypes tend to distort the mentality of children and how they view skin colour.
While watching these videos, I wasn’t surprised by how the children responded to questions such as “What’s the bad colour?” At a young age children are taught their colours, separating what doesn’t belong, and recognizing the differences between certain objects, this could have an effect on how children view other people. I also feel the media doesn’t have enough positive images of different ethnicities and children are limited to only what they see in the media. In my opinion, media (the news, newspapers, etc.) have a tendency to exaggerate information which can be misleading to people, especially children.
Questions:
1) What is your perspective on these videos?
2) Why do you think an experiment conducted 50 years ago could still have the same results today?
3) Do you think media has a greater impact on how children view other races and skin colours or do you think other factors like family and culture have a greater impact?
4) Are there any ways that this type of thinking and behavior can be changed?
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When watching this video I was honestly shocked to see the reactions of the children. Even the children of color preferred the white doll over the black doll. I believe that the experiment could still have the same results as 50 years ago because of how the media portrays people of color. Usually when watching television, you see the black person as the criminal or someone who is not worth respecting. Most people would be surprised if they saw an educated, rich, well spoken black individual on television because the media portrays them negatively. These stereotypes are planted into these children’s minds at such a young age, so when they see both dolls they automatically reach for the white one. After admitting they prefer the white doll over the black one, they hesitate and are ashamed to acknowledge they look like the black doll. The reason being, once again, that the media portrays black people in an incorrect way which makes some of them ashamed of who they are.
ReplyDeleteWhen you are constantly shown that white people are superior to black people, of course you would expect the children to begin to believe what they see continuously in the media. I believe that family and culture does have an affect on how children view other races but media plays a larger role in developing these ideas in their minds. I think eventually that these typical stereotypes might disappear if people realize that color should not be a way to judge people.
1) What is your perspective on these videos?
ReplyDeleteMy perspective on these videos are that it is sad to know that kids can think this way , i am glad there are a few children that believe race does not matter and who you are from the inside is what matter's but the majority see the shade black as a bad race.At the same time i was not surprised at all at their answers.
2) Why do you think an experiment conducted 50 years ago could still have the same results today?
The reason why i think an experiment conducted 50 years ago could still have the same results today is because it had been functioned in the society's brain.Since it had been functioned , family's teach those same values to the upcoming generation and it continues to go on that way. Also the media in now's day and age still differentiates between races so that in addition to parents values , also leads us to the same results.
3) Do you think media has a greater impact on how children view other races and skin colours or do you think other factors like family and culture have a greater impact?
I wouldn't say one has greater impact because as a child , you start of learning from your family and culture and based on that you have some sort of knowledge.In terms of media , children do watch cartoons and through my lens, i only see light skin cartoons , maybe a few that are dark skin but that allow's the children to believe that white skin is superior than darker skin.
4) Are there any ways that this type of thinking and behavior can be changed?
Of course there are ways to change this type of thinking and behavior.I think the school system could do a lot of activities that could change a child's behavior and thinking. As a parent you could behave a certain way towards race that it allows them to think that it does not matter what skin color you are.
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ReplyDelete1)Watching the videos really shocked me. It's really sad knowing that these kids think this way and that the media has gotten to them so much. It really surprised me when the little girl said "I just don't really like the way brown looks." I honestly didn't know that the media affected children this much.
ReplyDelete2)I think an experiment that was done 50 years ago would have the same results. If not, worse. I don't think the media has gotten any better in terms of showing equality in race. I agree with Kiran when she said families teach certain things. The things that your family teaches you always sticks with you and it's basically what you teach your children.
3) I think they all have sort of an equal amount of impact on children. We grow up to what our parents and culture teach us and some of those things are exactly what the media shows. For example, like I said once for our round table my parents would tell me to be careful around black people (being brown and all) and when I watch TV I always bee black criminals, and it's always the light skin people who are morally good. So this just adds to why children think a certain way. Society just plugs these ideas into our brains which we believe without questioning it.
4)I do believe we can change this type of thinking just by educating people. If we teach the younger generation that race shouldn't matter we would be looking towards a better future.
1) It is sad to see the little kids answering that the black kids are basically ugly and unwanted in the society. Nevertheless, the two black girls’ responses and thoughts in the CNN video were refreshingly positive. They brought a smile on my face. Both these videos reflect the dominant discourse of how white people are wanted (on a positive note) and black people are of a lower rank (compared to white people)
ReplyDelete2) The experiment that was first carried out 50 years ago, still has the same results replicated today as it did 50 years back is because the media is not helping to eradicate the racist views of some people in our society. For example, I mostly see images of white men or women and boys or girls when I go to the malls (on the posters of popular clothing brands). I barely see any black person posing for famous brands. Another reason is the media belittles black people. An instance is when they use Terry Crews for the Old-Spice commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCl5uyn5K7k&NR=1
The makers might imply that black men smell bad, so they should use Old-Spice deodorant to get rid of the odor.
3) I think the media and the child’s family, culture have an equal amount of impact on how the child views other races. I am pretty sure some white people are racist toward black people. In such families, they (parents) would obviously tell their children not to mingle with black people. Such ideology would have a bad influence on the innocent minds of the children.
4) Talking about these issues as we are doing as a class is a great way to change that type of thinking and behaviour. We need to make efforts in building the children’s self-esteem and tell them it is nothing wrong to be a black. I could see some black children in both videos hesitantly pointing to the black girl’s picture or doll when asked about “which child the adults don’t like”? or “who do you not want to look like”? (something along those lines).
Last thing, racism is an issue, which is a global problem. We as responsible adults need to spread the message about how racism needs to die.
1. Honestly, I am not surprised by these videos. I think that it was a great idea to show how children perceive people of different race and skin color. I was very happy to see that not all of the children preferred people of lighter skin color. The little girl in the second video is right, it should not matter how you look on the outside but whats on the inside..well said. I think people should be judged on their character not on their outward appearance.
ReplyDelete2. My guess on why the experiment conducted 50 years has the same results is because people from generation are generation are taught about the same fixed outlook on specific races/skin tones. I think that society is so hooked unto the past and there has not been any real alteration in society and the media that is different from 50 years ago that can change the perspective on certain races/skin tones.
3. I think that the influence in media and of parental and cultural views all have an equal impact on these children. I think that children have very curious minds and are very gullible so they are going to pick up things that their parents say and what they see on television and in advertisements. Study finds that children are more vulnerable to marketing than adults. Very young children are not able to distinguish between commercials and television programs.
4. I think that this type of perception and behavior in the set of young minds can still be changed by educating them about the importance of loving and accepting yourself for who you are and not being prejudice toward others due to their skin tone color. Although, I think that it would be a longer process to change the view of adults because they are more set in their ways of thoughts and perspectives.
This video is curial, and hard to watch. I think these videos are the reflection on media, because when you compare whites to black, we see that the whites has more facilitation, and are more stalked by paparazzi, then that blacks. What does not cross my mine is the fact that there is a preference for colour.
ReplyDeleteI do not have a clue why they would have the same results. Maybe I think like this because I come from a fix race, but I would have thought that the times has changed and that people today are more acceptance towards other race. Back than we know it’s because the blacks were treated really bad, and it is understandable why children would prefer the white doll.
I agree with your answers, because I feel black people aren’t represented well in the media even with a successful man like Barak Obama. The media reveals black people very negatively and I think a lot of children aren’t exposed to positive representations of blacks. There attitude reflects the images we see in media about black people being a hustler, being in the NBA, and getting money by selling drugs this is often how the males are portrayed. The females are often seen inferior to men, gold diggers, and seen as sexual objects in music videos. These negative images do affect children’s view on black people; in the video its clear boys and girls black and white tend to think black is the bad colour.
ReplyDelete