Mexicans confront racism with white, black doll video
REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- Is Mexico's an inherently racist society? Does the culture overwhelmingly favor those with light skin over those with
dark skin? And if so, is that a legacy of European colonialism or present-day images in television and advertising?
These are among the thorny questions emerging in online forums in Mexico since a government agency began circulating a "viral video" showing
schoolchildren in a taped social experiment on race.
The kids are seated at a table before a white doll and a black doll, and are asked to pick the "good doll" or the doll that most resembled them. The
children, mostly brown-skinned, almost uniformly say the white doll was better or most resembled them.
One child in the video with mixed-race features says the white doll resembled him "in the ears."
"Which doll is the good doll?" a woman's voice asks the child.
"I am not afraid of whites," he responds, pointing to the white doll. "I have more trust."
Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination, or Conapred, in mid-December began circulating the video, modeled on the 1940s Clark experiments
in the United States. The children who appear in it are mostly mestizos, or half-Spanish, half-Indian, and a message said they were taped with the
consent of their parents and told to respond as freely as they could.
Mexicans who saw the video said online that they were dismayed but not surprised by its results, and also offered some criticism for the agency that
produced it.
Commenters have noted that the options were "very limiting" by offering only black and white, or good and bad, when in Mexico the majority of the
population is mixed-race, mostly European and indigenous, and to a lesser extent African and Asian backgrounds.
"It is a poorly formulated question, it is pretentious," one user said on the website VivirMexico (link in Spanish).
Yet many also said the video reveals a deep-seated prejudice that is taught to children in Mexico from an early age.
In 2010, the Televisa network was criticized for showing actors in black face during the World Cup in South Africa. In May, the case of a black man
who died after a confrontation with police in Mexico City led to protests against Mayor Marcelo Ebrard.
Wilner Metelus, a sociology professor and leader of a committee advocating for Afro-Mexicans and black immigrants, said the doll video shows how far
the country must go to recognize the prevalence of racism and the need to educate young people.
"The Mexican state still does not officially recognize Afro-Mexicans. There are few texts that talk about the presence of Africans in Mexico," Metelus
said. "We need a project in the schools to show that the dark children are just the same as them, as the lighter children. And not only in schools; it
is also necessary in Mexican families."
On Friday, the daily La Jornada published a report saying black immigrants in Mexico and the Afro-Mexican minority still suffer racism and
discrimination that is not adequately acknowledged by the government (link in Spanish).
"[Dark] skin color is still associated with foreignness," Luz Maria Martinez, a leading anthropologist on Afro-Mexican culture, told the newspaper.
"We do not know how to value the indigenous culture, which is very rich, or the African culture, which is as great as any in the world."
I remember going to a restaurant in Cd. Constitucion 10 years ago, and I couldn't believe my (White) friends and myself (African-American) getting
stared at by the children inside of the restaurant as we placed our orders.
My friends made a comment to me that they were the first gringoes these children must have ever seen.
In Sinaloa, another (White) friend and I were both called, "N-ers" by a group of armed (w/shotguns) men who were drinking beside their pickup truck.
We took a "safe" route out of the Copper Canyon due to an impending snow storm that was coming from the north.
These men were angry that we "invaded" their corner of Sinaloa (read: Gods Middle Finger), and wanted us to pay for it. They went to a house (located
beside the Rio Fuerte) and got two more men. I almost didn't have a chance if it wasn't for our guide helping us make safe passage out of Tubares,
past Choix and into Cd. Fuerte.
Ken, I know I'm cloistered and naive, but I'm very sorry that you, or anyone of a different race (which in the right setting is any of us, right?)
have to confront this sort of attitude anywhere in the world.
As long as humans have been here, we have yet to find a way to get past our lazy minded tendency to stuff others into catagories based on superficial
criteria. We use skin color, gender, religion and economic status to make gross generalizations. We build straw men, and then react not to the actual
person, but to the fiction we've made up IN OUR OWN minds.
I'm gonna go pet the dog. Most times the best people aren't people at all!
Glad you didn't get stuck on god's middle finger Ken, dangerous place indeed! I am saddened that there are such wonderful places in Mexico that are
now so dangerous.
I am glad to see this issue directly addressed on this forum as racism is indeed alive and well in Mexico and it is important to recognize. Racial
epitaphs are bandied about like pop corn all over Mexico and people think nothing of it. I am called “White guy” i.e. “come here white guy”. I have
heard all over Mexico derogatory references to “Indios”. There is power in knowledge and it is important to realize that this racism is deeply
engrained and will not disappear overnight and will be with us through our entire life times. There is a real cultural difference between Mexico and
the USofA in that racism is more blatant and overt in Mexico, one never sees people in “black face” in the USofA anymore, but it can be found all over
Mexico to this very day. I am glad to see that the Mexican government is addressing this issue in the media. This in my experience is a relatively new
phenomenon. God bless ‘em and more power to them.
Unfortunately it is sad but true that we all live in a pigmentocracy where color is a factor. Colorism is found throughout the world and is not just a
recent phenomenon.
We are fortunate to live in an age where mass communication and positive media images are part of our current culture. We have positive images of
racial minorities, of (which Caucasians my soon be in the USofA) now on our TVs, Movies, magazines etc. and have evolved to the point where we would
elect a person of color to the highest office in the land. This is real progress and progress hard earned at the cost of untold numbers of lives. The
history of racism and genocide in the USofA is well documented and something which in my view is important to own and understand if change is to
occur. Racism is also rampant in Mexico and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. I believe it is important to recognize and acknowledge this
reality, painful as it may be. We cannot change what we deny or ignore.
I’m with the character played by Warren Beatty in the excellent movie Bulworth who famously exclaims to his main squeeze, played by Halle Berry, that
he hopes we all will intermingle till we all are the same chocolate brown. He said it better than I but this is a child friendly forum. By the way
Bulworth is one of the best movies I have seen that addresses both American politics and racism. Beatty made the film never expecting it to be a box
office success; he wrote, directed and starred in this film for his grandchildren, who he hoped would be influenced by it.
Another memory comes to mind. I am Caucasian and was in remote villages in the mountains out of Oaxaca in the 1970's and had native people come up to
furtively touch my white skin and blond hair. I was told that the rumor was that I was a ghost. One day they will be right! I was impressed with the
bravery of those who had the courage to count coup on a real live ghost!
Originally posted by Iflyfish
Another memory comes to mind. I am Caucasian and was in remote villages in the mountains out of Oaxaca in the 1970's and had native people come up to
furtively touch my white skin and blond hair. I was told that the rumor was that I was a ghost. One day they will be right! I was impressed with the
bravery of those who had the courage to count coup on a real live ghost!
Iflyfish
NOT JUST IN MEXICO -My ex-wife and I were at a temple high on a mountain in a remote part of
South Korea. There were bus loads of children there that apparently had NEVER seen caucasians. They all wanted to touch us and have their picture
taken with us. I felt like a rock star.
It's too bad Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination didn't link the actual study, because these types of studies are often used to
further a cause among both the left and the right.
The 1940s Clark experiment in the US is very famous. It's taught in undergrad child psychology, and it's known to most teachers.
What I remember about the Clark study is they didn't even have black dolls in the 40's and so they just painted a dark face on a white dolls. Right
there that's a methodology error or could be a problem with the study, and the black kids aversion to the black doll could have been unfamiliarity.
But with racism so rampant against Blacks in the 40s the study may have been accurate too.
However, by the time the 70s rolled around. Psychologists tried to duplicate the study, and most of the studies didn't find the same findings. In the
age of "Black is Beautiful" the black girls reached for black dolls to play with and identified with the black dolls more often than the white dolls.
From my own anecdotal watching my Latina daughter when she was a little girl along with her girl cousins and friends. They seemed to prefer Latina or
dark haired dolls, although they played with the white Barbie too. There are white Barbie studies out there too. ( No I didn't ask the girls who they
most identify with)
What's real telling is when you try to duplicate the "Clark" study with a few new variations like including young white girls. You get shocking
results!
Although there may be a little bit of "Black bias"( negative feelings towards blacks) even among black children. ( it's not strong with Black
children) The negative bias towards black dolls is off the chart with white children.
Big surprise? No not a surprise at all living in racially bias country like the USA:
Revisiting the Kenneth Clark Study: White Racist Children, a Surprise? By Joe
Spencer’s researchers asked the younger children a series of questions and had them answer by pointing to one of five cartoon pictures that varied in
skin color from light to dark. The older children were asked the same questions using the same cartoon pictures, and were then asked a series of
questions about a color bar chart that showed light to dark skin tones. The tests showed that white children, as a whole, responded with a high rate
of what researchers call “white bias,” identifying the color of their own skin with positive attributes and darker skin with negative attributes.
Spencer said even black children, as a whole, have some bias toward whiteness, but far less than white children.
“What’s really significant here is that white children are learning or maintaining those stereotypes much more strongly than the African-American
children. Therefore, the white youngsters are even more stereotypic in their responses concerning attitudes, beliefs and attitudes and preferences
than the African-American children.” … Spencer says this may be happening because “parents of color in particular had the extra burden of helping to
function as an interpretative wedge for their children. Parents have to reframe what children experience … and the fact that white children and
families don’t have to engage in that level of parenting, I think, does suggest a level of entitlement. You can spend more time on spelling, math and
reading, because you don’t have that extra task of basically reframing messages that children get from society.”
The fact remains the Clark study dolls were painted white. Now it could be said the dolls were painted white for control purposes, but the more likely
explanation is the Clark's couldn't go to the corner store and buy similar looking white and black dolls like they could today.
Black dolls weren't massed produced until 1955 , and it's very unlikely a poor black girl would have a collection of blacks dolls like girls have
today:
The Clarks asked black children to choose between a white doll and -- because at the time, no brown dolls were available -- a white doll
painted brown. They asked black children a series of questions and found they overwhelmingly preferred white over brown. The study and its conclusions
were used in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which led to the desegregation of American schools.
I just watched that YouTube video and saw a big big problem with this so-called study.
Can anybody else see the possible problem here? You don't have to understand Spanish to see a possible problem here, but you should know when the
video says moreno they are referring to the so-called brown doll.
1948 Pedro Infante musical. This is the title number, a ballad that cries out against a white mother's racism against her black toddler daughter.
Notice the characters in blackface, evidence of the film studio's racial ideology of excluding black performers, all the while telling the story of
the evils of discrimination.
I appreciate the quality of the posts on this thread, very interesting study and conclusions. Great video, I only wish my Spanish was better, great
voice and passionate song. Great pic of the dolls!
The movie "La India Blanca" takes things from the opposite perspective - Yolanda del Rio stars and is persecuted for being white. It's kind of a B
movie but I'd still recommend it. (However the reality in Mexico is a little more complex/ difficult to comoprehend then these movie present). As
usual La India Blanca blames everything on the white male.
"La India Blanca": When an indigenous woman gives birth to a lily-white girl, an entire community becomes consumed with suspicion. Convinced that the
baby was fathered by a foreigner, the child is despised by her own. (copied)
Memín was created in the 1940s by Yolanda Vargas Dulché, an exuberant sentimentalist and blockbuster photo-novella writer. In a country in which
newspaper runs rarely exceed 100,000, reprints of Memín still sell 125,000 copies a week. Memín has black skin, thick lips, a flat nose, and eyes like
saucers. He lives alone with his mother, doña Eufrosina, an Aunt Jemima–like washerwoman who speaks Spanish with a Cuban accent. Memín, who was named
after Vargas Dulché’s boyfriend, and later husband, Guillermo (“Memo”) de la Parra, loves his “Ma’ Linda,” who spoils him adoringly, though she does
not spare the rod (her famous palo con clavo—board with a nail). Doña Eufrosina is, in any case, honest and clean, a dignified representative of the
“working poor.”
Memín is the only black kid in a gang of four boys, all of whom attend the Benito Juárez public school in Mexico City. They are a multi-class group
from the unmarked (i.e., mestizo, or mixed-blood) portion of Mexico’s racial and class spectrum, with the exception of Ricardito, who is blond and
rich, but (predictably) has unhappy family circumstances. Memín often provides comic relief in ways that are reminiscent of blackface minstrel theater
(a well-developed genre in Cuba, where Yolanda Vargas Dulché first conceived of the Memín character, but with precedents in Mexico’s popular puppet
theater of the 19th century).
So did anybody see any problems with the badly done repeat "Clark study?
Well one of the biggest problems with the video is the doll is black. In fact Mangano mentions it in the title.
Mexicans confront racism with white, black doll video
The video starts off asking the kids to identity which is the white doll, and which is the brown doll. The doll isn't brown, and in fact the doll was
one or two shades darker than the kids in the video. The kids are given a false choice or a leading choice throughout the video. For example the
interviewer asks the kids which is the bad doll or which is ugly doll? And the kids reluctantly points to the black doll. The interviewer also asks
why?
No doubt when the study was concluded it said something about how the Mexican kids see Brown Mexicans kids as bad and ugly.
How do we even know if the kids identified with the Black doll? In the original study the kids were asked more open ended questions like which doll is
more like you? ( In the original study some of the black girls cried) It could be the kids are acting out their own negative feelings towards Blacks
they learned in their culture, or they could be trying to give the interviewer the answers they think is correct and the interviewer wants to hear.
The questions needs to be a little more open ended perhaps in a child play therapy session to get a sense what's really on the child's mind.
Every study has some type of methodogy errors, but this study was full of holes, and probably was not done by properly trained psychologists. At the
very least they could have used a brown doll instead of the black doll.
Originally posted by Iflyfish
Another memory comes to mind. I am Caucasian and was in remote villages in the mountains out of Oaxaca in the 1970's and had native people come up to
furtively touch my white skin and blond hair. I was told that the rumor was that I was a ghost. One day they will be right! I was impressed with the
bravery of those who had the courage to count coup on a real live ghost!
Iflyfish
NOT JUST IN MEXICO -My ex-wife and I were at a temple high on a mountain in a remote part of
South Korea. There were bus loads of children there that apparently had NEVER seen caucasians. They all wanted to touch us and have their picture
taken with us. I felt like a rock star.
i also hear that being tall, skinny and beautiful and having a full head of hair comes with good benefits too!
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