Self image - Black Vs White

I am sitting here staring at one of the gifts I gave to my daughter as a birthday present. It is a Barbie Girl styling head. Its blond haired and blue eyed with long flowing tresses. And you can fashion her mane, with the help of all the hair accessories it comes with, into any style you so desire. She absolutely adores it.
And while a part of me is glad that I have given her a gift that will provide her with endless hours of pleasure, a part of me resents that head because when it came to buying it I didn't have a choice. I'll explain.

I knew from the start that I wanted to get my child this particular gift because she has a fascination (and fixation) with my hair - she loves to comb it and pin it and put her baubles in it - so I knew a styling head would be way up there on her list of approved girlie gifts. I trudge off to the shops with one mission - Get Styling Head for Daughter.

Although I search high and low, can I find a black (or ethnic) version of this head? Heck no. They are all blued eyed, blond haired and white skinned. So left without a choice, I buy one. But the whole experience left me with this thought 'How come the toy market doesn't cater to children of ethnic (minority) backgrounds?' I can't answer that one, what I do know is that it is almost next to impossible to get hold of a black doll in the shops here. You can find a few online but they cost a small fortune.

Although I grew up playing with predominantly white dolls, it didn't have any sort of profound effect on me growing up. However, I think the fundamental difference was that I was surrounded by black people - my people - all my friends where black (or mixed race), and that kept me grounded and proud to be who I was. So I had my white dolls yes, but then I also had my cousins, friends, teachers who told me 'Tales by moonlight' about my heritage, my people, my world.

My daughter doesn't have this here - one of the problems children living in the Diaspora (how I detest that word) face. It is up to me to teach her about her roots and keep her proud of her heritage.

A year or so ago, there was a programme by Prof. Robert Winston on the BBC called Child of our Time and one episode in particular has remained stuck in my mind.

An experiment was carried out on a group of about 10 children aged maybe 4 - 7. They were shown photographs of children from varying ethnic backgrounds and asked a series of questions. The results were astounding. ALL, except for one child, felt that White was good and Black was bad. So for the children, including black and Asian ones, the white children in the photographs were intelligent, kind, generous, good, pretty, rich, and they all wanted to be best friends with this child. On the other hand, the black children in the photographs were perceived as bad, ugly, dishonest, poor and so on. I was gob smacked when I watched it. Now the one child who didn't conform was black and his mother had instilled in him from the day he was born, that he was black and he was to be proud of it. She got him black toys, took him on black art exhibitions, bought him books with black children in it and generally immersed him in black history and culture. Her thinking was being a black man (person) in this world from the word go, he is already faced with a mountain of challenges to overcome. He will almost on a constant basis have to prove himself (and his worth) in one way or the other. I cannot say for sure if this is true or not, or if it is a bad thing or not, one thing I do know is that because of the values she had instilled in her son from a very early age, he was the only child in the group to link the black child in the photograph with very positive attributes.

I found this interesting article written in 1993.

I have been very preoccupied with this subject of late, I guess triggered off by my friend's daughter's experience (see post). No doubt I will be visiting this subject again.