Th5 A Girl Stands at the Door (Ch. 5-6)

The psychological investigation conducted by Kenneth Clark to test the Clarendon County students on the subject of harm from segregation was quite interesting. The test consisted of using dolls of different skin tones to help gauge the children’s “racial consciousness” and “racial self-perception”(Delvin 168-9). The test concluded “ten students said they preferred the white doll, nine said the white doll was the ‘nice’ doll, and eleven said that the Negro doll looked bad.”(Delvin 169). T
his example of institutionalized racism shows that it is a trickle-down problem. The idea of racism has been embedded into both white and Black children’s minds from a young age and thus, being a Black child in the South in 1951 means you were consistently exposed to oppression, bullying, and segregation by your peers. 
This idea makes me question what the steps to trying to foster high ideals of friendship and peacefulness in the schooling system consisted of. Obviously the court cases in the Brown vs Board of Education would prove to help with the legal desegregation of these students and schooling. However, how was this attacked in a social environment? What were some programs that schools implemented during this time to try to bring the students together without their preconceived notions of animosity? I believe that the legal desegregation of schools was a huge leap for NAACP, however, I am curious about the steps taken to try to dissipate the idea of racial inferiority held in the minds of white children when thinking about their new Black peers.

Comments

  1. Jakerra LanceMarch 9, 2019 at 6:02 PM

    To be honest Taylor I don’t think that there were any real programs that addresses racial inferiority in the minds of children because the idea of racial inferiority was imbedded in all aspects of life, and continue to be. When you think about it the kids of all races saw the colored kids in ratty schools and neighborhoods which emphasized the African American as lesser. Even as those things broke down with segregation and many civil rights laws that allowed blacks the same amenities as the white community their was a more silent factors that showed the supposed superiority of the white race. Their were few African Americans shown in popular culture and those that were shown were usally singers or dancers, people ignored the black market when it came to cloaths, hair, and makeup. All these little things add up in the mind to make the African American person believe that something about them is undesireable with the added bonus of keeping the greater white community in ignorance. So I doubt in the 1950 or 60 they did anything in those schools that would dissipate the idea that whites are superior and blacks are inferior. I think the biggest confounder is the continual ignorance of the black culture, i feel like only recently is America as a whole starting to appreciate black culture and identity. The way I see it white folks just don’t know a lot about black culture, my roomate saw me watching BET and she ask what the network was (BET- Black Entertainmet Television) and it just brought to startling clarity to me how little she knew about black culture.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Freedom Riders 3/26

As I watched the “Freedom Riders” documentary, the more disgusted I become at that racial injustices in American history. At the beginning of the documentary, there is a small montage of bigots giving poor excuses as to why the South should remain segregated. However, there was one quote that stuck out that stated, “You can not change a way of life overnight. The more they try to force us into doing something, the worse the reaction is going to be.” Racism should not be a way of life anyone wants to live through or put onto someone else. The Freedom Riders and many nonviolent protesters weren’t physically imposing on others, so why was the reaction of segregationists to worsening as “they try to force” them into a realistic way of life? Watching the documentary and listening to how the Riders were willing to be martyrs for the Movement as they were physically attacked, their property was destroyed via molotov and mentally drained daily makes me appreciate activism a great deal more, ...
Read more
After reading the rest of Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton's Black Power and then reflecting about what we talked about in class on Tuesday, I still cannot put my finger on an exact definition of "black power." I do believe, though, that "black power" cannot be achieved without a change in the political structure of America. When reading the fourth chapter of this book, the idea that people in power control the law is brought up. I, almost, one hundred percent agree with this. The quote from the book that stood out to me was "Law is the agent of those in political power; it is the product of those powerful enough to define right and wrong and to have that definition legitimized by "law." This is not to say that "might makes right," but it is to say that Might makes Law." This quote shows how political leaders shape the law. Those in power get to make the laws, whether they are just or not. I still believe this today. I believe...
Read more

What It's Like to Be Black on Campus Now

In Melissa Harris-Perry’s article, “What It’s Like to Be Black on Campus Now”, she discusses the issues behind race in education and institutions through ten black student journalists who tell their personal experiences. She gives an example from the University of Missouri, explaining how one student decided to stop eating in protest of inaction and ineffective administrative responses to racial incidents on campus. 30 Missouri football players joined this one student in protest and University of Missouri’s president resigned soon after. This example is powerful because it shows other institutions that when you unite together, change can come. Harris- Perry continues to talk about how important education is to black families and how hard it is to send their children to a place that can be so full of hatred towards their race. She wrote, “Viewing higher education as a pathway to equity, African American families and communities have made enormous sacrifices to send black kids to college...
Read more