Description
Does racial discrimination harm Black children's sense of self?The Doll Test illuminated its devastating toll. Dr. Kenneth Clark visited rundown and under-resourced segregated schools across America, presenting Black children with two dolls: a white one with hair painted yellow and a brown one with hair painted black. 'Give me the doll you like to play with,' he said. 'Give me the doll that is a nice doll.' The psychological experiment Kenneth developed with his wife, Mamie, designed to measure how segregation affected Black children's perception of themselves and other Black people, was enlightening - and horrifying. Over and over again, the young children - some not yet five years old - selected the white doll as preferable, and the brown doll as 'bad'. Some children even denied their race. 'Yes,' said brown-skinned Joan W., age six, when questioned about her affection for the light-skinned doll. 'I would like to be white.'What the Children Told Us is the story of the towering inte
