CNN Doll Studies: Asians, Latinos, Indians, etc. not included... Again.

CNN did a pilot study to determine the status of children’s “racial beliefs, attitudes, and preferences.” This study is similar to the doll studies done by Kenneth and Mamie Clark in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. CNN has found that white children have a bias toward lighter skin dolls and black children do as well, but not to the extent as white children do. In the Clarks’ study, they found similar results in that both white and black children associated “good and pretty” with white and “bad and ugly” with black.

The Clarks’ study was done in the 1930’s and 1940’s. It’s 2010. I would have hoped that CNN would make their study more timely and a reflection of what race relations are like today. 133 children were chosen from Northeastern and Southeastern regions of the United States: 75 African American and 58 white children. Asian, Indian, Arab, Latino, etc. children were left out of the study.

Once again, racial issues are only limited to white and black. The rest of us? Who cares?! We don’t matter.

CNN made a good half-ass effort in bringing us some groundbreaking news, but in 2006, filmmaker, Kiri Davis, did an award winning documentary, A Girl Like Me, replicating the Clarks’ Doll Studies. She also found similar results.

I would be curious to know the racial beliefs, attitudes and preferences of children of other ethnicities. We’re here in America, too.

I want to know what would happen if we included other races and ethnicities in the study. Like, if I were a kid (By the way, I'm Filipino.) and asked “Which one is good at math?” Well, I would try to pick the doll that most resembled an Asian kid. Or, “Which one will most likely grow up to be a doctor?” I’d try to pick the doll that most resembled an Indian kid. And after the recent crowning of the smoking hot Miss USA, if I were asked, “Which one is most likely to be smoking hot?” I’d try to pick the doll that most resembled a Lebanese chick.

Of course, I would not be invited into the study, nor would my children (that I don’t have.)

CNN is advertising their report as a “landmark” study. Um. I don’t think so. They're just repeating something that most people didn’t know was already done over and over again.