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.

The Thing about John Mayer

I’m going to write about this as a person of color. John Mayer let out what he really feels and so will I.

Mayer told the truth. He usually prefers white women

He said, “"My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I've got a Benetton heart and a fuckin' David Duke cock. I'm going to start dating separately from my dick."

He used the word, nigger, and talked about how he had a “hood pass”, meaning (I think) something about being cool in the black community.

And my big question to you is: YOU ARE SO BAFFLED BY THIS?

I’m Filipino and usually not part of the race relations conversations because most focus on white and black. Even in reference to this interview, most commentary focuses on how Mayer dissed black women. MAYER DISSED EVERY KIND OF WOMAN EXCEPT WHITE WOMEN. (Latinos, Asians, East Indians, Arabs, Native Americans, Eskimos, Inuits, aborigines, Pacific Islanders, mixed-race women, etc.)

This is the type of behavior I encounter all the time in everyday life. You befriend a white person, who appears to be cool, open-minded, and seemingly not preoccupied with race, but then you get to know him/her and they will drop hints that they are, in fact, racist.

Am I being sensitive? No, asshole. I’m being real.

Want some examples:

-I have white friends who perpetually comment on how different we are because I’m Asian. If you are constantly bringing up I’m Asian, you are a closet racist.

-Or if some guy prefers me over a white girl it’s because dude has an “Asian fetish” and they discount that I may have some great qualities about me that have nothing to do with being “Asian” or not. (I just may be better than you, bitch.)

-I once asked a friend if she thought this non-white guy was hot. (He is Latino.) She said incredulously, “Me? No! I’m a WHITE girl. Duh.”

-A white girlfriend of mine admitted to me that she isn't racist except when she dates people.

So, Mayer did what other white people do. (I didn’t say all white people. So, don’t get all pissy.)

I am not shocked.

This is coming from a girl, who has been told, time to time, throughout her 31 years of life that I’m “pretty… for an Asian chick” by closet racists, of course.

Thanks. I guess.

I guess that makes the person who says this “open-minded… for a white person.”

You dig?