The Clark Doll Experiment (1939) was an experiment done by Dr Kenneth Clark and his wife Mamie where they asked black children to choose between a black doll and a white doll. The dolls were the same except for their skin colour but most thought the white doll was nicer.
In 1954 in Brown v Board of Education the experiment helped to persuade the American Supreme Court that “separate but equal” schools for blacks and whites were anything but equal in practice and therefore against the law. It was the beginning of the end of Jim Crow.
In the experiment Clark showed black children between the ages of six and nine two dolls, one white and one black, and then asked these questions in this order:
- “Show me the doll that you like best or that you’d like to play with,”
- “Show me the doll that is the ‘nice’ doll,”
- “Show me the doll that looks ‘bad’,”
- “Give me the doll that looks like a white child,”
- “Give me the doll that looks like a coloured child,”
- “Give me the doll that looks like a Negro child,”
- “Give me the doll that looks like you.”
“Negro” and “coloured” were both common words for blacks before the 1960s.
The last question was the worst since by that point most black children had picked the black doll as the bad one. In 1950 44% said the white doll looked like them! In past tests, however, many children would refuse to pick either doll or just start crying and run away.
In one study Clark gave the test to 300 children in different parts of the country. He found that black children who went to segregated schools, those separated by race, were more likely to pick the white doll as the nice one.
In the test that he did that became part of Brown v Board he asked 16 black children in 1950 in Clarendon County, South Carolina. Of these 63% said the white doll was the nice one, the one they wanted to play with.
Clark also asked children to colour a picture of themselves. Most chose a shade of brown markedly lighter than themselves.
In 2005 Kiri Davis repeated the experiment in Harlem as part of her short but excellent film, “A Girl Like Me”. She asked 21 children and 71% told her that the white doll was the nice one. Not a huge sample size, true, but it was still shocking to see how easily many chose the white doll.
In 2009 after Obama became president, “Good Morning America” on ABC did the test. They asked 19 black children from Norfolk, Virginia. It is hard to compare their numbers because they allowed “both” and “neither” as an answer. They also asked the last question first, making it far easier to answer: 88% said the black doll looked most like them.
ABC added a question too: “Which doll is pretty?” The boys said both, but 47% of the black girls said the white doll was the pretty one.
See also:
Just like black Americans have great diversity in terms of class and physical appearance amongst other things, blacks also a strong variety on how they view their blackness. I think that explains the different results in the various renditions of the Clark Doll experiment over the years.
There’s been a few studies on black college students and their views on color. One study, done at at a mostly white public university in the Midwest, found that the majority of black male and female students thought more favorably of light skin. Another study, done at a HBCU in the deep South, found the opposite. Who’s wrong? Which one was more accurate?
Black American attitudes about their blackness will vary deeply.
Right, while the experiments are interesting there is no way that 19 children from Norfolk or 21 from Harlem can stand for all 41 million black Americans.
That happened to me once. When I was a little girl, grandma took me to Toys R Us and i went to get a doll. I wanted this doll and this black girl showed me and my grandma where the dolls were and they had them on a shelf one side w/ the blac dolls the other w/ the white ones and the black girl handed me the black doll and I put the black doll back and took the blond/blue-eyed doll. I still have that doll and I took it everywhere with me. We even went to visit a slave plantation and I took the doll with me. it didn’t occur to me until years later how messed up that was that I didn’t want the black doll. to this day I wonder would I have loved that black doll as much I did my white doll at that point.
in fact most of the dolls i’e had have been white and that was in the early 90s
Monica: Taking a white doll to a slave plantation. Wow! Like something from a book.
i stand astounded….
Black or white, everyone is the same. Today we have a black man as president of United states of America. I think this is something racist should think deeply about.
This is psycho slavery that still exist today. We(who ever that may be) are not all the same. I done this test with my daughter when she was 5 and the opposite occured. She dismembered the white doll.
It’s a shame to me. If you really want to read something that is old and still present to this day, look up The Willie Lynch Letter on a search engine. It’s crazy but true.
I Dont find this racism as others would say it was but doll companies seem to make white dolls look better than the black dolls they make
You are right Nana. It is not racism. My daughter tore the limbs and head off her white doll when I tried doing the test with her. As a parent I took the time to teach my children as all parents should be doing.
Dolls made of plastic, such as Barbie dolls, do look “uglier” if they are brown. Just like wooden dolls look much better if they are brown.
That has nothing to do with race, it’s about material. Still, picking a brown doll as a “bad” and “ugly” one does speak volumes about racism.
I never liked dolls. Still, I remember I had one Barbie doll. I disliked the fact she was blond. I clearly remember I wanted a Barbie who looked like me.
lol, wen i was also younger, for my bday (i was 6 then), my mum bought me a white barbie doll, while my dad bought me a black one.
I used to play with the dolls together until one day me n my 2 other sisters decided to cut off all the hair on the white doll, then burn the remaining off her head, dismember her and throw her into a gutter. My mum was soooo mad wen she saw the doll in the gutter after coming back from work that day.
I never got another doll after that and she confiscated my black doll thinking i would do the same to her.
I know i am kind of racist, but at a very young age, i am really surprised.
This article made me remember.
CNN commissioned Study:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/13/doll.study/index.html
I wonder if the reverse was ever done with white children? It would be very interesting, to see if any white child, would pick the black doll over the white. Images indeed do shape our reality, not even God/Goddess, could enlighten the psyche of most Black people.
By the way having a Black [Mulatto] President does not mean a damn thing, except to say that in the condition America is in, Caucasians were willing to try anything and anyone. America is on her death bed, sad to say, put there by Republican greed.
President Obama is qualified to be the President, but the Caucasians would never respect The Office, as long as he is there.
ashame my cousin picked the white doll as the best
Hi, Agabond:
I’m new here and I really enjoy your blog. You’ve managed to compile a lot of research that I can never seem to find on my own. Thanks for republishing and explaining.
In regard to the above post, I have a theory: the male children may hear “pretty” as “feminine” or “female” which is the same as “which one is NOT like me”. They probably are not as acutely aware of the *value* judgement that comes with “pretty” as girls are made to be. at least not until they’re old enough to notice that different girls are treated differently, independent of themselves as a reference.
The study says only uses one race and what they would choose. They should not only use one race otherwise people would think that they were being bias to the study. At school I dont see discrimination in teens. The groups of friends in the halls really are diverse. One of my best friends is black. I think that people should be more like my high school and be diverse and if they are going to do a study with race use more han one race. The world is a tapestry of race. I think we should use that tapesty when doing studies.When I was younger I got a black doll for chistmas.I recently saw a news cast that showed that most moms that are black want their kids to have a black doll and not white.
When I was a young woman, I collected fashion dolls. I was visiting my mother and sister for Christmas one year and we went to the shops. Now, my sister has this weird thing where she expects the recipient of a gift to pick out their own gift then she takes it home and wraps it even though it’s no longer a “surprise.”
I am white and my family lives in the Southern states in America. We went to the shops and I picked out a black “Barbie” who had some great looking braids and just looked prettier than the other ones. On Christmas morning, I opened the present (pretending to be surprised) and when I took it out and admired the doll, my sister “apologised” to her in-laws about the doll saying, “oh, Freddie picked it out!”
I was irritated with her and explained to her later that I don’t live in the world where I have to apologise to bigots because I wanted to have a doll that wasn’t the same colour as me.
I live in the UK now and whilst I don’t see my sister much – or speak to her – I STILL have the doll!
One must not forget there is a difference between “Black” and the black “African-American”. Although both receives the same ridicue to varying degrees, all in all the difference runs along some of the points mentioned here.
I’m interested that after over 70 years since Dr. Clark did this experiment, black children would still often pick a white doll over a black doll. Several years ago, I sent a doll to a little girl in Africa & I sent her a black doll. There was NO way I was going to send an African child a white doll! I wanted her to have a doll that looked like her. To me, though, what I found sad was she lived in a place where the infrastructure might not support a child having a doll of any type.
A friend of mine, Shabazz, lives in Ghana. I took his youngest daughter several “Black” baby dolls. I was by no means gonna take her a white doll. I also made sure the dolls complexion was “dark”. Whites, especialy in the west such as the United States have forced their perception of what is beautiful onto Blacks and black African-Americans for eons. I think it is depicable as we still see that sort of behavior going on today. Look at South America … say Brazil and Rio. You never see black males nor females on the news just as it was here in the US. And today the U.S is ridiculing countries in the Arab and Muslim world such as Libyia for human rights violations. Less we forget.
I remember always having a white doll and nowhere could we find a black doll, I wanted to have a black doll. Then when I got older I started to make craft with dolls, they were white but when I found a black doll finally, the hair was straight. I was left hoping to find a doll with an appearence to natrual african hair.
I am white. I am divorced from my white husband, have re-married Bob who is black. we have one son together,.
My husband and i live withour 5 children., three from his previous marriage, one from my previous marriage, and our 2 year old who is mix.
All our kids love each other, get on very well – most the time, and we have a very happy home – with loads of love & suppoprt & respect for each other.
My eldest step daughter (12 yr old) a beautiful dark skinned tall, slender girl with chocolate eyes – talked my own daughter (7yr old) a beautiful peaches and cream blondie with hazel eyes – into literally distroying all her white barbies. hair cut, burned, dresses chopped up etc.
The black barbies remain in tact.
My daughter was guilt ridden and very sad at having been involved in this re-vamping exercise.
My step daughter has very strong afro hair – which we all love, and she hates.
Her real mother dislikes white women, and has very little self respect. I am guessing this is where my step daughters feelings come from….
I keep trying to have my girls accept who they are.
Ironically, my daughter admires my step daughter – because she is older, and developing.
Anyway, another batch of Barbies down the drain.
I think they may just be coming to terms with who they are, and accepting themselves. Also, a bit of experiment to see if they can influence the famous barbie style??
Our kids are strong together against racism, because we make no secret of its existance in the world. They are being taught they may never stop it from being there, but learn to accept it is there & not get hurt or react, and never, ever give it the power to hurt you or those you love. Respect yourself and each-other…that is what we are encouraging.
There are some black people who are not as fine featured and there are some white prople who are not as fine featured as people shown in movie and fashion magazines. Also, each individual has their own perception of what they think is beautiful. So when someone doesn’t like a certain doll, I don’t believe it has as much to do with color as it has with they have been taughtr (learned history) and their perception of what they think is beautiful (facial features, style of clothing, etc.) When people stop blaming things on race, maybe we will figure out that there are other causes for disliking things.
I think parents whose children choose the white dolls are influenced by white society and have identity issues themselves from being taught, ” white is right, and black, get the hell back” from the pain and suffering their fathers and grandfather’s endured. They are trying so hard to be like them and essentially become whiter than white people that their babies are circling the drain. You can tell the black children raised by culturally sane parents. Raise your children up in the way that they should grow!!! It is all a sure sign of parenting.
Check out how this Asian kid does the same thing.
@aka:
I’m not surprised by the clip. As a kid, I had the blonde, blue-eyed dolls because those were the only dolls sold in the stores. And I honestly thought I would grow up to be this tall, blonde, blue-eyed woman.
Actually, this post is incorrect: The black children who attended mixed race schools gave less favorable answers and preferred white dolls more than the segregated. That is one reason why this test and Kenneth B. Clark are viewed with a controversial eye by many back in the day,
wow i just think people should love how they are and accept it no matter what.
Someone asked about the psychological affects of a white child. Well the biological structure, neuro transmitters, and chemical balance of our brains is all the same. When a child grows up hearing that they are less than from one group and are constantly told they need to prove this wrong from their own, there will indeed be conflict with one’s own self. Most white children though are not suffering from this same issue. Racism has lasted through the attempts to extinguish it through the years, causing sides to be ashamed, bitter, resentful, and ignorant. I thank God I grew up in a bi-racial family so that I never shared this same narrowed minded view as some of the rest of the population, in the USA and out.
I was reading some of the other comments and was amazed to see the pride that two of the parents had that had tried this on their children. Yes of corse lets jump for joy when when our children learn to hate the other race. You are just as ignorant and stupid and the people you preach against.
When I was little I loved my all shiny purple hairless barbie doll. I also believed up until the 3rd grade that white people were genital-less. It was because of the barbie dolls or baby dolls I encountered at daycares and at stores. I thought they were anatomically correct. Never encountering black dolls at a young age I thought I was correct in my assumption. I moved around my whole life. I’m Somali and was born in Saudi Arabia. I went to a private English pre-school there, a few years later moved to Atlanta Georgia. Moved again at 6 yrs old to Toronto Canada and stayed there until high school. So it became a shock to me when I was 8 yrs old at school and a white little girl my age came into the restroom and used one of the stalls. I couldn’t believe it I was shocked, but the evidence was received by my ears.
In 2004, I was teaching in the Atlanta, GA area. Third grade class, and I’d taught for 11 years by then. A new student- black girl entered my class mid-year. All day other black girls made her feel welcome- helped her find the bathroom, sat with her at lunch,played with her at recess, talked with her, shared supplies, etc. At the end of the day, when she was to leave early to go to the office to meet her mom – I told her – “Choose the friendliest, best-looking kid in the class to walk you to the office!” Immediately, hands shot up. The little girl looked over the room, past all the waving and excited hands- anxious kids calling her name – stretched out over their hands and pointed to the only white girl in the class “Her, the white girl” she said. Didn’t know the girl’s name. Hadn’t interacted with the girl. And the girl had not interacted with her. I told her to choose someone else who had helped her. I’ve debated this incident with colleagues – “maybe she was the best looking…maybe she preferred white kids, etc. they’ve said… Provocative….
hmmm. . . twenty years ago, my daughter (white) would consistantly choose black dolls to play with and our tenants’ daughter (black) would choose white dolls. The usually recieved dolls of matching skin color as gifts, and the girls would then trade for their prefered color.
I suppose it comes down to loving who you are, and seeing yourself reflected well.
“Onomatopeeuh & the Roar Rim” is an original story by Corey Olds (http://www.blurb.com/b/4084244-a-is-for-afro) about a young girl who inexplicably cannot see herself in the mirror–she is NOT a vampire.
“Onomatopeeuh & the Roar Rim” is dedicated to young girls everywhere who have ever felt “ugly” or else who have been absent from or distorted by the Great Roar Rim of Spectacular Society.
At any rate, the story is part of a mobile art library called The Sketchbook Project 2013, which is showing today (March 3, 3013) at the Brooklyn Art Library and will next be at the Co-Lab Project Space in Austin, Texas, from March 8-10. Other tour stops include Atlanta, Chicago, Toronto, Portland (OR), San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
NB: An original story by Corey Olds (2013), catalog #199.2-9.
NB: Follow me on Twitter @excelsus.
Whites are generally regarded worldwide as the most beautiful race. Even young Black children acknowledge this. The darker races are almost uniformly attracted to the lighter races. This has been true for eons. Witness Blacks who have the most money(almost always athletes). In most instaces, they choose a White girl as their mate. End of story.