Sankofa

This morning I had the television on “Good Morning America” as I was getting ready for work. I’m a fan of Robin Roberts and would like to sit on a couch and talk about whatever to millions of people just like her. Today was the kickoff of their “Black and White Now” three-day series about the current state of race relations. The first segment consisted of them revisiting the black and white doll experiment famously conducted by Kenneth and Mamie Clark in the 1940s. In the original experiment, 63% of the children (both black and white) chose the white doll as the “nicer” doll, and 44% of the black participants said they looked like the white doll. However, in the experiment conducted recently, “88% percent of our children [black children] happily identify with the dark-skinned doll,” and 47% labeled the white doll as pretty.

Here's a link to the article on the segment
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=7213714&page=1

I was happy to see how the self-image of young black children had changed over the years. Of course you would expect a major switcheroo in views held in the 40s, but for me it was a little more poignant than that. I remember in Pre-K, roughly 19 years ago, racing the other children (boys and girls) to scoop up the white dolls during playtime. The few times that I ended up with the dark-skinned doll I remember being very disappointed that I didn’t get the light-skinned doll…my parents probably would have been disappointed that I was playing with dolls but oh well...that’s a blog for another day. I also remember a few years later---I believe I was seven---asking my cousin “don’t you wish you were white?” To which she responded in all her 11-year-old intelligence that she “was proud to be black, especially after all that Dr. King did.” She handed my ass to me and I’m glad she did in retrospect.

A few years later, one of my uncles gave me a book that served as the catalyst for my interest in black studies. It was entitled African Americans: Voices of Triumph: Perseverance. It was the first book of a three-part series and dealt with the history of blacks…from the ancient African dynasties to the present, how far we’d come, and all that we’d been through. The book was magnificently illustrated and had drawings of beautiful black people of all shades sitting on thrones, conducting meetings, and taking care of business…basically running shit. But there were also photographs of black people closer to the touch with raised trails of flesh across their backs awarded to them for speaking out, attempting to run away, and for defying those who thought themselves entitled to the life of another for mere exchange of coins. And towards the end of the book, there were more photographs...photographs of people that very well could have been my grandparents had the cameras been in different locations…photographs of the struggle, the cause, and the pride.

I credit that particular uncle with my deciding to earn a degree in African American Studies. With the risk of sounding preachy…please take the time to mentor our youths. Some hide the troubles they are unaware of deep in the trenches of their minds. And yes, a mind is a terrible thing to waste, but it is also a terrible thing to fuck up…excuse my language. My Godson happens to be that same uncle’s son, and I’m honored to have the chance to reciprocate the influence over his precious and three-year-old continuously forming mind. God bless him. He’s my little militant. I take Godfather duties very seriously, and I’m determined to not allow his mind to slip into areas of negative self-image. He has a picture of me from my recent commencement activities, and I hope to give him another picture of me in a cap and gown pretty soon. Hmmm…now if I could only bring to the light a certain someone who wants to marry a light-skinned man so that she can have a light-skinned baby…