When I was about 4 years old, I acquired a doll. It was not just any doll. The way I remember it may Aunt Willie Butler was involved. She carried us to a store, I think in Tallassee, AL. It must have been Christmas, but all that was a long time ago. She was apparently buying us Christmas presents. I don’t remember what Wade got—probably a baseball, or some other boyish toy. And Chan was probably not around, and in any event, to little to be making a choice. But I could make a choice!
All my female cousins had dolls, so I was dead set on getting a doll. So, they finally agreed to let me look at dolls. I vaguely remember a box full of dolls. They weren’t too keen on me getting a doll, me being a boy and all. But I persisted, and began to examine the dolls in the box. I finally zeroed in on the one I wanted. It was black! Of course, they tried to convince me that it was not the one I wanted—but they were wrong. And we wound up getting the black doll!
I loved my black doll. I took care of it like a baby—most of the time. Its eyes would open when it was upright, but close then when I laid it down on its back. My brother Wade remembers our Grandmother Mote–Mama’s mother–helping me dress the doll. I remember playing with the doll, but not many details. I don’t really remember how long I had the doll. It must have been for a year if two. But one day, I was playing in the front yard of the little house, and decided to put my baby to bed on the concrete steps. Apparently, I laid him down a little too hard, and cracked its plastic head open. I cried plenty, but crying did no good. The eyes closed, but the head was cracked. But at least I could finally see the weighted mechanism that made the eyes close.
Somehow, I found it very ironic when I learned that the United States Supreme Court used the “psychological” fact that black kids preferred white dolls and somehow that showed the effect of racial prejudice as part of the basis for its decision Brown v. Topeka.
The evidence for doll preferences was created by Psychologists named Clark, and the following is quoted from an article on the internet:
“For the Clarks, the results showed the devastating effects of life in a society that was intolerant of African-Americans. Their experiment, which involved white- and brown-skinned dolls, was deceptively simple. (In a reflection of the racial biases of the time, the Clarks had to paint a white baby doll brown for the tests, since African-American dolls were not yet manufactured.)” https://www.history.com/news/brown-v-board-of-education-doll-experiment
I can personally attest to the fact that African-American dolls were manufactured in the forties, at about the time the Clarks were conducting their experiments. Moreover, my judicial circuit included Roanoke, Alabama, where the Ella Gauntt Smith factory manufactured black dolls long before that.
This essay is not written as a critique of the work of the Clarks, nor is it a criticism of the Supreme Court decision; it is a description of my personal experience, and the irony of my choice.
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