We’ve watched several videos and clips about children stereotyping, being able to differ between black and white, or even notice what the colour our friends, teachers, or even mothers. I never thought I’d across an incident which I have ran across this weekend. So let me tell you, this weekend I was at a cultural gathering where a little girl approached me by noticing my cartilage piercing, so one conversation lead to the other. The little girl disappeared and came back while I was with one of my girl friends, the girl than pointed at my friend and said “Eww you’re so dark” we all were so caught off guard, we asked the girl what she meant, her response was “I don’t like dark people and she’s dark” pointing at my friend. We were so shocked at the little girls response, because she was little and because she was only FIVE years old, and of course of a lighter skin tone. We were so puzzled and wanted to how she formed this mindset, so we asked her some more questions:
Me: who told you told this?
Little girl:my mom
Me: is you're mom light skin?
Little girl:yes, and she's beautiful
Me: what about you're dad?
Little girl:he's dark, but he's mean
The girl than went on about all the shows on the family channel and how all the girls on there are light skin and pretty. She referred to a movie called Cadet Kelly where the main character was Lizzie Mcguire. In the movie she was the rich happy typical girl and the black girl was the 'ugly' poor girl (mind you this is all coming from the 5 year old)she than ran off, we began to ask ourselves that if the younger generation view themselves as worthless and ugly or are judging other others based on what the media is telling them, what's going to happen to their kids,? and their kids. It's so sad.It's one thing to learn from your mother but to build that up from what they see on tv is different and is quit sad.
Duaa Mohamed
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