Isn't She a Doll!

My recent trip to BN really caused a stir and thus, has inspired a number of my upcoming posts.

In addition to my formal introduction to “Fancy Nancy” (in my best British accent, nose pointing upward), there were two little princesses that remained on my mind long after the storytelling ended. The first one that I noticed was around six years of age and had beautiful olive skin. I can’t say for certain what her ethnicity was but I am almost positive that she wasn’t of African American, Caucasion, or Hispanic descent. OK, so what was so special about her? I’m getting to that. She held a beautiful chocolate baby doll in her arms. Wow, I thought. Perhaps she picked up someone else’s doll by mistake.

But, upon closer examination, she and her doll wore matching dresses. I, immediately, scanned the room for her parents, to see if my hypotheses on her ethnicity was correct. Though I was correct, I was a bit perplexed. I certainly don’t credit myself with knowing what motivated the selection of this doll of a darker hue but I’m sure this adorable girl picked and pointed to the doll and outfit she preferred best. It was probably as simple as that. What conclusions can we draw from this doll selection? Unsure. Does the selection have any roots in self-hate? Doubt it. Is this princess suffering from low self-esteem? Probably not.

This brings me to the next princess I noticed carrying a doll. She was a gorgeous chocolate complexion and was attending with an older woman possibly her grandmother. Her doll was Caucasion. Now what was I to make of this? I was forced to use the logic as I did with the princess with the chocolate doll. Perhaps, the gorgeous brown girl merely chose the doll she preferred. Today, kids have a lot of say in purchases.

But, I was instantly reminded of the social experiment conducted over fifty years by psychologist Kenneth Clark called the “doll test”. This experiment was used to help make the case for desegregation in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education. Clark’s experiment included probing questions that exposed some disturbing complexities about race and self-esteem.

My singular yet random observation at a book store yields only a few “hopeful” hypotheses. So, I must give both little princesses credit for choosing the doll that they preferred and assume that their decisions stemmed from places of wholeness and innocence.