Wyatt:

The little girl's teacher's committee at Mesa Elementry school, which previewed the project for the science fair rejected it. The Colorado State Education Committee backed the ban to the project at the boulder school that showed white students preferred a white barbie doll over a black barbie doll. The project was called "Which Barbie is Prettier". The teachers said that the project could be harmful to the school's "students of color". The schools racial makeup is 93 percent white, 3 percent hispanic, 3 percent asians, and 1 percent black. The father of the girl has protested to the Denver Post saying, "The school has violated his daughter's right to freedom of speech and owe her an apology". He said further, "The students are not racist, but appreciated those who look like them, they are around white kids all the time".

In the actual test, all 15 students in an all white fifth grade class picked the white doll and in a second class nine of the white students picked the white doll. The fifth graders are generally 10 years old.

Julie Jensen, a spokeswoman for Barbie Manufacturers Mattel Inc, said "one of the factors influencing the attraction a child felt to a certain Barbie was the resemblance the doll might bear to the child or a close friend". ~ Roberto

By Wyatt (207.8.207.59) on Wednesday, February 21, 2001 - 10:12 am:

Roberto,
Although, I tried to stay abreast of current news, I missed this one. Could you please tell me what the results were in this child's preference test? I am really interested in how people are socialized to view race and mate preference. My problem is with liberal whites who claim to be so open minded and colorblind, yet continue to prefer a racially segregated mating pattern. Also, I have problems with blacks who continue to vote for white liberal who are patronizing and have no real interest in their community, especially at the local level. In the Northeast, the white liberal democratic machines are so racist and entrenched in patronage that places like Boston and Philadelphia have remained the most racist cities in America for the last 20/30 odd years.

By Roberto (152.163.201.76) on Wednesday, February 21, 2001 - 09:31 am:

This issue out in Colorado of the eight year old girl (this is a bright child) who conducted a science project that dealt with race in which she used black and white barbie dolls to test the preference of people is causing quite a national debate on political correctness. Conservative talk radio shows are having a field day with this issue. This topic goes to the core of the psychology of female beauty standards and race, and has an impact on interracial dating and marriage, based on mate preference that is ingrained early in life. Many people I'm talking to on this subject say its just another case of the fear of talking about race, blacks being thin skinned on this issue, and failure of schools to have the guts to take on difficult subjects, thus killing creatively as in the case of this bright little (8 years old) girl. When a test like this was conducted several years ago with a predominately black female test sample, it produce the result that black girls preferred the white dolls, but there was no controversey. Why now? ~ Roberto