If given the choice between a black doll and a white doll, which one would black children pick?
A black girl in a seven-minute 2005 documentary called A Girl Like Me picked the white doll.
“Can you show me the doll that looks bad?” asked Kiri Davis, a teen filmmaker based in New York City.
The girl, about 8 years old, picked up the black doll, dressed a similar pastel purple sweater the girl had on.
“And why does that doll look bad?”
Because it’s black, the girl replied.
“And why do you think that’s the nice doll?”
Because she’s white, the girl said.
Then Davis asked the girl which one looked more like her.
The girl slightly grabbed for the white doll, and then shoved the black doll towards Davis.
That was the same test Dr. Kenneth Clark conducted in the historic 1954 desegregation case “Brown vs. Education” with young African-American children.
Still in 2005, when Davis asked 21 children their preference between a white and black doll, 15 children preferred the white doll.
“The doll test – that’s not unique to New York. That’s in St. Louis too,” said Jacquelyn Lewis-Harris, the director of The Centers for Human Origin and Cultural Diversity housed at the University of Missouri St. Louis.
The documentary A Girl Like Me is part of the new exhibit at the Missouri History Museum RACE: Are We So Different? unveiling on Saturday, January 16. The interactive exhibit, running through April 4, explores the history, psychology and science behind race.
“We have done plenty of exhibits that focused on race or the African-American community in particular,” said museum president Robert R. Archibald, “but this is the first exhibit we have shown that calls into question the concept of race.”
Visitors to the exhibit can step inside the Human Race Machine and see what they would look like if they were of different races. They can scan their skin and watch their shade appear as a color “chip” on a computer screen mosaic, next to other visitors’ chips. They can learn how high blood pressure reveals the complexity of race, racism and medicine.
Throughout the run of the show, the museum will host experts, poets, performances and workshops, including a two-day session about the 1904 World’s Fair and racism.
So what can an exhibit about race show people of St. Louis that they can’t already see in the streets?
St. Louis is the fourth most segregated city in the country, Lewis-Harris said. The issues of affirmative action, housing segregation and wealth disparities – which the exhibit touches upon – are apparent everywhere St. Louisans look.
“If you are racist in your heart, seeing an exhibit isn’t going to make you change,” Lewis-Harris said. “That’s what the Talking Circles are supposed to be about. Most people don’t know how to talk about race.”
A Talking Circle is a Native American communication tradition for sharing experiences. On various scheduled Tuesdays and Saturdays until Feb. 20, people can come to the Missouri History Museum and share how race has been a factor in their lives and communities.
Among school groups and children, this format will be really important, Lewis-Harris said.
“The next generation, they are still shaping their ideas and trying to figure out all the mixed messages,” she said.
Unfortunately the center or museum cannot pay for breakout sessions with school children when they come to visit. If schools want that option, they have to pay for it themselves. So far, schools with a majority white population have signed up for school visits, she said. However, many inner-city St. Louis Public Schools don’t have enough money to afford transportation for a field trip to the museum.
“The kids need to see these kinds of exhibits, so they see race is not a curse,” she said. “It’s just sad that the kids who are the brunt of racism are not going to have the faculties to get there.”
The shared 99.9 percent
On Saturday, January 16 at 2 p.m., Lewis-Harris will start the discussion opened up by RACE: Are We So Different? with her presentation, “99.9 Percent Thoughts on Race, Anthropology and Common Perceptions.” This is a free event at Missouri History Museum.
It’s a topic that she covers weekly at the center at UMSL, which receives 4,000 visitors a year. The center uses biology and anthropology to discuss human origin with fourth graders through adults. The half-day workshops discuss how people share similarities and how people develop skin color.
About 10 percent of people who walk through the center’s doors have accurate information on race and culture, she said, but even the adults sound like their information is something they heard on the playground.
Because the exhibit mirrors what the center does daily, Lewis-Harris will hold teacher workshops at the history museum and give the exhibit’s kickoff introduction.
“All humans share 99.9 percent of the same DNA,” she said. “I want to use it as an idea to start the conversation about race. It’s one of those topics that everybody thinks they know something about.”
Among many other events associated with the exhibit, on Thursday, January 21 at 7 p.m., Alan Lambert, associate professor of Psychology at Washington University, will question when and why we choose to express or suppress stereotypes.
“An Evening with Sonia Sanchez” on Friday, January 29 at 7 p.m. will headline the literary legend Sanchez, as well as other historic local poets, Eugene B. Redmond and Shirley LeFlore. Music from Trio Tres Bien and artwork from Billy Williams will support the mood. Admission is $8, or $5 for museum members and UMSL faculty, staff and students.
“People in their 20s and 30s say they don’t see race,” Lewis-Harris said. “People think it’s all over. It’s not. People are afraid they are not being politically correct. For some people, being politically correct is not talking about race at all.”
When the exhibit packs up in April, Lewis-Harris hopes the discussions will continue at the Center for Human Origin and Cultural Diversity, and that the UMSL center’s attendance doubles.
As she says, “It’s all mouth service if the conversation stops when the exhibit does.”
RACE: Are We So Different? is the creation of the American Anthropological Association and the Science Museum of Minnesota.
This is the first story in a series on the RACE exhibit at the Missouri History Museum. For more information about the exhibit, call 314-746-4599 or visit mohistory.org.
