What happens when two little white girls receive black dolls as presents in 2015?
Doctors Kenneth and Mamie Clark’s “The Doll Test” in the 1940s was an experiment in the effects of segregation on the perceptions of young children. Placing a black doll and a white doll before children aged three to seven, they were instructed to choose which doll they would rather pay with, and the results were that a large majority of the children favored the white doll. A disturbing–and likely less scientific–version of this experiment has gone viral over the holidays, as two white girls are captured receiving black dolls for Christmas.
Little Rainie and Regan are presented with a gift bag in the the video, and are instructed to discover the contents, allegedly given to them by an aunt and uncle. The older child is seen making a confused face, while trying to politely accept the gift, while the younger one bursts into tears and throws the doll aside. The clip has caused a bit of controversy, as viewers question the motives of the parents in the video, who laugh at their children’s’ reactions in the background.
Watch the video that has everyone talking below:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4HSAgOks_wk