Could “Doc McStuffins” and “Dora the Explorer” be turning white kids into racists?
A professor from the University of Illinois thinks so.
“White children in the United States begin developing racial biases in early childhood that threaten the well-being of children of color and serve as the developmental roots for racial prejudices that persist into adulthood,” a new Psycnet study from Professor Michael Rizzo says.
The study reviewed the TV watching patterns of white kids as young as four and asked them about their willingness to play with a hypothetical person who was white, black, Asian, or Hispanic.
“With age, children whose favorite media portrayed fewer Black characters—and especially in high-status contexts and roles—were less likely to choose to play with a Black child, held less positive attitudes toward Black children, and were more likely to attribute Black–White racial inequalities to intrinsic racial differences,” the study found.
Watching “Sesame Street” or “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” may accelerate the latent racism brewing with white children.
“By their 4th birthday, many White children in the United States have already begun developing racial biases that privilege their White peers, threaten the health and well-being of children of color, and serve as the developmental roots for racial prejudices that persist into adulthood,” the researchers allege. (Lead author Michael Rizzo cites one of his other studies to back up this claim).
The study’s authors explain why they focused on white kids, presupposing that they are already growing up in racist homes.
The paper states:
We focused on White, U.S. children because White children are the dominant and majority group in the United States and are the most likely to develop racial biases…Moreover, White children often live in racially segregated neighborhoods with parents who take color-evasive (i.e., ignoring or denying the importance of racial group membership) and power-evasive (i.e., ignoring or denying the reality of structural racism) approaches to racial socialization, leaving these children with little guidance on how to interpret the segregation and inequality they observe in the world.
The handpicked TV and movies curiously show that black characters are actually overrepresented by what children watch.
While the study sought to understand how children’s TV watching influenced their racial behaviors, the researchers did not similarly look at how black children might be influenced.
Hellbound and Down 