Apartheid. USA 1988

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August 31: 1987

Richard M. Cohen, senior producer of foreign news for C.B.S. Evening News, councilled on the Op-Ed page of the Times for foreign journalists to QUIT SOUTH AFRICA. Mr. Cohen argued, that emergency regulations imposed by the Pretoria Government on the media, that American network news organizations and other Western news gatherers should say ‘enough’ and pick up their marbles and go. ‘South Africa is winning the war of images, and that is changing the way the entire world looks at the human struggle in that faraway land,’ wrote Mr. Cohen.

‘We cannot broadcast or even shoot pictures of any unrest, which is defined by South African authorities. We cannot show police or security forces acting in their official capacity trying ‘to keep the peace.’ Our cameras are not supposed to be within telescopic range of such events. The point is not what the media can no longer do, it is what the public no longer sees,’ postulated Mr. Cohen in the Times. Perhaps the most illuminating alinea in his plea was the following, ‘The American consciousness about South Africa, I believe, was formed and maintained by the constant television images of brutal repression in many forms: the image of the padded, faceless policeman, club raised: the image of the black youth with fear covering every inch of his face as he throws a rock. These were constant and common images, and now they are missing,’ Mr. Cohen complained.

At the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in New York City two new studies were presented, one conducted in the United States, the other in Trinidad. In the studies pre-school age black and white children were shown black and white Cabbage Patch dolls, identical except for their color. The children were asked which they preferred - which doll they wanted to be, which was ‘bad’ or nice’, and which was a ‘nice color’ - and which they would like to have.

In the United States study, Daniel Goleman reported in the

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Times, two-thirds of the black children preferred the white dolls, a response researchers interpreted as indicating low racial self-esteem. In the Trinidadian study, 85 percent of light-skinned black children preferred the white doll, and 64 percent of dark-skinned black children.

In both studies, a minority of white children chose black dolls. But the psychologists did not necessarily interpret their choices as indicating low racial self-esteem. They did not elaborate on this point either. In the 1940's Dr Kenneth Clark, now professor emeritus of Psychology at the City University of New York, and his wife Mamie, conducted the original study on children and used an identical procedure. They found then, that about two-thirds of black children preferred white dolls. The Clark studies were highly influential at the time. In 1954 the Supreme Court, in its school desegregation decision, cited the studies as evidence that segregation was harmful to blacks. Dr Clark called the new findings in the two reports ‘disturbing.’

Some researchers see the findings as indicating that black children start life with an unnecessary handicap in racial self-esteem. ‘Black children get messages of inferiority from all sides, Dr Clark said at the current annual meeting. He continued, ‘What the children are telling us is that they see their color as the basis of self-rejection. We have tried to hide the damage racism does to black children, but the damage is there, and will continue as long as racism continues.’

However, researchers feel that black children can be helped to develop greater self-esteem through efforts by teachers and parents, and changes in the ways blacks are portrayed in films and television. ‘Black children can learn racial pride and self-respect if the models and reinforcements are strong enough,’ said Michael J Barnes, a clinical psychologist at Hofstra University, who chaired the symposium where the findings were presented. ‘But during the 1960's we were naive in thinking it was just enough to say “Black is beautiful”. ‘In our society, black and Latino children are bombarded with images - in movies, toys and books - that

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tell them theirs is not the preferred race. Most heroes, like Rambo and He-Man, and most authority figures, like police and teachers are white. The message is that authority, beauty, goodness and power most often have a white face.’^137.

137. The New York Times, from a report by Daniel Goleman