I was at a biracial blog yesterday and saw a posting where a mother thought it was crazy that people asked another mother what color doll she preferred to give her daughter of color. Her response to the mother suggested that she thought a doll was just a doll and that it was not important what color the doll was. I immediately thought about all of the expert opinions I sought when developing DollsLikeMe.com (there were 14) and all of the research reports I read about the low levels of self esteem in girls of color. I reflected on what I have learned about self-esteem in children of color (particularly girls) over the last couple of years and how giving white dolls to younger girls of color actually jump-starts the problem (several articles on this topic can be found at DollsLikeMe.com). I also considered how well-meaning, but ignorant, parents cause little girls of color to grow up wanting to look and be white; hate their yellow, tan or brown skin; and despise their thick and wavy, coily-curled, or heavy straight black hair. Then I thought about how mothers like this contribute to the problem the rest of us are trying to solve.
