Appreciation of the beauty that God gave us!

What makes a young child play favorites in regards to race? The reason that I ask is that I have come to discover that my 18 month old daughter seems to prefer white people over black (in regards to strangers). I am rather perplexed by this phenomenon, to say the least. When we are in the malls, or other public places, my daughter, who is just learning to talk, goes out of her way to say “hi” to the white people that she sees. However, when she sees a black person, she does not speak. She will even let a white person pick her up…without crying, but let a black person that she does not know try such…she will cry, scream and fight. What is going on?

We live in a mixed community, but nearly all of our close friends are black and so my daughter is exposed to kind and loving black people constantly. There has been no traumatic experiences, of a negative nature, emanating in a pattern recognizable as being associated with blacks. In fact, as far as we know, she has had no traumatic experiences, other than birth, shots, the flu and a few tumbles out the bed. So, It is not as if she has learned that black equals bad, by virtue of her life experiences.

The only thing that I can figure is that she became acclimated to the white nurses, after she was born premature and spent 7 weeks in newborn intensive care. All the staff were white. I am not sure of the imprint of that experience has left on her young mind, but she was there a long time, but my wife and I were there nearly all the time as well. However, they did administer some painful shots, so I would think that would count against them, in her young mind.

Maybe it is not that at all. Maybe she just finds their different appearance worth investigating. I mean no disrespect or direct comparison, but she is rather fascinated with dogs as well. I think part or a lot of that fascination is due to their difference from humans and hence herself. Thus, whenever she sees a dog, she goes “doggy…woof, woof”...she makes an effort to get the dogs attention. Maybe she thus sees whites as fascinating, in a similar way, because they look different from her and the black people who surrounds her life on a daily basis.

I will not consciously verbalize to my daughter issues of race at such a young age. I think that would be irresponsible, as well as damaging. I do not mind that she greets white folks or play with white children. However, what I do not want is for her to favor another race over her own. I do believe that every entity needs a bit of narcissism about who and what they are. I can’t help but to believe that those who favor traits that they do not themselves posses are suffering from an inferiority complex and can’t really feel that good about themselves or their loved ones.

I can remember reading of these studies where black children prefered to play with white dolls, rather than black ones. In their young minds, they associated the black dolls as being or looking "dirty". There were also studies that showed other dispariging choices of young black children, in regards to their own race or those that looked like them. The kicker was that the original studies were done in the 40's or 50's, but were repeated with the same results in the late 80's or early 90's.

Are we conditioned to dislike who we are in this society...from birth?