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Archangelo and O’Loughlin’s beautifully written paper begins with a reference to the experiments by Kenneth and Mamie Clark on Black children’s preference for white dolls. This preference has always been understood to reflect the conflicted racial identities of Black children who are raised in a society that devalues individuals with darker skin and treats them as inferior. The preference for white dolls and the conflicted racial identities they denote point to deeply oppressive racial policies that have left Black children and everyone around them with “deep racial scars” (p. 1). They also point to a level of biracial awareness that white children do not typically demonstrate. Unlike Black children, many of the white children grow up without ever having to question the glaring racial inequalities in the world and the painful realities that maintain them.
Sadly, the Black Brazilian children Archangelo and O’Loughlin present in their paper demonstrate the same troubling preference for white dolls. Much like the children in the Clarks’ study, nine-year-old Sarah finds white dolls to be prettier and more intelligent. Listening to her words makes one wonder where her faith in the superiority of the white dolls comes from. One can ask the same question in the case of the four-year-old-girl who compares her nail polish to Archangelo’s and says, “Your color is the color of happiness, mine’s of badness.” It is a painful statement to read as she associates the darker color of her nails and most likely, of her skin, with badness. In it one can read not just a silly equivalence or a reference to a more desired identity of an adult woman with well-manicured nails, but her quick association of dark color with badness. Research shows that children between the ages of 3–4 make the connection between appearance and color but have no understanding of race as a social construct (Goodman, 1952; Stoute, 2019). What have these girls experienced that has contributed to such beliefs? What