Anti racist prof Kendi wonders if daughter inhaled “smog of white superiority” at daycare
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
168.25316
Summary
Ibram Kendi is worried his daughter inhaled the smog of white supremacy from a white doll with blue eyes at her daycare. Kendi and his partner wondered if our black child s attachment to the white doll could mean she already breathed in what psychologist Beverly Daniel Tatum has called the "smog" of white superiority.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Anti-racist professor Ibram Kendi is worried his daughter inhaled the smog of white supremacy
00:00:04.420
from a white doll with blue eyes at her daycare. Kendi picked up his daughter from daycare and took
00:00:10.340
the doll away from her so they could go home. Each day his daughter frowned and threw crying
00:00:15.180
fits when he told her to put the doll down. Kendi and his partner wondered if our black child's
00:00:20.340
attachment to a white doll could mean she already breathed in what psychologist Beverly Daniel
00:00:25.420
Tatum has called the smog of white superiority. Kendi expressed his concern in an article for
00:00:31.560
the Atlantic magazine. Kendi referenced a recent CNN study where white children displayed a high
00:00:36.780
rate of white bias identifying lighter skin tones with positive attributes and darker hues with
00:00:43.620
negative ones. The black children in the study did display a white bias but less than the white
00:00:49.040
children. The study said it is because black parents actively work to protect their children from bias
00:00:55.400
by reframing messages that their children get from society about racial preference. White parents
00:01:02.440
don't have to engage in that level of parenting said the study. Regardless of your race it's never too
00:01:07.720
early to consider the messages a child is receiving from the world around them. Color blindness is not an
00:01:13.680
option wrote Kendi. Research has demonstrated that even at one year old our children notice different skin
00:01:20.200
colors. We can impress upon children the equality of dark and light colors. At Kendi's home his wife and
00:01:26.600
him keep a wide array of diverse toys but never thought about the daycare toys. Kendi went to his
00:01:33.160
daughter's daycare and looked through the toy chests. As he rummaged through the daycare toy chests he did
00:01:38.920
not come across a single doll that looked asian, native, latino, middle eastern or black. Every single doll I saw
00:01:46.680
looked white. Anger overtook me. Not at the daycare's owner, at myself. Imani, his daughter, had been going
00:01:53.480
there for several weeks and not once did I examine the toy chests said Kendi. According to the article
00:01:59.560
Kendi's daughter did not choose to play with the white doll over dolls of color but she did not have
00:02:05.080
another option. After all these years how many children still don't have another option in their toy
00:02:11.080
chess, libraries or schools. What does the over-representation of white dolls tell children
00:02:17.160
about who their caregivers think is important? Kendi is the author of five books including Stamped from
00:02:23.000
the Beginning, The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, How to be Anti-Racist and the children's book