Weekly Blog #7: Response to "See Baby Discriminate"

I was so excited to read this article. In fact, I even had a copy of my own that Mrs. D.W. had copied for me upon request already in my folder. I hadn't had a chance to read it due to all the homework I'd had, but then it became homework! What a lucky break for me. . .

Any who. . .the reason why I'd planned on reading this was because I knew it would remind me of my AP Psychology class. I think it's obvious that I find it really fascinating to try to figure out how people (of any age group) think, so this was a really nice fit for me to read. However, despite my enjoyment of reading about something psychology-related, there are a few things I actually didn't like about reading and discussing this piece of writing, and I feel that I need to express them here.

First of all, I think that people--both those who conducted/are conducting these experiments and those who have read and discussed this piece of writing--are, perhaps by no fault of their own, putting way too much weight on the word "discriminate." I know that in this day and age, we can all agree that the word has been built a bad reputation full of negative connotations. Yet in it's mildest, most classic use, discrimination simply means to make a distinction--to notice differences.

There is no denying that people of different races look. . .well. . .different. Everyone looks different. I don't look like Raven Symoné; she doesn't look like Lin Manuel Miranda; he doesn't look Sandra Oh; she doesn't look like Barack Obama; and he certainly doesn't look like either of the Olsen twins. (That assortment of people would seem a lot less random if you were in my dream last night.) I don't think that it's the least bit fair to imply that children are racist simply because they are able to notice these facts. It's inevitable that babies will stare longer at a picture of someone who does not have the same color skin as the people in their families (the people they've been around all their lives). In fewer words, it's inevitable that babies will, in fact, discriminate. In that point in their lives, however, that's not a bad thing.

Also, I did not agree with the fact that those conducting the experiments only thought to study African-American and Caucasian babies. I think that a valid point can't be made if entire groups of people are left out of an evaluation like this one.

Somethings I did find really interesting about this article had a lot to do with parental impact on how children view race. I thought that the idea of there being a window for teaching kids how to think about race was definitely worth considering. It seems very likely that this is true, and I believe that it would be beneficial to parents to be aware of this when raising their children. I think that parents need also to be conscious of the idea that they are saying things to their children even when they say nothing at all. In other words, parents need to be aware that even though they think that doing things like not talking about race or brushing off the subject make it seem less serious, doing these things still has an effect on how children think about race. Put in even simpler terms, parents (and all adults) need to be aware that they are the ones crafting the meaning of "discrimination" for their kids.