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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Black or White: Kids on Race
Aired October 21, 2010 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Tonight on 360, a special follow-up report, "Black or White, Kids on Race." Nearly 50 years after the Civil Rights Act outlawed segregation in the schools at work and beyond, how much has really changed in the way Americans view race?
Well, a few months ago we set out to answer that question. We decided to focus on kids to see how even very young children view skin color. The results were fascinating, and also surprising.
We showed the results to some of the parents of the kids that we met. Many of them were shocked, many were visibly upset.
Tonight we'll show you what changes they've made at home in the way they talk and even think about race. We'll also talk to experts on how to address the issue of race with kids and Grammy-winning singer/songwriter, John Legend about his experiences with racism.
First, what we set out to do and what we found.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are lots of different colors for skin.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have questions for you about these pictures of different children.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As I read the question, I want you to point to the picture that fits the story.
COOPER (voice-over): Are children color blind in America?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the smart child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the mean child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you show me the dumb child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the nice child.
COOPER: Is bias measurable even at an early age?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is she the bad child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because she's black, black.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is he the ugly child?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because he -- he looks like he's white.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is he the dumb child?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because she has dark-brown skin.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is she the bad child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because she makes fun of everybody else's skin color.
COOPER: How much do kids learn from what they see and hear from adults?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the child who has the skin color most adults like?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And show me the child who has the skin color most adults don't like.
COOPER: These are questions that we, along with CNN's Soledad O'Brien and a team of psychologists hired by CNN spent months investigating through tests, interviews with children and their parents. They are questions that had been asked for decades.
The first doll study ignited controversy in the 1940s when psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark pioneered studies in the effects of segregation in schools by asking African-American kids to choose between black and white dolls. The so-called doll test found black kids overwhelmingly preferred white over black. Those results were at the center of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown vs. the Board of Education that desegregated American schools.
Now, with a first African-American president and nearly 60 years after segregation was overturned, we wondered, where are we today? How do kids see differences in race? What we discovered might shock you, but first, how we got there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Skin color, a child's skin color estimate.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, yes.
COOPER: We asked renowned child psychologist and University of Chicago researcher Dr. Margaret Beale Spencer to design a pilot study for CNN and analyze the results.
DR. MARGARET BEALE SPENCER, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Our children are always near us, you know, because we're a society. And what we put out there, kids report back. You ask the question, they'll give you the answer.
COOPER: Spencer's team tested more than 130 kids in eight schools with very different racial and economic demographics. Half of the schools were in the north, half in the south.
(on camera): Nicely done.
(voice-over): While the country is much more diverse today than in the 1940s, the children in this project are from two age groups and two races, white and black, to better allow comparison to the original doll study.
Four- and five-year-old children were asked a series of questions about these images. Nine- and 10-year-old children were asked questions about the same images as well as this color bar chart. The test led us to three major findings. First, white children as a whole responded with a high rate of what researchers call white bias, identifying the color of their own skin with positive attributes and darker skin with negative attributes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the dumb child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dumb child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Why is she the dumb child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because she has black skin.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the mean child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is he the mean child?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because he's brown.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the bad child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is he the bad child?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because he's black.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Show me the ugly child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is he the ugly child?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because he's brown -- black.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the child who has the skin color most adults like.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And show me the child who has the skin color most adults don't like.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the child who has the skin color most children like.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the child who has the skin color most children don't like.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the child who has the skin color most girls want.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the child who has the skin color most girls don't want.
COOPER: The questions that got overwhelmingly white- biased answers --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the dumb child.
COOPER: About 76 percent of the younger white children pointed to the two darkest skin tones.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the mean child.
COOPER: About 66 percent of the younger white children pointed to the two darkest skin tones.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the child who has the skin color most children don't like.
COOPER: Again about 66 percent of the younger white children pointed to the two darkest skin tones.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the bad child.
COOPER: More than 59 percent of the older white children pointed to the two darkest skin tones, but some white children did have more race-neutral responses.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So could you show me the good-looking child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So what are you thinking? I know you pointed to them all, but tell me what you're thinking.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm thinking that I do not care if they're black, white, mixed or any kind of race. I think that it matters who they really are.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That's how white kids responded. Ahead on "360, Black or White: Kids on Race", I want to show you how African-American kids responded and how it compares to the answers from the original doll study back in the '40s.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the smart child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And why do you say she's the smart child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because you know usually that skin of people, they are more smart than I am.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Grammy winning singer/songwriter John legend isn't surprised by what we've shown you so far. Coming up, he talks candidly about race in America.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Everyone likes to think that we live in a post racial society.
JOHN LEGEND, SINGER: Yes, we don't. I mean, we -- the thing is I don't know if the goal is supposed to be post racial. I think we need to learn to love and value everyone for who they are individually. That doesn't mean we don't have to see race.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Before the break, we showed you how white kids responded to a test designed to measure how they view race. They showed a high rate of what researchers call white bias. As you're about to see, the responses of African-American kids in the pilot study were just as revealing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Our second major finding: even black children as a whole have some bias toward whiteness, but far less than white children.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the smart child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And why is she the smart child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because she is white.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Show me the dumb child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And why is she the dumb child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because she's black.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the ugly child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And why is she the ugly child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because she's black.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the good-looking child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is she the good-looking child?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because she's light-skinned.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the skin color you believe most teachers think looks bad on a girl.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think it really matters because I think each teacher wants to help a student learn either way what they look like.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside. It just matters what you look like on the inside.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the good-looking child.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They look the same.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes? Show me the child you would like as a classmate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You like all of them as classmates? Why do you say all of them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because I don't really care what color they have.
COOPER: This 5-year-old girl gave some provocative answers during her test. I asked her about them later.
(on camera): Why do you want that skin color?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because it looks lighter than this kind, because this looks a lot like that one.
COOPER: Uh-huh.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I just don't like the way brown looks, because the way brown looks, looks really nasty for some reason. But I don't know what reason. That's all.
COOPER: So you think it looks nasty?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, not really, but sometimes.
COOPER: Sometimes.
And Brielle (ph), they asked what color adults don't like. Do you remember what you said? Which one?
COOPER: That's right. That's the one you said. Why do you think adults don't like that color?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dark.
COOPER: Dark. And adults -- you think adults don't like dark?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe some adults do, but maybe some of them don't.
COOPER (voice-over): The questions that got overwhelming white- biased answers -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the one you think most children would think looks bad on a boy.
COOPER: More than 70 percent of the older black children chose the darkest skin tones.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the child who has the skin color most children don't like.
COOPER: More than 61 percent of the younger black children chose the two darkest shades.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the ugly child?
COOPER: More than 57 percent of the younger black kids chose the two darkest shades.
Dr. Spencer says the research shows the bias toward white is still very much part of our culture.
SPENCER: All kids are exposed to these stereotypes. But what's really significant here is that white children are learning or maintaining those stereotypes much more strongly than the African- American children.
COOPER: And that is our third finding, the finding that interested Dr. Spencer the most; that overall, younger and older children keep the same patterns of stereotyping. In other words, their ideas change little from age 5 to 10.
SPENCER: Ordinarily by the time children are older, there's sort of a natural filter, you know, their own ways of thinking sort of aids them in sort of rethinking the extreme stereotypic sort of responses to become less highly biased.
COOPER: That left Professor Spencer wondering what's causing this pattern. She speculates that kids are bombarded by stereotypical messages and that adults in kids' lives have to fight to override the deluge. Black parents may be more diligent about that, or white parents may not notice the need.
SPENCER: The messages are the same for all children and therefore, the test is the same for all parents. Parents have to reframe what children experience.
COOPER: We realize these findings may be disturbing and that some people will question this project's conclusions. What stereotypical messages are being sent in a country that elected a black man president?
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I, Barack Hussein Obama --
COOPER: Like all research projects, ours is not perfect. Some kids were told ahead of time they'd be asked about race. Some children identified with one race but came from biracial families, like this boy whose mom is white.
But Professor Spencer tells us these are common issues in research, and the results can still be trusted because of the sample size. To be clear, this is a scientifically informed and executed pilot study, which suggests the need for further research. The results point to major trends but are not the definitive word on children and race.
Still, they underline what Dr. Spencer sees as an alarming conclusion.
SPENCER: We are still living in a society where dark things are devalued and light things are valued.
COOPER: The question we're left with is, where do we go from here?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Still ahead, we visit with Andrew, a 5-year-old whose answers to the test stunned and upset his mom and she says led to some big changes at home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA: You've got to talk about it. It will be uncomfortable for people but that's where the real learning takes place, in the discomfort of it all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And later, an update on Brielle whose parents were equally upset with her answers to the test and what they revealed about her self-image. Her family has made some changes too.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: The test on racial bias that we asked researchers to conduct months ago showed that white kids had high rates of white bias. We sat with some of their parents as they watched their kids' answers on videotape and as you can imagine, it was upsetting for many of them, including one mom named Laura.
Back in May she called her son's answers shocking, evidence that she needed to do a better job of talking to him about race and color. We caught up with Laura and Andrew recently to see what's changed for them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nice to meet you.
COOPER (voice-over): This is how we first met 5-year-old Andrew.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the dumb child. Why is he the dumb child?
ANDREW: Because he's really black.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the nice child. Why is he the nice child?
ANDREW: Because he's the lightest.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the bad child. Why is he the bad child?
ANDREW: Because he's really dark.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Show me the ugly child. Why is he the ugly child?
ANDREW: Because he's -- he's dark.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the good-looking child. Why is he the good-looking child?
ANDREW: Because he's the lightest.
COOPER: Andrew overwhelmingly identified his own skin with positive attributes and black skin with negative attributes, a high rate of what researchers call white bias.
His mother Laura was shocked when we showed her his answers. She was part of a panel of parents whose kids participated in the test.
COOPER (on camera): I saw you shaking your head.
LAURA: It -- it's disappointing. I should be disappointed. I mean, I -- it makes me think I need to be doing a better job at home. I need to teach him, you know, it's -- it's really upsetting.
I spent 15 years as a teacher trying to teach first graders about all different societies and cultures and races and then here's my own child, his finger went so quick to the white side. It's fascinating.
So I just, you know, we have to -- I want to do more, talk about it more openly, definitely.
LAURA: Andrew, you want me to spin you around?
COOPER (voice-over): We met up with Laura and Andrew today.
LAURA: Hold on tight.
COOPER: She says seeing her son's answer was a wake-up call. She realized his ideas on race are already being formed.
LAURA: I want to try to demystify all these stereotypes. They -- they create them so young and to me it was sort of eye opening. Like, wow, he is already -- if he's not talking about it, it's already going on in his head.
COOPER: Like an estimated 75 percent white families, Laura never got specific about race. The doll test changed that.
LAURA: I've never said black people are bad, but I've never said black skin is OK. Black skin is great. I've always said it's OK to be different, but I just really need to be more open and up-front about it and attack it head on.
COOPER: Attacking it head on for Laura means instead of glossing over racial differences, today she looks for reasons to point them out and celebrate them, both with Andrew and her 3-year-old, Eleanor.
LAURA: What color is her skin, Eleanor?
ELEANOR, ANDREW'S SISTER: Black.
LAURA: Black? Is it OK to be black?
ELEANOR: Yes.
LAURA: Yes. She's beautiful.
COOPER: Before the doll test, Laura thought age 5 was far too young to talk about race. Now, she feels at age 3, she's already missed opportunities with her daughter who's showing signs that worry her.
LAURA: I was like, look, Eleanor, you know, these three women are black and they're doing ballet and she's like, no, just this one. I mean, already, at three, she's already sort of got some preconceived notions already.
So, just as simple as pointing it out, I think, is a good -- a good start, for sure.
Here it comes.
COOPER: While a tough thing to go through, she says her involvement in the doll test started conversations on race with family, friends, even colleagues.
LAURA: You've got to talk about it. It will be uncomfortable for people, but that's where the real learning takes place, in -- in the discomfort of it all.
COOPER: And she'll continue to fight all stereotypes --
LAURA: I could even be president. Do you want to be president one day, Eleanor?
ELEANOR: Yes.
LAURA: Yes.
COOPER: One conversation at a time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: When we come back, we'll revisit another family who's making changes in the way they talk about race. I first talked to 5- year-old Brielle after she took her doll test. Here's what she told me about dark skin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And Brielle, they asked you what color adults don't like, do you remember what you said?
This one? That's right. That's what you said. Why do you think adults don't like that color?
BRIELLE: Dark.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, Brielle's answer surprised her parents. We'll catch up with them just ahead.
And later, Marcus's story -- if you think that growing up in a biracial family would protect a child from white bias, well, think again.
"Black or White: Kids on Race" continues after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Our pilot study into kids and race found that African- American kids have a substantial amount of what researchers called white bias, though not as much as white kids.
Take a look at what 5-year-old Brielle told me when I asked her to show me which color of skin she would like to have.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: How about you? Why -- why do you want that skin color?
BRIELLE: Because it looks lighter than this kind, because this looks a lot like that one.
COOPER: Yes. And --
BRIELLE: And I just don't like the way brown looks, because the way brown looks, looks really nasty for some reason, but I don't know what reason. That's all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, that's part of my conversation with Brielle after she had taken the test, and those answers that she gave me matched what she said on the test.
They're painful to watch. Imagine how her parents felt. For them, like for Laura, who you saw earlier, the test was a wake-up call.
Soledad O'Brien caught up with Brielle and her parents recently.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Brielle today. Her parents, Byron and Latisha, focused on changing her self-perception, shocked at Brielle's answers.
LATISHA, BRIELLE'S MOTHER: It made me feel like, wow, what are we doing wrong? But we thought about some of the experiences that she has had, where she has noticed her skin color at an early age. And we thought that it was affecting her a certain way, but we didn't realize that she realized it.
BYRON, BRIELLE'S FATHER: Her perception was that a lot of times the golden-haired or the lighter-skinned kids got to be on line first for whatever, or there was one incident in -- in the way that they cast even the -- the Christmas play.
O'BRIEN (on camera): Light-skinned kids were the stars?
BYRON: Right. But the part that she got was the one that nobody would have possibly wanted.
O'BRIEN: What did she play?
BYRON: A donkey -- could have been a sheep. Could have been a -- any -- any other barn animal, you know, and she ended up being the donkey.
O'BRIEN: And she knew at age 3 that that was not the animal to be.
BYRON: Sure. And messages similar to those, I think at 3 years old, those are things that you actually do remember, I believe, in the -- in the subconscious.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): For Brielle's parents, counteracting those messages for her and her sister, Brianna, is now more than ever, a priority.
BYRON: They're the most beautiful girls in the world, as far as I'm concerned, and they need to know that, and I need for them to know that.
Good job.
I've tried to find ways to link that physical beauty, you know, the skin tone, your pretty hair, your pretty eyes, whatever it is, to the beauty -- I'm not speaking of beauty that is just because of what's inside. You're -- you're beautiful on the outside as well.
O'BRIEN: Brielle's answers got a strong reaction from family, friends and parishioners at church.
O'BRIEN (on camera): Did someone say, what are you teaching this child?
LATISHA: No. They were shocked at her answer, but it wasn't, like, a negative thing. A lot of people who spoke to me, they took up for her. They said, well what do you expect?
Look -- look at society. When you get married, what do you wear? You wear white. When the bad guy goes to rob a bank or a store, what does he put on? He puts on black. So what are the messages?
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Beyond looking at what their daughters see and hear from the world, Byron and Latisha are looking inward.
(on camera): What advice would you give other parents who say I don't know what to say to my kid?
BYRON: Honestly, I'd say the first level is -- is within. It's hard to have a conversation about acceptance or even about having healthy pride in your own race when there are some very real predispositions within one's self.
If I'm uncomfortable around white people, it's going to be hard for me to show my daughter to be comfortable. So make sure that we're doing all we can to adjust our own mind sets into one that really sees the equality of people. And -- and not just in speech, in reality.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It's interesting how Brielle's parents kind of deal with her. They're not really trying to talk her out of her feelings or her beliefs.
O'BRIEN: Yes. Absolutely. And I think a lot of parents would do that. I think maybe I would even do that.
But that's -- they have a very interesting parenting strategy, and they're together in this, which is they believe what this little girl is feeling is as valid as anything else. And what they're going to do is be good role models for other things, but not say, oh, you shouldn't believe this, you shouldn't believe that, don't worry about skin tone, talk her out of it.
They say, hey, we think she's actually nailing it. We think there are disparities in how people are treated, and she's so little, we are going to try to make sure that she loves who she is but not talk her out of how she's feeling.
COOPER: Right.
O'BRIEN: I like that.
COOPER: It's interesting. Well, we showed you how two families -- one white, the other African-American -- that made changes in the way that they talk about race after their 5-year-olds took the test measuring racial bias. Both kids showed white bias. Their parents were stunned by the results, but they weren't the only ones, really.
O'BRIEN: No. Absolutely not.
And we want to introduce you to Marcus and his mom, Mollie. His test, she said to us, just broke her heart. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Marcus.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): We first met 6-year-old Marcus when testing children in the South. His school identified him as African- American.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the dumb child. And why is that the dumb child?
MARCUS: Because he's really dark brown.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the nice child. And why is that the nice child?
MARCUS: Because he's white.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show me the mean child. And why is that the mean child?
MARCUS: Because he's like -- brown.
O'BRIEN: His answers showed the highest rate of white bias we've seen so far from any black child in the survey.
O'BRIEN (on camera): Show me the child that has your skin color. OK. Show me the child who has the skin color you want as your own.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): This is Marcus' mom, Mollie, she's white. Marcus' father is black. She was part of the panel invited to view the children's tests, and she was stunned.
MOLLIE, MARCUS' MOM: I'm kind of speechless today of how he responded to that.
O'BRIEN (on camera): Is it upsetting for you to see that?
MOLLIE: It's -- it's a little hard to watch. After this, when they did the taping, he -- he looked at me and he said, I wish I was -- I know I can't be, but I wish I was white. And it just -- I don't understand.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Mollie says this experience has changed the kind of parent she is to both Marcus and his brother Malik. MOLLIE: Majority of my friends are black, so I just assumed that my kids, you know, saw that like me. I don't assume anymore that my kids see things through my eyes. I always thought if you lived the life that they would follow, but you do have to communicate, you do have to talk about it.
O'BRIEN: Mollie has a unique challenge. Marcus has been attending a predominantly white school and his father, divorced from Mollie, lives three states away. She's trying to teach her son to embrace his own skin color. We asked him why in his test he said he wanted his skin to be light.
MARCUS: Because that's my favorite color -- white.
MOLLIE: That's what he told me. I think there's more behind that. But that's so far what he has told me and every time I ask him, it's the same answer.
MARCUS: Everyone in my school are white. They have different eyes -- eye color.
O'BRIEN: Mollie says Marcus' doll test has started broader conversations on race with 14-year-old Malik. He admitted he went through a phase where he thought it would be easier to be white.
MALIK, MARCUS' BROTHER: At my middle school, I would be called a cracker or the "N" word and that kind got on my nerves, too, and it kind of sucked.
O'BRIEN: Mollie says while she's experienced prejudice because of her biracial kids, she can only teach them so much.
MOLLIE: I have never been called a name because of the color of my skin, so I'm hoping that that's definitely what his father can teach him and to give him that feeling of you're -- you have to be the strong, thick skinned, black man.
O'BRIEN: Marcus spends summers with his father, Ray, who this summer focused on breaking down stereotypes and building up positive role models for his son.
RAY, MARCUS' FATHER: I said do you know who the president of the United States is? He says, yes. And he's like why did you ask me that? I say because he's just like you and he's the president. I said, so now what do you think you can be? He says I can do anything I want to do.
O'BRIEN: Ray and Mollie are optimistic they can teach Marcus to love himself just as they do for exactly who he is.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It is really a challenge for -- for parents to try to counteract messages in -- that their child receives all around them.
O'BRIEN: All messages, but I think especially race. I mean, I -- I grew up a biracial, black kid in a white neighborhood, in a white school and you get a lot of those messages. My parent's strategy was to say, you are black, you are Latino, don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
And I think one of the things that Mollie and I have -- have talked about a lot and she was mentioning to me was that she has to do a little bit more of that, kind of helping frame the world for a little kid who at 6 only sees white people around him. She's got to help him there.
COOPER: Still ahead what -- what you can do to help your kids recognize racial bias and try to see beyond it. As we have shown you silence and pretending that racial bias doesn't exist is not the answer. So when is the best time to start talking to kids about race? We'll get some answers from some experts ahead.
And plus my interview with John Legend. He has a half dozen Grammys and talent to spare. One thing he doesn't have, any illusions about how America sees race in 2010.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEGEND: I think society does give us messages about what's more valuable, what's less valuable in our culture. And historically, and still to this day, there's still value to having white skin in this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: You're watching a special 360 Follow-Up Report, "Black or White: Kids on Race."
Through a pilot study we asked researchers to conduct, we learned that both -- that overall both white and African-American kids display white bias, associating light skin with positive qualities and dark skin with negative qualities. Even kids raised in biracial families or with parents of different races may display white bias.
This leaves many parents asking how can you detect warning signs that your child has absorbed a biased view of race and how can you begin to correct that bias and when should you?
Soledad O'Brien joins me again along with Angela Burt-Murray, editor in chief of "Essence Magazine" and Ashley Merryman, co-author of "Nurture Shock."
Ashley, all the parents that -- that we revisited are talking a lot more to their kids about race. Do you think their messages they are now reinforcing are effective?
ASHLEY MERRYMAN, CO-AUTHOR, "NURTURE SHOCK": I think it's very important to talk overtly about race and absolutely all of the parents who are increasing this conversation, I think they need to do all of it and more so. We don't want to wait for kids to develop a bias and then try and correct it. What we want to do is head them off at the pass.
COOPER: Angela, in your magazine, I mean you deal with black women and beauty all the time.
ANGELA BURT-MURRAY, EDITOR IN CHIEF, ESSENCE MAGAZINE: Yes.
COOPER: Brielle, this beautiful little girl, thinks that dark skin looks nasty.
BURT-MURRAY: Yes.
COOPER: How do you -- what would -- what would you tell her parents, trying to help reinforce --
BURT-MURRAY: Oh, my gosh. It's so heart breaking when you saw her reaction to her own complexion and I'm sure these parents are working really hard to try and reinforce positive images. But it's about continuing to do that, but also keeping the lines of communication open and making sure that everywhere she's going she's getting those positive messages.
The magazines, the books, the shows that they watch on television, all of those things have to work together to reinforce the message, the positive message that their parents want to embark on this young girl.
(CROSSTALK)
BURT-MURRAY: Yes.
COOPER: But I mean you can't -- you can't control all the messages.
O'BRIEN: No, you can't, but you can control the important ones.
BURT-MURRAY: Right.
O'BRIEN: And certainly at her age, Brielle's dad --
BURT-MURRAY: Right.
O'BRIEN: -- told me how he really makes a concerted effort and I think more even now to verbalize to both of his daughters, you are so beautiful.
BURT-MURRAY: Right.
O'BRIEN: You are the most special, wonderful thing in the world --
BURT-MURRAY: Right.
O'BRIEN: -- with your sister.
BURT-MURRAY: Because -- and that's so important because the first relationship that young girls have with the opposite sex is obviously through their father. So you want them to grow up with the idea that they should be looking for partners that affirm their beauty and don't negate them in any way.
O'BRIEN: They also felt that -- that Brielle was sort of talking about something that she was --
BURT-MURRAY: Right.
O'BRIEN: -- experiencing in school, which was that she thinks other people think black is nasty.
BURT-MURRAY: Right. Right.
O'BRIEN: She thinks teachers favor kids who are light-skinned and they didn't want to squash that out of her. They didn't want to say, oh --
BURT-MURRAY: Right. So right.
O'BRIEN: -- don't be ridiculous, honey, that's wrong. They wanted her to have her opinion.
MERRYMAN: I don't disagree with anything that you're saying, but April Harris Britt, a researcher out of North Carolina, who's an African-American herself, has found that kids who hear constant messages of preparations for bias are looking for them, and they read bias in -- even in ambiguous or neutral circumstances.
So we want her to understand and we don't want her to be thrown by experiences of discrimination because as awful as they are, yes, they're probably going to happen. But we don't want her to be so ready for them that she discounts her own ability to have an effect.
BURT-MURRAY: I understand what you're saying about the research, but I do think that as African-American parents in particular, you have to proactively have these conversations with your children, particularly with your boys who are going to be in situations --
MERRYMAN: I'm not --
BURT-MURRAY: -- not only with educators, but with the police, and other situations where it can really turn into something really dangerous if your children are not equipped to handle it.
And I don't think that you should give your kids this kind of blanket, you know, you can dismiss anything that happens to you because somebody is just being racist.
MERRYMAN: What I would also say is for any message of preparation of bias, you have at least one or maybe twice as many conversations about ethnic pride, ethnic history. You know, examples for -- especially the families of, you know, biracial kids --
BURT-MURRAY: Right.
MERRYMAN: -- it's not just watch Barack Obama on television, it's -- look, Barack Obama has a biracial background, a white mom and a black dad, and he worked really hard. And you give them tools not just on how to react on incidents of discrimination, but how can they themselves go forward and build themselves their own identity.
COOPER: Ashley, Andrew's mom, Laura, is now talking to a 3 year old about race and even wishes that she started earlier, but your research suggests to start even younger than that.
MERRYMAN: A lot of times, you know, think about your conversation, if it's in a picture book, you often would say, oh, look at the balloon, what color is the balloon? Look at the boy's shirt, what color is the boy's shirt, and you describe everything about the color, and the height and the size, except for the fact that maybe that boy is brown.
And when you don't let the kid mention that and you pretend to ignore it, even at one or two years old we're leaving this message, yes, you see it, but it is so toxic, you can't even mention that you would see it. You can't even acknowledge it and don't ask me what this means.
BURT-MURRAY: I think you're right. You have to talk about it early. You have to talk about it often. But you also have to think about what does your world look like. You know, who do you worship within your church? What does your community look like? What does your child's school look like? What does your child's play group look like?
It doesn't help if you just talk about it, but he doesn't -- he or she doesn't have any actual interaction, any actual friends or he doesn't see you having any friends or close relationships with people who are different than them. That's what you have to talk about. That's the inclusion that you have to have in your life if you really want to raise a child who doesn't see race.
COOPER: Great discussion. Angela Burt-Murray thanks very much. Soledad O'Brien, Ashley Merryman, thanks so much.
Up next, singer/songwriter John Legend -- why he says talking to kids and educating them about race is so important.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEGEND: I think some parents want to live kind of a color blind life and say I just want my kids to love everybody.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: I sat down with Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter John Legend to talk about our kids and race pilot study and whether people can ever really be color blind.
Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: One of the things that surprised me about this study, this pilot study is just how quickly little kids seemed to pick, you know, what child they thought was the dumb child, what child was the smart child. It seems like little kids form a perception about skin color and about race early on.
LEGEND: It was a little bit surprising but not super surprising, because, you know, I think society does give us messages about what's more valuable, what's less valuable in our culture. And historically, and still to this day, there's still value to having white skin in this country.
And that's not just perceived value. I think a lot of it is actually real because the outcomes, if you're black, are just different. You're less likely to go to a good school. You're less likely to have a higher income. You're more likely to go to prison. And these are societal things that have been in place for years and years.
And I think kids are responding to those things. They see these cues. They see these realities, and they're not just perception. They're real.
COOPER: And it's interesting, I mean talking to their parents, because a lot of the white parents were kind of horrified seeing their child make these choices.
LEGEND: Yes.
COOPER: And, you know, even though they had -- you know, felt like they had had a conversation or two with their child --
LEGEND: Yes.
COOPER: -- in the end they often were saying, "Well, clearly I need to talk more with my child."
LEGEND: I think kids need to be educated about history, about this country and, you know, kind of some of the things we don't like to talk about a lot of times. Because I think some parents want to live kind of a color-blind life and say, "I just want my kids to love everybody." And yes, you want your kids to love everybody, but you should also understand that this country enslaved black people for hundreds of years.
COOPER: Did your family, when you were growing up, I mean, did you talk about race? Was that something -- was that -- because in the study we found that more African-American parents seemed to talk to their children at a younger age --
LEGEND: Yes.
COOPER: -- about race than the white parents did.
LEGEND: Yes, we talked about race to some extent. And we -- I think it was less a discussion about race and more a discussion about kind of being proud to be us.
And I would read about Martin Luther King and just be proud that there was a black guy that did this. I would see Bill Cosby on TV, and I'd be proud that there was such a cool black family on TV that everybody watched.
And I was a curious kid like I used to read about the civil rights era. I used to read about the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington. I was proud of the people that fought it. I was inspired by these people. It made me want to live a life that was, you know, that was worthy of their sacrifice.
COOPER: It's interesting. You know, you talk to some Caucasian people, and they will say, "Well, look, you know, we're all American."
LEGEND: Yes.
COOPER: And you shouldn't be focused on division. We should be focused on the things that unite us.
LEGEND: Sure.
COOPER: And yet do you find in your own life, I mean, do you still come -- come up against racism or against people who judge you differently based on the color of your skin?
LEGEND: Yes. I had an incident in Virginia that wasn't very -- wasn't very encouraging. It was some older white gentlemen -- not exactly gentlemen. They weren't being very friendly and welcoming to me in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
COOPER: You asked -- you, what, asked -- paused to ask directions?
LEGEND: I asked for directions. They thought I was driving suspiciously.
COOPER: Suspiciously?
LEGEND: Yes. And to be clear, I was driving in a way that suggested that I didn't know where I was going. So that was true to some extent. But they pulled up to me, and I was going to ask them for directions. They said, you know, "What the hell are you doing?"
And I said -- I said, "What are you doing?"
And they said, "Well, we're just protecting our neighborhood."
And I said to them, "Well, I'm looking for this address. Could you help me find this address?"
They said, "I don't know where that is. You just need to get the hell out of here." And the address was a block away. So they knew where I was going. They just didn't want me to hang around. And they didn't trust what my intentions were in the neighborhood.
And I ended up finding the person I was going to go see. And I had a good dinner.
COOPER: You're smiling, but I mean, that's got to be infuriating.
LEGEND: It was disconcerting, you know. And I've never actually had an incident like that in life. So I'm 31 years old. And I've actually never had a direct example of racism.
I know racism is real in America. And I know it plays out in a lot more subtle ways. That was the first time it played out in a very direct way.
COOPER: Everyone likes to think that we live in a post-racial society.
LEGEND: Yes, we don't. I mean, we -- and the thing is I don't know if the goal is supposed to be post-racial. I think we need to learn to love and value everyone for who they are individually. That doesn't mean we don't have to see race.
COOPER: So that notion of color-blind is not necessarily, in your mind, the goal?
LEGEND: I don't think that's the goal. Like I'm black, and I love being black. I don't want somebody to love me, despite the fact that I'm black or be blind to the fact that I'm black and love me. I want them to just love me for whoever I am individually.
But it's OK that you see me as a black guy, too. Like, I'm proud to be black. And that's cool.
And the only thing we need to do is make it so that black people, brown people, people of all colors, have opportunities to succeed. So when a kid, a white kid grows up, thinking that black people might not be as intelligent.
There's all these examples in real life to show them, "Hey, President Obama's black," but not just President Obama, but a doctor, the pediatrician, the principal. We need all these examples, and people need to see that just in real life.
COOPER: It was -- I mean, some of the hopeful news from this pilot study we did -- and again, it's just a pilot study, and, you know, just one of many that's been done, but I mean, in the original doll test study back in the '40s, African-American kids had a very strong white bias. Even African-American kids would select white skin as the preferred skin.
LEGEND: Yes. Yes.
COOPER: That seemed lessened, though there was still some white bias.
LEGEND: Yes. And I think that's partly because, you know, our parents have kind of grown up with racism. So we understand how to talk about it a little bit more. And so, when you grow up in a setting where you experience the diversity of the black experience in America, then I think you have a little more nuanced view of what it means to be black.
And when you don't see that, when you just see maybe what's on TV or you just know one or two black people that your parents hang out with, you know, or zero black people that your parents hang out with, then that kind of affects what your perception of race is, as well.
COOPER: John thanks for coming in.
LEGEND: My pleasure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: We're going to continue to closely follow the issue of race in America. Thanks for watching "Black or White: Kids on Race."
Good night.
O'BRIEN: Good evening everybody. Welcome to "Almighty Debt" a "Black in America" special. I'm Soledad O'Brien.
Here are two facts about African-Americans.
