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IN identifying racist assumptions in psychological accounts of black people, Owusu-Bempah and Howitt illustrate strategic and ideological dilemmas (Billig, 1991) when discussing racism. They criticise the doll-choice research by Clark and Clark which, when presented in the case of Brown v Board of Education (1954), led the US Supreme Court to ban school segregation.
Black children aged under eight had to choose either a black or white doll as looking most like them, and to select one of the two dolls in response to another four questions. The white doll was much preferred, and over one-third even selected the white doll in response to the supposed 'identity' question.
Clark and Clark explained that the racist structuring of society led to ia pernicious self- and group-hatred, the Negro's complex and debilitating prejudice against himself` and that `Negroes have come to believe in their own inferiority'.
At the cost of apparently demonstrating black psychological inferiority, this research delegitimised racist laws that forced inferior status on black Americans. Owusu-Bempah and Howitt only avoid this dilemma of identifying potentially negative psychological consequences of racism by offering general comments on racism's denial of life chances, but they correctly criticise the belief in inevitable black identity problems
Misunderstandings
Katz (1983) noted that the Clarks work was very unusual in psychology in being able ito significantly alter history and social policy', because the research `was simple enough for non-social scientists to understand'. But the research has been misunderstood. and by psychologists too.
In addition, the replicability and validity of 'identity' responses are questionable. Preference choices do show some recognition of societally approved hierarchies. However, it is not obvious what it is that doll choices do specifically depend on.
The Clarks' suggestion of damage to both personal and social identities simply demonstrates this confusion, confirmed by others claiming doll choices measure `selfconcept', `self-esteem', `self-image', `ethnic identity', `racial identity', `group identity', `reference group orientation', and so on. Terminological confusion reflects analytical and...