Brown Pup Blonde Pup

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Holding Bear (left) and Teddy (right)

A friend tagged me in this post on facebook today, the message in this story is really alarming I wanted to share, please feel free to share your opinions.

Brown Pup Blonde Pup posted on facebook by Sheena

Yesterday, while walking my two Shih Tzu puppies Teddy and Bear, my boyfriend and I came upon a little black girl.
“Can I pet that one?” she asked.
“You can pet that one,” I said while looking at Teddy the blonde pup.
“But, why don’t you want to pet that one?” I asked, pointing at the brown pup, Bear.
“Because he’s too black,” she replied.
I can still hear her little voice in my head and still wonder how she would come to that conclusion and why she reacted the way she did, wringing her hands and looking away from Bear who looked equally eager to lick her face as Teddy.
She couldn’t have been older than 7.
Other black children in my community have similar sentiments. Completely ignoring Bear and greeting Teddy with open arms.
Just trying to gather feedback.
Any thoughts?
Sound off.

My humble opinion follows:

Too many of us are too deeply affected by issues regarding race and color, and are in a weekend state and emotionally unable to face this truth.. this illness will remain and our babies will continue to be poisoned by this way of thinking until more of us empower ourselves , man and woman up and begin to face these issues. It runs deep, and is constantly reinforced within the media and outside world, the saddest part is that most likely in this young girls case and in many families these ideas are constantly perpetuated in the home as well in daily life.. Many of our people are taught not to love self, theres a great distain for blackness and a strong embrace of self hate.. The love for the words nigga & bitch, is a simple example of this, terms of destruction are regularly used to address one another .. its a major problem..

for further insight the book post traumatic slave syndrome by dr joy leary is a great analysis of these issue with ways to begin healing them. http://www.joydegruy.com/ptss/index.html

peace – Daoud

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Tags: color issues, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, self image

3 Comments

By Leslie, June 23, 2010 @ 6:57 PM

I remember seeing a video in a child psychology course years ago where children were asked to choose a doll they thought would be “nice or friendly.” The mostly black children overwhelmingly choose the lighter doll. When asked which doll looks like them, you could see the internal conflict expressed. They just selected the lighter doll as the nicer or friendlier one but didn’t want to be associated with the doll that aesthetically matched them. As a teacher I am esteemed by the children’s literature that is now available to help cultivate self love in the little ones.
By Waka Flocka, July 15, 2010 @ 4:23 AM

If I were a child I would perceive the brown pup to be dirty(gasoline,mud,dirt etc;) in comparison to the blonde one..I mean they (the kids) come into contact with each other..so skin color I think is a mute point.
By Daoud *Brooklyn Sheikh*, July 28, 2010 @ 12:26 PM

denial, attempts to rationalize, explain .. we need to get past that and start identifying our issues so that we can correct & heal them..