Kids on Race, ABC's Diane Sawyer VS CNN's Anderson Cooper

So there have been two shows I've come across about the issue of race amongst children, mainly black children and white children. Let's start with the one I like more. This video is by ABC featuring Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts interacting with a group of white children and a group of black children seperately. You can view the video here:

A simple summary of the above video. Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts speak with the two groups of children about race and how they feel primarily about the other race, the responses are put in contrast with the similar video they produced 10 years prior. There is a huge difference in how the children on both sides feel about race and when asked if they think that race is over both groups concur that the issue of race at least amongst themselves is at an end and that there can be peace between all the races.

This was a fantastic video and it was very comforting to see children understand that regardless of the skin color of someone else they're still as equal and they're willing to afford them the opportunity to be their friend whether they're the same color or not.

Now for the segment that I 80% disagree with.

Now not being able to find the full segment online I can point you in the direction of a series of clips from the segment dubbed "AC360 series: doll study research" (Click the title to go to the page). Now this segment is based on a study that had been done before as well, but in my opinion this "study" was not well planned whatsoever. The main gripe I have with the doll study is that it's done on a gradient, what I mean is that the images on the piece of paper go from lightest to darkest and can be thought of as a scale from good to bad, not just a listing of possible options of skin color. Obviously the moment you ask the child to point out "the bad child" it could be thought of as instead of picking the "race" of a child you're actually choosing between light and dark (often considered good and bad). Darkness can often times portray evil, while light often portrays good (use google images to look up "heaven" and then try "hell", you'll notice a stark difference between the tone of the images that you'll find, even children understand this concept). As the one girl said when asked "Why is she the good child?" after pointing to the lightest doll on the page, "because she looks whiter." Not, "because she's white" or "because she's a white girl" but because she looks whiter. Once you've asked a child to choose the "bad child" on the scale and they've decided its a scale of good to bad, immediately every question following this will be based on a scale of light to dark regardless how how you ask the question.

Now obviously the test is not 100% faulty but I believe that the answers given would be starkly different if you just asked the children how they felt, and so when watching both segments the open question (not using the scale) bring out the real answers that the children feel. Once they're no longer faced with a scale of light to dark doll images the answers fall more in line with what I think the doll test skewed, that these children really do believe things are much more equal between white and black kids. Why would these answers be different? Because they're no longer answering questions based on a preconceived scale of good to bad, it's up to them how they answer freely instead of having to pick a specific option.

Finally, if you watch all of the segments of the AC360 study and the questioning by Diane Sawyer, you'll notice that the kids are far beyond what the doll test would try to have you believe. The doll test was ill conceived and could have been put together in a much less biased fashion, but I suppose if it wasn't completely biased to make white children look completely racist and black children absolutely self deprecating there wouldn't be much of a news story here because Anderson would just be retelling us what Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts already had, that there as been miles of progress between how children 10 years ago felt about the opposite race and how they feel about them now.

Please if you have any questions about my opinion on this feel free to ask as I am full of answers that I'd love to share with anyone, and if you don't agree with my opinion you can share that as well and I'd be happy to reply with more detail as to why I feel the way I do. Thank you, Brandon Rising.