Seriously, that’s cover of the new issue of Newsweek. Despite the silly and unnecessarily embarrassing cover, the article — “See Baby Discriminate” with the tagline “Kids as young as 6 months judge others based on skin color” — points out information recently gathered in the new book NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. In it, they talk about, among other things, a study done by Phyllis Katz with 100 white children and 100 black:
Katz found that babies will stare significantly longer at photographs of faces that are a different race from their parents, indicating they find the face out of the ordinary. Race itself has no ethnic meaning per se—but children’s brains are noticing skin-color differences and trying to understand their meaning.When the kids turned 3, Katz showed them photographs of other children and asked them to choose whom they’d like to have as friends. Of the white children, 86 percent picked children of their own race.
What jumped out at Phyllis Katz was that, while parents work hard to counterprogram their children against boy-girl stereotypes, the same thing isn’t done with race. Bronson and Merryman, write, “That ought to be our model for talking about race. The same way we remind our daughters, “Mommies can be doctors just like daddies,” we ought to be telling all children that doctors can be any skin color. It’s not complicated what to say. It’s only a matter of how often we reinforce it.”
“See Baby Discriminate” really is worth reading in its entirely, despite that cover title . . . .
15. September 2009 at 2:22 pm
This article is outrageously offense. Why is there no picture of a black child on the cover? Because only whites are racist, right? When the truth is that blacks are some of the biggest racists out there. Why was it not mentioned about black babies wanting to have blacks as their friends? Because it would be called racist to mention such a thing right? But it’s okay to call white’s racist, and by implication suggest that whites are inherently evil, prejudiced scum. Shame on Newsweek. This is outrageouly appaling.
16. September 2009 at 9:53 pm
As a Jew I find the Newsweek cover to be evil and repusive. It reminds me of the race based blood guilt taught by the Nazi. Jewish babies were thrown into the are and used as target practice because they were called Christ killers, because of the Nazi doctrine of race based blood guilt. A baby is innocent. These people are evil monsters, like the Nazi and just because they are self abusive, saying it about there own kind does not excuse their sick behavior
21. September 2009 at 9:03 pm
Is this article supposed to be relevant? All it shows is that we are naturally more comfortable with what we are familiar with, which we all already know, so how is this “news”? What is NOT natural is to fear and/or hate that which is unfamiliar, and this kind of garbage is becoming all too familiar.
What is NOT natural is Newsweek participating in such irresponsible race-baiting. Typical mainstream fish-wrap that makes issues out of nothing, while ignoring the REAL issues. First and last Newsweek article I will read, so I won’t bother with this week’s offensive “The Case for Killing Granny,” obvious propaganda for forced plug-pulling.
I will not be teaching my children anything these irresponsible idiots suggest, but I WILL teach them to NOT pay heed to mainstream trash posing as news. Trashweek, your days are numbered.
21. September 2009 at 9:20 pm
Another Jew here. I see it differently. Of course the cover and the premise is offensive, but you know what? Science sometimes is. Doesn’t make it wrong though. naturally humans feel safest among their own “race”, because that’s where they factually were safest since the dawn of man. Early humans lived in small tribes and frequently clashed with other tribes, who were in some way. On a larger scale they still do. The result of this study is logical and doesn’t surprise me one bit.
But neither do the implications that just ooze out of this article. “All whites are born racist, we need more money for anti racism programs beginning in Kindergardens”.
All this anti-racism crap is counter-productive. The best way to avoid racism is not making race a big issue. Kids will play with each other no matter their skin colour, there is no need to indoctrinate them from an early age on. Of course blacks will still hang around with blacks a lot and whites with whites, but do we really have to mix and melt everything into an indistinguishable mush? What’s next, will white kids with only white friends in schools be labeled racist and sent to special tolerance courses? Will all people be labeled racist for mostly marrying within their own race? Do we need to force people to marry outside their race to combat racism? The direction this who political correctness BS is taking is just insane.
27. September 2009 at 9:03 pm
that’s the cutest racist baby i’ve ever seen. precious. anyway, babies discriminate. everyone does. look up the meaning of the word. If you’re told not to eat the green bananas, you probably won’t. That doesn’t mean they’re racist. It means they’re prone to choose and gravitate towards what is safe. If their parents had them in an environment where they would have naturally played with kids of other races as close peers; and it was declared safe by a parent, then they probably wouldn’t be among that large percentage that only chose kids of their own race. There’s some good thought, but its incomplete thought, and considering how this country takes all things about race and runs them both up flagpoles and undermicroscopes, that can be a dangerous or atleast debilitating and rather annoying thing. But still, cute kid.
13. October 2009 at 6:39 pm
Are they serious? Apparently the folks that write these articles have never raised children either. At infancy, there exists no such thing as racism. Ask any parent and they will tell you that, on their own, differences in skin color is about the last difference between individuals that a child acknowledges. It typically happens a year or two before they notice the gender difference. On their own, a child might make this discovery at age 3 or 4. If not exposed to race as a toddler, it could happen as late as when they start school.
I don’t understand why journalists have gotten so ignorant about things that people just “used to know”. It’s sad to see the sort of minds that people are counting on for good journalism. And so much of it seems to be tied to the coastlines where the country is run. Maybe it’s something in the ocean water or sea breeze or pollution in the streets of those big cities.?
30. October 2009 at 1:55 am
while parents work hard to counterprogram their children against boy-girl stereotypes, the same thing isn’t done with race.
Thats a really stupid statement, and a fairly stupid article pointing out nothing more that children are inexperienced and naive. OF COURSE children will be naturally cautious of people and things they arent used to. I Was terrified of santa clause and disney characters when i was little, Wheres my newsweek article detailing my terrible prejudices against Fluffy characters and men in red suits???
That sentence is so full of ignorance. I Dont know how you were brought up but i was brought up to treat everyone with respect regardless of who they were.
24. December 2009 at 2:27 am
ok of course any child will think notice a skin tone difference! before they go to school church, the park the people they are around (family) are the same race as them! so just as they would stare at a car if theyd never seen one before they would stare at different skin tone! it has nothing to do with racism its just babies are highly sensitive to new things! it means there learning not racist!!!! jeez
15. February 2010 at 3:26 pm
Interesting the knnejerck responce of Jason. Why do you turn it on the Blacks? The article was not written of the Blacks. The shining truth is: Wea are living in a “4th Reich” world in which racism does exist. Not so much as it was before but politically and especially socially. Racism based on how much money we make. If you look closely at this you do see the Blacks and other poor people on the bottom and the Whites at the top. This is a fact and not conjecture. If I were an elite white controlling this caste system, I will despise all other because money is power in this matrix. This article is a prelude to race tensions exploding. We do not need that in this time of world crisis. We need to ban together as never before no matter what the race. If we keep getting sidetracked by these idiotic pieces, we will find our whole planet to be a severe prison camp where only the elite can speak freely and live freely. Do your self a favor and find out who the real enemies of the state are. They are not white, black or any color. They are faceless and hide in the shawdows like snakes like they always did and will always do.