CHAT

It seems life forever since I last blogged- that shows our business around here, because I doubt I’m the only intern with that problem. But after a relaxing weekend with friends here at the Light House, and a good Monday to start off the week, I figured I should share my experiences. So…

Yesterday was a pretty nice day. In the morning Shelby and I both worked with Aundrea and Imani- two highschool interns, in talking about identity. There was a documentary done by a 16yr old girl, who spoke about her identity as a black female. She discussed issues such as good hair vs bad hair, light skin vs. dark skin, lack of cultural origins due to slavery, and even retested an experiment done in the Brown v. Board of Education that had profound results. This young lady, had 21 black toddlers as her reseach subjects. In front of them on a table, she placed two near-identical doll babies. The only difference with these dolls however was that 1 was black, and 1 was white- same doll, different paint portraying skin. Yet 15 of the 21 kids chose the white doll to play with as their favorite. This showed us that even though many kids are raised to love themselves and know that all people are equal, there is still a conditioning present that creates a preference towards whiteness. After reading two articles and watching the documentary, our girls had a lot to say. I explaining conditioning to the girls in the most basic terms- if the oven is red and you touch it and burn yourselves, every time touch a red oven what will happen? Or if your mom yells when you draw on the walls, what will happen when you draw on the walls- your mom will yell! They understood that, then I asked how they felt about each of the major topics of the video, and after responding, I asked how they felt as though conditioning in our media might play a role in creating their opinions. And finally, I asked how they feel as though their lives have been shaped by this conditioning and what they could learn from this young girls documentary. To check out the documentary go to this website (http://www.uthtv.com/umedia/show/2052), click watch- and let me know what you think!

Then as the day progressed, we had Bible study and tutoring in the evening, and lastly a group of us went to get dollar burgers from Capital Ale. It was most of us college interns, plus some Church Hill frequenters, and some new UofRichmond girls. After being so focused on the kids at times, it was sooo much fun to just get out with interns and our friends. The conversation never ended and ranged from every topic under the sun, and the crowd was as diverse as the conversations. With so many of us with so many different backgrounds and walks of life, our love for the kids and burgers brought about a great night- hopefully a Monday night tradition.