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pius kamau | columnist
Help black women find self-esteem

By Pius Kamau
Denver Post Columnist
DenverPost.com

Low self-esteem isn't something we can measure on a scale. Unlike most
physical maladies, we can't point at it and say, "There it is." But like a
reflection on water, we infer it from its victims' self-destructive
behavior. Many poor black girls especially suffer from it. Since whatever
ails them is eventually reflected on generations of black children, it's a
condition associated with much that afflicts black America.

The plight of young, poor, minority girls hasn't been studied as
extensively as that of the more violent, confrontational boys. They
passively form the repository of male aggression.

In the 1940s, Dr. Kenneth Clark performed an experiment to quantify the
degree of black self-esteem using black and white dolls. He conclusively
showed that most black kids felt white dolls were better than black,
preferring to play with the white dolls. Since, like the "inferior black
dolls," they too were black, they felt they were "bad." Clark concluded
that "prejudice, discrimination and segregation" caused black children to
develop a sense of inferiority and self-hatred.

This experiment helped Thurgood Marshall in his Supreme Court argument that
dismantled the doctrine of "separate but equal" in 1954's Brown vs. Board
of Education. After traveling a long way up the road of racial equality,
seeing a proliferation of many dark-skinned dolls that our young now play
with, you'd think most black girls today would believe black and white
dolls are equal.

More recently, 17-year-old Kiri Davis of Harlem wanted to prove that we
have liberated ourselves from racism's demons of self-hate and low
self-esteem.

So Davis - a student at Manhattan's Urban Academy who participates in the
Reel Works Teen Filmmaking program, a free after- school program supported
by HBO - directed and produced an 8-minute documentary, "A Girl Like Me."
In it, Davis showed 21 girls identical dolls, distinguished only by their
color: black and white. Fifteen girls, all 5 years old, thought black dolls
were "bad" while white dolls were "nice." The little girls identified with
the "bad" black dolls.

It's incredible to see Kiri Davis' shocking film.

Recently, three minority women, all under the age of 25, visited my office.
One was 70 pounds overweight and was with a boyfriend in his 40s. The
21-year-old's three sons tugged at her skirt. The third was 17, a school
dropout with a pelvic infection.

I recalled the two doll experiments as we talked and the wind of self-doubt
blew through each girl's speech. Shadows of uncertainty lay across their
lives in which little was constant or certain. The boyfriend was curt and
cruel; the boys were loud, irascible and out of control. Cellphone glued to
her ear, the 17-year-old pleaded with someone, presumably her boyfriend. It
seemed to me that each was afflicted with some low self-esteem problems.

Low self-esteem among black kids lives for generations of families headed
by poor women without husbands, leaving kids without male role models and
often no one to affirm their worth. Some of these women become pregnant
earlier, often with older men; they frequently engage in risky sex without
condoms; and they drop out of school at high rates.

Carnita Groves, a black Denver psychologist, says black women "are not this
way because of white supremacy only. \[We\] have failed to exemplify what's
good, beautiful about who and what we are. Blacks have to learn that it's
just fine to celebrate, love and honor who we are."

We must find ways to empower these black women, to help them claim their
dignity. Educating all women (young and old) should be a national priority.
We should provide all willing women the help to build lasting, stable
family structures and break the cycle of self-loathing.

Finally, we should get the message across to our daughters that being black
is as much a blessing as being white is.

Pius Kamau of Aurora is a thoracic and general surgeon. He was born and
raised in Kenya and immigrated to the U.S. in 1971. His column appears on
alternate Thursdays.