Evaluation and Identification Responses of Negro Preschoolers to the Colors Black and White

Previous studies had demonstrated a tendency toward the positive evaluation of white and the negative evaluation of black among Caucasian and Negro college students, and among Caucasian preschoolers. This study was aimed at assessing this tendency, and the tendency toward self-identification with these colors, among 89 Negro preschoolers ranging in age from 3-2 to 6-5. Ss' responses to procedures employing pictures of two animals, one colored white and one black, indicated that the children: (1) tended to associate positive evaluative adjectives (e.g., “good”) with the white figures and negative evaluative adjectives (e.g., “bad”) with the black figures; and (2) tended to identify with the white figure rather than the black figure. The findings were interpreted as providing additional evidence of the cross-racial, cross-cultural character of the evaluative connotations of white and black. Possible origins of these meanings, and their relationship to self-concept development in the Negro child, were discussed.

Poverty, Illness, and the Negro Child: A Dissenting Voice

Ordinarily, I am not an avid "Letters to the Editor" correspondent, but the article, "Poverty, Illness, and the Negro Child" (Pediatrics, 46:305) by Dr. Seham was the final straw. How long must we be constantly bombarded by the press–including "scientific" journals–with such sociologic clap-trap? Are there so many guilt-ridden people who have to join the bandwagon that no other voices are heard? Surely, physicians should realize that biologic organisms will group in a variable bellshaped curve. Why must we join the sociologists, politicians, and communists in trying to "flatten out" normal variability; producing (which is impossible) a nation of mediocre nebbishes.

POVERTY, ILLNESS, AND THE NEGRO CHILD

In the midst of a rising prosperity enjoyed by a majority of American citizens, there are 39,000,000 of the nation's poor who belong to families with total annual incomes that fall below the recognized subsistence level of $3,000 for a family of four. Of these, six million are children below the age of 6 years, and about nine million are between 6 and 17 years. As of 1966, more than a fifth of the nation's youth, and in some areas one-third, are growing up in dire poverty. The children who, through no fault of their own, are compelled to grow up under these circumstances are known to suffer from the so-called "deprivation syndrome," a complex disorder which is often the consequence of severe social pathology. It interferes with normal growth and development of the child in the physical, mental, and emotional spheres. It may result in intellectual retardation, personality disorders, social maladjustment, and even brain damage. Overwhelming evidence shows that poverty accounts for higher rates of morbidity and mortality among youth as well as among other age groups. Amid the affluence of modern life, crumbling tenements, inadequate sanitary facilities, es, malnutrition, and disease mark the spread of poverty. Public action has been inadequate in meeting even the most pressing needs of families submerged in economic struggle. While poverty claims its victims from among all racial groups, it has undoubtedly wrought its greatest damage upon the impoverished Negro child. No case better illustrates the wreckage left by poverty and discrimination than that presented before the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare by Dr. Robert Coles of Harvard on June 15, 1967.