p62-67 Breakfast Program

I really love the incident of Fern’s doll. I have to say that I never once considered the color of her doll’s skin, thank you “colorblind” education. I should have known that most dolls in this time period only came in pink. Did I picture her with a caucasian doll? Was Miss Patty Cake brown? Or did I strip away the color from my imagination even though I can see and hear these “lanky,” “Hershey” skinned girls? In any case, I think this incident provides a great opening for discussion. What is the right thing to do? Delphine and Vonetta have to stand up for their sister (“No one could call Fern White Baby Lover even though Miss Patty Cake was a White baby and Fern loved her” p67) but Kelvin needs to question her affection for the discontinuity of skin color. Set in the past, there’s a sort of area of safety from which to confront the issues of color here, as well as the fact that story presents a hypothetical version of reality to begin with. Does that make literature too safe of an area to explore? Or should we start in comfortable areas before challenging our discomfort? As a parent, would I buy my child a brown baby doll? Does that exoticize skin color? Encourage racist play by providing play things with difference? Children are much better at picking out difference than similarity (more Vygotsky I think). I think I need to think more on this area, but regardless, I think this is a good scene to investigate because it has no right answer- it shows children the messiness of life (think Apple and conflict).