In response to Kiri Davis's "A Girl Like Me," a documentary experiment that found that black children are culturally inclined to choose light skinned dolls over those with dark skin, Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity plans to host a discussion titled "Black Image and Self-Worth" on Thursday evening.
The discussion, which will focus on the cultural portrayal of black self-image, particularly among children, is part of the annual week long event "Alpha Week."
The video, which won the Diversity Award during the sixth-annual Media That Matters Film Festival, features the opinions of various black women about skin color and self-image. In the film Davis recreated an experiment conducted by Dr. Kennith Clark dubbed "the doll test".
"Can you show me the doll that is the nice doll," says Davis as a child picks up the white doll. "And why is that the nice doll?"
"Because it's white," replies the child in the video.
Mickael K. Simoni '08, president of Alpha Phi Alpha, said he recognized the gravity of this self-image dilemma as he explained the organization's choice to hold a panel on it.
"The reason we're holding the discussion about self-image is because there's a reaction about what black children think of them selves," he said. "I think the program for [Thursday] is a good topic and there seems to be a lot of people in the country talking about it."
The event kicked off on Monday with an outreach event in which children, parents and students gathered in the Cutter-Shabazz Lounge for "Alpha and the Dartmouth Alliance for Children of Color."
"Basically the media makes kids think their skin colors are bad," Alpha Phi Alpha's vice president Simon Trabelsi '08 said as he noted the importance of outreach to local kids.
Alpha Week continued on Tuesday with "Black Men's Dinner." During the dinner discussion, held at the Orient restaurant, several students and two faculty members addressed issues relevant to the black community on campus.
"We bounced around from topic to topic to get to know different people on campus," Trabelsi said. "We gave underclassman advice on how to make [campus life] better."
Trabelsi stressed the importance of connecting with underclassmen because of Dartmouth's relatively small black community.
"We tend to focus on the fellowship because the black community is not as cohesive," Trabelsi said, contrasting the black community at Dartmouth with those at other schools.
The brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha focused on their fellowship during Wednesday's "Brotherhood Day."
Simoni described Brotherhood Day as "a day where we all do something, but what matters is that we do it together. It's just important that we do it together and just focus on one another."
Alpha Week, which has been celebrated at Dartmouth since the 1970s, links the local chapter to other chapters across the country, although other schools celebrate the event during different weeks.
Other chapters celebrate Alpha Week with bowling tournaments, movie nights, dance parties, exhibits, singing and poetry.
Alpha Week will continue with the annual women's appreciation event, "An Evening of Roses," which will be held in the Fuel Basement on Friday. According to Trabelsi and Simoni, tickets are already sold out and they are putting names on a wait list.
The week will conclude on Saturday with "Knowledge Bowl 2007," in which various teams of students will be asked questions under categories such as black entertainment, blacks and politics, black history, African history and civil rights.
Trabelsi said he views this week as a "celebration and a representation for everything [Alpha Phi Alpha] stands for, like scholarship, uplifting and community service."
