Two Dolls

In the late fifties, if I remember correctly; a black psychologist out of Harvard ran an experiment in a Black community Down South. He took two dolls, one black, and one white, identical except in color, and asked young Black girls which was more beautiful. They overwhelmingly picked the doll colored white.

Being Black, the psychologist knew the results before he began; or, perhaps, knew only the result he needed to dramatize: that many of his people loathed their appearance, and that the experiment might reveal to them – and so free them from – their tragic misconception.

Over the last hundred years, we assimilated Jews (Reform, Agnostic, Bu-Jew, Ethical Culture, and so on) have been raised to think ourselves, our folkways, and our religion unlovely. Else why “assimilate”? The current ebullition of this self-loathing is our accommodation with today’s anti-Semite murderers, and their apologists.

Would a people which thought itself and its ways lovely, consider, let alone promote the interests of its assassins? (“Jews For Palestine,” e.g.) 

What can we Jews adduce in our defense? To suggest we need do anything reveals a lethal absence of pride. We know, of course, of our numerous Nobel Prize winners. It’s difficult, however, to identify with some genius master of gas-diffusion, or string theory. 

But we all identify with actors and actresses.

Nietzsche said the thought of suicide is a great comforter, many a sleepless night has been spent with it: a last-case instance of counting sheep. 

I regularly try to fall off, counting Jews. 

Who were the notable American authors of the last century? Bellow, Malamud, Philip Roth, Eve Babitz, Fran Liebowitz. The dramatists: Ben Hecht, Paddy Chayevsky, Lillian Hellman, Sidney Kingsley, Clifford Odets, Harold Pinter, myself, Arthur Miller. And so on. The film directors: William Wyler, Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Jules Dassin, Sidney Lumet, Stanley Kubrick. All Jews.

And my revelation, prompted by the Harvard Fellow’s aperçu: Who were the most beautiful women in the movies? Lauren Bacall, Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Lily Palmer, Hedy Lamarr, Anouk Aimee, Tatiana Samoilova, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Luise Rainer, Suzanne Pleshette, Goldie Hawn, Debra Winger, Winona Ryder, Kate Hudson. All Jews.

A good list, which didn’t lead me to sleep but to a further revelation: that the most beautiful men in films were also Jews. Charlie Chaplin, Kirk Douglas, Cornel Wilde, Farley Granger, Tony Curtis, Jeff Chandler, Cary Grant, Harrison Ford, Leslie Howard, Laurence Harvey, Jake Gyllenhaal, Shia LaBeouf, Robert Downey, Jr., and so on.

I found my lists a reminder that (inter alia) we are a good-looking people. Is this the answer to assimilated self-loathing? Will it reverse or retard the Liberal Jew’s suicidal affection for his enemies? I doubt it.

Other hand, perhaps a shocking experiment with dolls in the 1950s caught the attention of some who would actualize its conclusions as Black Is Beautiful.