Listen to this segment | entire program

As 2012’s Black history month kicks off, we turn today to an author who has chronicled a little examined history of childhood in the United States. Robin Bernstein, in her new book “Racial Innocence” examines the ways in which race was used to configure different ideas about childhood from the time of slavery to the civil rights era. While most of us take for granted the idea of childhood as a time of innocence, Bernstein shows how this idea gradually came about following the Calvinist era thinking that children were born into original sin. In Racial Innocence, she points out how portrayals of African American children were placed in direct contrast to white children to alleviate feelings of guilt about slavery. Black children or ‘pickaninnies’ were portrayed as being able to tolerate great levels of pain while white children were seen as being innocent, fragile and ‘angelic’. The innocence of white children held great power and this power could be transferred to African American adults as seen in the book, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Through a careful analysis of this highly influential book by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Bernstein shows us how these ideas about innocence worked their way into American culture. But it was not only through books that white society was able to codify ideas about race and childhood, it was also through toys and games. A simple thing like a child’s doll became a potent symbol of racial oppression. Bernstein takes us through a fascinating journey which looks at everything from Topsy Turvy dolls made by female slaves for both black and white children, to Raggedy Ann whose origins and looks are rooted in a racially insensitive past where ‘blackface’ and minstrel shows were commonplace.

GUEST: Robin Bernstein is an Associate Professor of African and African American Studies and Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University.