Usually, when the discussion of colorism comes up we often discuss the plight of dark skin women. We rarely speak about the plight of light skin women because after all being light skin is the standard of beauty for black women in the diaspora. Possessing fair skin has the ability to attract black men, make employers view you as more intelligent, and make you more marketable in the entertainment business. The topic we shy away from about being a light skin woman is that it has the ability to make dark skin girls and women hate you, not only hate you but try to attack you or ruin your face. Due to, the fact that black men tend to glorify light skin women as being beautiful, classy and overall the ideal woman and classify dark skin women as ugly and ghetto, tension has emerged within our race. My grandmother was light skin and she use to tell us stories about being chased home from school. She never said it was because she was light skin but now that I have started hearing more stories about dark skin girls attacking light skin girls I can't help but think this had something to do with it. My aunt who is light skin and mother who has type 3c/4a hair and a caramel complexion always had to defend themselves against jealous girls in school. Fighting was a necessity for them to survive. I believe that hatred towards light skin women seems to have been more prevalent in the 1950's-1970's because I usually hear these stories about being attacked by dark skin girls by older women. I'm a brown skin woman in my mid twenties with a similar complexion to Jennifer Hudson and have never heard anyone saying anything about my skin tone but I witnessed countless dark skin girls get teased and called "dirty", "burnt", "darkness", "midnight" and "black as heck". I am by no means saying it doesn't happen now but I will honestly say that the lighter skin and mixed girls were usually the popular girls and considered the most beautiful. I won't say no one was jealous of them but resorting to violence wasn't common. I noticed that there is a difference in the way light skin girls and dark skin girls are mistreated while light skin women or girls are teased or beaten up out of jealousy and insecurity, dark skin women are teased out of contempt and are made to feel inferior. Both sides can leave women with life long insecurities and paranoia of who will accept them. Many light skin women fear being confident because it makes them appear like they are gloating. They fear being called "stuck up" or that they "think their cute". I even saw a video on Youtube of a woman saying she was fired from her job because a darker skin employee that she managed, lied on her and said she had mistreated her employee because she was lighter skin and felt she was better. I know all brown skin and dark skin woman are not this evil and deranged but I wanted to write about the other side of the spectrum which is often tossed aside and deemed "light skin tears" like it was after the documentary Light Girls which I personally believed did a poor job depicting the severity of the situation. However, it did bring up this topic of people questioning predominately African American woman if they were really black which is crazy because there are light skin West Africans. It annoys me people think pure black means dark and light skin means mixed. We as black people need to overcome these superficial divisions and stop adhering to things implemented during slavery to divide us. We are of African descent and come in many shades and they are all beautiful. We cannot attach a personality to a skin tone and in doing so is foolish. No one chooses their skin tone and shouldn't have to tan or bleach to correct it. I hope one day we as black people can get passed all of this and focus on building a nation.
Anne
10/22/2015 11:54:39 pm
It's long past time to discuss the side of colorism that doesn't get the attention that colorism directed against dark-skinned black folks gets. Everything you have written is the absolute truth, and coming from a large family that consists of light, dark, and medium brown members, discussing all aspects of colorism is vitally important to me. I have had darker folks say idiotic things in reference to my being light. One fool said to me, "at least I don't have any slavemasters in MY background." My reply was, you don't have to be light-skinned to have white ancestry. I have also been told I think I'm cute and I'm not a "real" black woman. I know of other light-complexioned women who HAVE been treated harshly, and some are relatives of mine. Colorism is a product of white supremacy, but there are those among us who exacerbate the worst aspects of colorism with ill-treatment of people for no other reason than their complexion.
Kiki
11/2/2015 09:41:23 am
Yes it is a problem on both ends. You can follow me on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/kikispeakshermind/?view_public_for=540469439437824 10/24/2015 03:20:04 am
i didn´t know about tha situation still happening in your country, because of the modernism and the world step by step is getting more open minded. my country has something similar with haitians but it is not so high, but thanks to the mass media, people who live in other countries think is higher than it is.
As a brown-skinned woman who is raising a light-skinned child, I find it very disheartening that skin tone is still an issue within the Black/African-American community. 11/10/2015 10:06:07 am
I definitely have this problem. I am a light skinned 20 year old young woman and its so hard. Especially living in the South. People have called me white, or they have told me that "you think you're white." even at the small age of 5 years old. When I tell white people that I am not white, and that I am African American, they seem so astonished. There is a noticeable change in their behavior towards me. Its like now that they know Im black, I'm not good enough to have a conversation with them. Its sad. Even having relationships, you would be surprised that black men don't like me because I am fully African American. My skin is too light for my hair texture. Its sickening. This is a great post! I will be sharing! Comments are closed.
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AuthorMy name is Kiara and writing is the way I express myself. Archives
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